Review of the game Trackmania Nations Forever created by NADEO
Rating: 
Let me start by saying Trackmania isn’t really my sort of game. I am not the sort who is good at reflex-reliant games. The high rating I have given it is because I love the way the game encourages user-generated content.
An overview of Trackmania Nations Forever
Trackmania Nations Forever is a free PC game that is downloadable from the internet. It belongs to the Trackmania series of games created by the French comapny, NADEO. Its predecessors include Trackmania (original) and Trackmania Sunrise. Some titles in the series are free to download and others can be purchased. There was also a version of the game released for the Nintendo DS.
Trackmania Nations Forever is a car racing stunt-driver game. The races are quite short in duration – a race that takes 5 minutes to play would be a long race. The races normally take place on tracks that would be impossible to create in real life. Typically, the tracks are stunt tracks that may feature corkscrews, ramps, loops, gaps, etc.
Above: This user-generated youtube video depicts a track that would be impossible to create in real life.
The game can be played in a variety of modes: single player, playing against others over the internet, playing against others on a LAN or party game mode (turn-based play using one computer). There is an in-game currency system. Each track has bronze medal, silver medal and gold medal times. The more medals you earn, the more tracks you unlock. Your in-game achievements also earn you “coppers”. The coppers can be spent to “buy” more functionality for the game.
Initially, what drew me to Trackmania was the way it encourages user-generated content. Players can create their own art work to appear on cars, create and race on tracks that they have created themselves and they can create their own Machinima videos based on the gameplay. There are web communities that share the user-generated content. There are also other spaces for user-generated content including blogs and forums.
The Trackmania series differentiates itself from other car racing games in a number of ways:
- It does not focus on photo-realistic graphics, it chooses instead to focus on low-overhead graphics.
- It is about doing the fastest time on one-lap of each race track
- At any time in the game, the player can press the <Enter> key to quickly “re-spawn”. This causes the car to be placed at the last save point. This process takes less than 1 second.
- Cars cannot collide with each other.
- Vehicles do not sustain damage.
- Lengths of races tend to be shorter than other car racing games.
- There is a focus on user-generated content.
- The game comes with many race tracks and players can create their own race tracks.
- New race tracks are unlocked once the player based on in-game achievements.
Trackmania and User-generated Content
Whilst there are hundreds of hours of gameplay within the standard installation of Trackmania Nations Forever, it also encourages users to create their own in-game and out-of-game content. Several ways that users can generate content using this game are discussed below.
Machinima
TrackMania Nations Forever provides in-game tools for players to be able to record game-play. It also has an in-built video editing program that can combine footage from races that take place on the same track. Arguably, the most well known video project that this capability has inspired, is the 1K project.
Above: This youtube video was created using an earlier version of Trackmania called Trackmania Sunrise. This was created by splicing together 1000 game replays. It inspired a number of othercopy-cat projects such as the 2K project, the 3K project, etc.
Painting / Skinning Cars
Users can customise their cars by creating their own car skin in an image editing program. There are several websites such as trackmania carpark that allow users to upload their skins so that other players can download them.
Above: A user-created car skin. Image downloaded from http://www.trackmania-carpark.com/ (used for review purposes)
Create your own track
Trackmania Nations Forever also has an in-built track editor so that players can make their own tracks. These tracks can also be shared with others. The game comes with a certain number of “building blocks” that can be used to build the track. The player can earn new blocks by earning coppers (the in-game currency).
Blogs / fan sites / forums
There are a number of blogs, fan sites and forums designed to help players use trackmania. Some features of blogs include interviews with players of all ages, highlighting favourite car skins and favourite trackmania machinima videos. In some cases, fan sites are also repositories for user-created content and provide tutorials on how to use the more advanced features of trackmania. A number of sites have active forums where users come together to help each other with the game.
Why user-generated content?
Game makers that provide mechanisms for users to generate their own content, purposefully create a game with an open culture (Salen & Zimmerman 2004, p 538). Some reasons for creating games with an open culture are outlined below:
- it can increase the permeability of games and the power of the game experience (Salen & Zimmerman 2004, p. 539)
- it can increase the meaning of the game to the player through its association with other activities (Salen & Zimmerman 2004, p. 539)
- this emergent behaviour can extend the borders of the game (Salen & Zimmerman 2004, p. 539). For example, more than just players of Trackmania would be exposed to the game through user-created content such as the 1K Project
- user-generated content can extend the life of a game or even revive a game. Probably the most well-known example of this is Counterstrike which is a multiplayer modification of Half-Life (Sotamaa 2003).
- it builds a participatory culture (Sotamaa 2003)
- it keeps those that love the game committed and engaged. People like to be able to progess their interests and take them to a new level. Consider this analogy of a school teacher. When the teacher first starts teaching, he/she is content to be the best possible teacher they can be. After they have being doing this for a while, if they continue to grow professionally, they may not be happy to just be a teacher of students, they may feel the need to become a mentor. Just as becoming a mentor of other teachers can help teachers feel more fulfilled within their occupation, user-generated content can allow the user to grow and feel more fulfilled as a gamer and member of the game’s community.
- it allows players to create a legacy that is meaningful to them (Digital Trends 2008)
- it has become more generally expected that users can generate their own content. Just as music has been reinvented by Myspace and journalism has been reinvented through blogs, twitter and other online media, game players are expecting to be able to get into game design (Digital Trends 2008)
- it provides an opportunity for the company to listen to fans and see what they want (Nutt & Kumar 2008)
- a commnity can produce much more content than a company would or could afford to do (Digital Trends 2008).
Attributions & References
Digital Trends. 2008. The Next Level: User-Generated Content in Players Only. Digital Trends. Accessed from
http://media.digitaltrends.com/digital-trends/the-next-level-user-generated-content/ on 20/9/2009
Focus Home Interactive. 2009. Trackmania. Focus Home Interactive. Accessed from
http://www.trackmania.com on 20/9/2009
MiniGod00 2006. YouTube – the 1K Project. Youtube. Accessed from
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Acwvh-9jzvk on 20/9/2009
Nadeo 2007. Nadeo. Accessed from
http://www.nadeo.com/ on 20/9/2009
Nutt, C. & Kumar, M. 2008. Panel: Why User-Generated Content Matters For Games. Gamasutra. Accessed from
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=19029 on 20/9/2009
Salen, K. & Zimmerman, E. 2004. Rules of Play – Game Design Fundamentals. MIT Press.
Sotamaa, O. 2003. Computer Game Modding, Intermediality and Participatory Culture. University of Tampere, Finland. Accessed from
http://old.imv.au.dk/eng/academic/pdf_files/Sotamaa.pdf on 20/9/2009
Taltigolt 2009. Playing a Very Hard Track by SGCRaider, Youtube. Accessed from
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uh7kw0v8M7g on 20/9/2009
Track Mania Carpark 2009. Track Mania Car Park. Accessed from
http://www.trackmania-carpark.com/ on 20/9/2009