Planning ahead

So this week, aside from looking at tracks, I built a separate prototype in unity in order to test control schemes because first, I was really disappointed at how slow this has been coming together, and second, I knew that coming up with a control scheme that was actually kind of intuitive was going to be a major challenge, and I wanted to alleviate that.

My production plan thus far has been:
1) Get/make a physics engine. That's the core of the game.
2) Build tracks, exploring various mechanics
3) Get a control scheme
4) Test the tracks, see what's difficult and such, thus allowing us to organize the element by difficulty, so we can have a good level progression. Also we can see what we should change or discard outright.
5) Develop an art style. Presently I'm thinking of having a very clean style for the early levels, then as the game progresses, have it get more and more dilapidated.
6) Build the tracks that will be used in the final game.
7) Iterate and refine.

My early iterations of a control scheme were extremely disappointing. However, I believe I've come up with something that actually works. Additionally, I've learned a lot about what we need to change. For example, some of the segments in my 3rd track just aren't possible, the rails on my 1st track are pretty insignificant to a ball of radius 1, and flat sections with no rails are very, very hard. To that end, I plan on experimenting with a brake control.