Dev Log #1 - March 2026

Welcome to the first post in my development log for Sick Street Racer, my arcade racing game inspired by games from the 2000s, where you get to customize cars, hangout with the street scene, and live the life of a street racer!

An Introduction

I suppose an introduction is in order. My name is Aswin, and I'm the sole developer behind Extant Notion. In many ways, this project is a full circle moment for me. I grew up playing racing games, and have always loved cars - I even remember having fun designing my own cars and tracks on paper. And now, for this to be my debut game on Steam, it just feels right!

I've been learning how to make games since around 2012. I tinkered with all kinds of tools and engines in my free time - Unity, Unreal, GameMaker, ClickTeam Fusion, Defold, and even Scratch. I also picked up crucial skills like graphic design on the side. From April 2020 onwards, I decided to take game development more seriously, and I started publishing games under the Extant Notion name.

For Sick Street Racer, I've been doing the 3D art (car models, environment design, etc.), graphic design, UI design, programming, and music production. The game has been in development since September 2024.

Sick Street Racer: What The Heck Is It?

I'd like to preface this section by reminding that the game is still in development. Features may be added or cut, depending on my progress.

That being said, what's the game about?

The core vision I have is a racing game where you get to live the life of a street racer. Things like knowing the right kind of person to attend car meets, customizing your rides for car shows, hanging out with other racers and racing fans, forming your own crew, climbing up the rankings, etc.

Hanging Out With The Street Scene

In the game you'll be able to talk to other racers before a race, or find them in certain hangout spots.

You can talk and hang out with them, and you have the choice to make them a friend or a rival. You will also be able to hire racers to join your crew, provided you have a good rapport with them. Rivals will bet higher against you, and will be more aggressive in races.

It's also worth noting that you can also talk with other characters who aren't necessarily racers. Some will have information regarding hidden and locked areas, and others grant you access to them, along with special races, discounts at dealerships/performance shops, etc.!

The Sick Standings & The Day System

Progression wise, the goal is to get to the top of the Sick Standings in the least amount of in game days possible. You start the day at 9 PM, and go out into the world to do races or hang out with NPCs. Each interaction and race will make the time pass a certain amount of hours. At 6 AM, the day will end.

Doing races and side activities like speed camera zones will let you earn cash, as well as Sick Points to rise up the Standings.

To keep things fresh, the events which are available to do are randomized every in game day, as well as who your opponents will be, and which characters will be at the various hangout spots.

Car Customization

I've always been a fan of customization in racing games, so of course I've had it in mind for Sick Street Racer.

The game provides some customization options, like up to 3 different bodykits for each car (unfortunately not mix and matchable), spoilers, rims, and fitment options.

Livery design will also be possible, albeit in a different method compared to mainstream racing games. You'll be able to download UV templates for your car, then use an image editing program to design your custom livery, then load the image in game to apply it to your car.

This provides full control over how you want your livery to be. And for those who aren't familiar with image editing programs, there will be a few premade liveries to choose from. In the future I plan to add community made liveries as options as well. I'm aware this is not an ideal method for customizing liveries, so I will continue experimenting to try and make an in game editor.

Recent Progress

So where's the project at now? I'd say I'm still in the early to mid development phase. There's still a few more core systems to make until the main game loop is fully functional. But I'm getting close for sure!

Environment Design

Environment design wise, I've made tons of strides. I spent the last couple of months studying the environments of the Black Box era racing games, and I managed to implement some of their techniques into my workflow.

For my buildings, I've pivoted from the simple and stylized look, to a more semi realistic look. I'm trying my best to capture the vibe and feeling of iconic cities like Bayview, and I certainly think I'm headed in the right direction with this. The city skyline has way more character now, and it pops from afar.

I also finally got around to making the bridge connecting two of the main districts together. Being one of the biggest points of interest in the city, I really wanted to make sure I did it right. I'd been putting it off for a while, thinking I won't be able to capture the image in my head. That's when I randomly woke up and decided to model, texture, and import the bridge all in one day!

My studies also involved the general road design and their surroundings, and I've been making an active effort to make my roads more interesting. Just varying up the surrounding walls a little, adding in some natural areas, some driveways, etc., have totally changed the flow of areas which I previously considered boring.

Race System

Recently I've been focusing a lot on the main race/event system for the game. This involved refactoring the proof of concept I managed to make a year ago, and connecting up a bunch of systems that I previously made separately.

I was able to connect them all up, and it was pretty satisfying to see it all working together in the main scene! There are now, technically, 2 functional events in the game. They still need a ton of work of course, but the core logic is there!

As predicted, the AI racers have been tough to figure out. I'm still working on them, but I'm sure it will take me some more time to iron things out.

Bodykit Designs

I've also trying to make time to make some bodykits for a couple of cars. It's definitely an area where I will have to spend more time in the future, considering a single kit takes upwards of 2 to 3 hours (on top of the 6-8 hours it takes to model a single car!).

Although I like the process of making kits inspired by those from reality, recently I've been finding lots of fun coming up with my own bodykits. This one for example, is me trying to channel my inner Khyzyl Saleem.

Livery Workflow Improvements

I'm getting close to finalizing the workflow for livery editing. Just recently I figured out a way to make liveries wrap the same way around different kinds of bodykits. Previously the UVs were different for each bodykit, meaning you had to make different versions of liveries to make sure they fit properly.

As you can imagine, it's not ideal. So I took some extra time on a newer car model to make sure the UVs lined up the same way for every bodykit. With this, livery editing will be possible from just a single image.

In Conclusion

Thank you for reading, and for your support! I hope I was able to provide some insight regarding the game, my vision for it, and some of my recent progress.

If you have any specific questions about the game, you can leave a comment here, send a DM to @sickstreetracer on X, or you can join the Discord server and send a message there.

If you'd like to know more about the game's development and how I started out, you can check out my extended devlog video about the game!

I hope you can stick around on this journey! I plan on posting these development updates here every few months.

Until next time!