Terminal Velocity by mhorth
Intro
Terminal Velocity is an endless runner where you must reach a checkpoint every 10 seconds to stay alive. Are you ready for some high-octane racing?
Helpful hints
- Game is playable with a keyboard or gamepad (tested with PS4, others should be okay). Menus are mouse and keyboard only.
- You earn points when reaching a checkpoint based on your current speed and how much time is left on the clock. Compete for a spot on the leaderboard!
Showcase


Extra notes
- I’ve once again opted out of audio ratings due to using 3rd party music. If you want to rate my audio work, please let me know in the comments!
- This game has Easter eggs.
Changelog
v1.1.0
- Fixed a bug where the live leaderboard didn't show accurate positions.
- Added a color adjustments option for accessibility.
Devlog
Here is a video breakdown of the development process
https://youtu.be/CPzbXH9sjI0
| Link | https://mhorth.itch.io/terminal-velocity |
| Link | https://mhorth.itch.io/terminal-velocity |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/terminal-velocity |
Ratings
| Overall | 136th | 3.986⭐ | 39🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 26th | 4.257⭐ | 39🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 898th | 2.946⭐ | 39🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 747th | 3.486⭐ | 39🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 183th | 4.216⭐ | 39🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 250th | 3.811⭐ | 39🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 38🗳️ | 63🗨️ |
My biggest gripe with the game is the difficulty scaling. It's super easy for a few minutes and then it suddenly gets noticeably more difficult with the addition of more obstacles. Sometimes it's too hard to see what's coming up which is also frustrating, as it makes it feel like I wasn't in control of when I got slowed down. Once you do get to the more difficult part, it doesn't get any more difficult, so then it just becomes a test to see if your reaction time is fast enough.
I definitely like the take on the theme, even if it is a bit loose, and I can tell there was a lot of effort put into this. Great job!
Some kind of variation in the tunnel could add something to the game.
Good job!
What I liked:
- The graphics.
- The sound design and the music.
- The speed !
- The online leaderboard (that's so cool).
Improvements:
- Maybe you should increase the difficulty a bit faster.
Good job !
Good control, good theme and good feel.
Well done!
As for the game, it's pretty fun ! I really like the inclusion of high scores.
However, I feel like the game isn't really fair sometimes and leads to frustrating collisions. Sometimes, the tunnel bends so much you can't see right in front of you. When a laser happens to be right after a sharp turn, you sometimes have no way of avoiding it. There is also the issue of having impossible patterns. I had a few times a rotating laser cross with a boost in the middle, or boosts in the middle right before a ring laser (Impossible to flip back again in time to avoid it).
Having boosts right before a laser pattern is also pretty tough. It will mess up your timing on rotating lasers, and if you get hit, you usually don't get a boost for a very long time after that, making it incredibly frustrating.
Otherwise, I had quite a bit of fun ! Landed 2nd place. Congratulations on making it to the LD51 !
@fluffy-kaeloky sorry to hear about the monitor, I've honestly never heard of that before so wouldn't even know where to begin looking for a setting to fix that :laughing:. You're absolutely right about the unfairness caused by random generation. I did implement a rule that lasers and checkpoints weren't allowed to be close, I could have done the same for boosters but just ran out of time for perfecting the difficulty curve. A tip I found (not by design) is that if you stay towards the outside of a curve rather than the inside, you have a much easier time seeing what's coming up ahead. Regardless, glad you had fun!
I liked that the game let me get comfortable with dodging the traps and then switched it up on me and started rotating them. Visually impressive and audio choice, even if you didn't do the audio yourself, matched the game very well.
Solid work.
Maybe you could make a rhythem game out of this :)
I personally haven't seen a racing game like this where you are locked into 6 segments. I've certainly seen games where you can loop around the track, but this was new to me. Roughly like a "3d" endless runner. I think that decision was GREAT. The reason is because those loop racing games tend to be pretty hard to orient yourself in and hit things with precision. As a result you would have to slow down the game a lot to help players. But since Terminal Velocity gives you 6 sections, the player can focus less on the controls and precision, and more on what track they need to be on. As a result, you can crank up the speed like crazy and test that instead. An excellent design decision!
I love how you keep evolving the effectiveness of the leaderboards every game. In some ways I think this discrete (rather than continuous like Space Ninja) might've been more effective here because I really didn't have time to look at the leaderboards until a checkpoint was coming up. I loved staring at the left side of the screen as I passed a checkpoint, watching me climb up high, and then get back into the game. Very, very motivating as usual.
I landed at #7 and am happy enough with that. I drastically improved my scores once I started using brakes more. Not something you often think to use in an arcade racer, but it definitely help me set myself up correctly. The brakes were tuned very well and don't slow you down needlessly. This is a very impressive entry and you have a good feel for making the gameplay exciting using just a few mechanical concepts.


Glad you found some use for the brake! I'll be honest, the only reason I made that an input at all is because I wanted to put a brake light on the vehicle and make it light up when someone pressed it :laughing: Hopefully you enjoyed that small detail. Also I noticed you played on ultrawide for that extra racing experience :wink:
I noticed that there were a few cases on the leaderboard where someone with less distance or time had a higher score, so I was unsure of how score was calculated. I also noticed that score only went up when I touched a checkpoint. After playing I see the info in your game description here but it might have been nice to know in-game.
It felt good to get into a rhythm and stay at full speed for a long time. Some of the spinning obstacles later are pretty tough to time, which is fine I suppose since difficulty is supposed to ramp up.
I found the dodge a bit disorienting so I didn't use it too much. I think it would have been neat if it caused you to drive on the ceiling instead of spinning your camera so that you are on the bottom of the track, but that might have been disorienting as well for different reasons.
I made it to the top 10! For now, anyways.


What a great entry! I loved the way you made obstacles/boosts that could only be interacted with via the flip mechanic. It elevates the flip to be something more than just a dedicated speedrunner maneuver. Very nice touch. :ok_hand:
One thing is that I feel like the road curves too much sometimes, so it obscures what's in front of you. In those cases you have almost zero time to dodge obstacles. And the jumping is a bit confusing, does it jump two spaces to the right?
Other than that it's a solid experience, nice job!