GD: Racing Level Research, Go!

For Game Design this semester, our project is to design and create an arcade-style racing game level! How exciting!
So, of course, research compiling every cool car chase scene ever is entirely necessary. I decided to stick with a classic, the motorcycle scene from Buster Keaton's Sherlock, Jr.

What's most important about this scene is, above all, the impeccable timing of everything. The train's narrow miss, the converging lorries, the tilt of the scaffolding just as it collapses. Physical comedy at its finest, folks!
So how can we translate this into a playable racing game? Pretty easily, I reckon. Especially since the theme of our Game Design class is Pinball, which is all about timing. Bringing these into a racing game should be super easy!
So the concept statement of the level should be Timing, timing, timing.
And the obstacles should reflect this!

The first obstacle is pretty obvious, relying on one of the main defining features of a pinball machine: the flippers. The course would narrow and create a bottleneck leading towards the gap between the two flippers, causing the racers to vie for position to fit through. If they don't make it, they'll get set back by the flippers themselves, whose flipping will be probably set to a Delay with a Random Float assigned to them so they're not so easily read.

Another important part about pinball is ensuring you get a good headstart with a well-timed boost. The Beginner's Boost will supply this with a dynamically rising and lowering jump with emissive bars to indicate its angle. If you time your jump so it coincides with a full-powered Beginner's Boost, you can gain access to a bonus track that will probably a short cut around the course.

And finally the Pièce de résistance, Pinball Wizard. Whilst pinball is about timing, it's also about racking up combo points and about the conditional aspects of the board. So Pinball Wizard is about conditionals: if you hit this bumper, that bumper, and that one over there, you'll unlock a huge jump to propel you over an otherwise obstacle-laden part of the course and give you a boost.

The name of this trick is referring to the general theme of the course, inspired by The Who.

The Pinball Wizard's got such a supple wrist~
And The Who does have its own themed pinball machine!

To have a British rock-themed pinball machine would be cool, huh? The colour scheme is pretty easy: blue, red, and white for the Union Jack, and yellow for an accent tone.

Finally, the racetrack itself would look something a bit like this: