Thanks for visiting the Speed Demons 2 Steam page. I'm obliged to say "Wishlist it now!", but if you're reading this news post, you probably want to read more info and background about the game. We'll begin with a brief history of the the original Speed Demons. But first, here's the trailer on YouTube, with optional lyrics (as closed captioning):
TINY TRAFFIC RACER
Watching traffic from above is mesmerizing, especially when it's moving fast. Every time I fly in an airplane, I like to watch the tiny cars on highways and roads moving around. I'd always imagined it'd be fun to play a game from that perspective, one where you a drive a tiny car that didn't follow the highway rules or speed limits. That was the idea for Speed Demons.
The original Speed Demons was one of 50 launch titles for Apple Arcade, releasing in September 2019. It was a brutal development cycle, but it was Radiangames' most successful title, and the 20th most played game on Apple Arcade in 2020. While it had around 30 vehicles and 200 races at launch, the game received a number of major updates and ended with over 60 vehicles and 500 races. It left Apple Arcade in February 2024, and version 1.7 is now available on the AppStore.
BIGGER, BETTER, FASTER?
I wasn't planning to make a Speed Demons sequel, at least not at first. I was going to make an "enhanced" version of Speed Demons for PC and console. Speed Demons Turbo! It was only supposed to take a couple months to do. But I'm not always that great at scope control, so that plan didn't work out. In August of last year, I realized the various gameplay tweaks meant I'd have to rebalance every race (over 500 of them). Another potential issue: would players of the original Speed Demons want to play Speed Demons Turbo if it was mostly races they'd played before?
A few weeks or later, I finally recognized I was making a sequel, and I could create new races in roughly the same time it takes to rebalance old ones. That meant both previous and new players would enjoy the game, and I didn't have to worry about whether I should be spending time on new content I wanted to work on. Development has been a lot stressful since then.
At its core, Speed Demons 2 is a quintessential "bigger and better" sequel. It has more vehicles, better physics and game modes, new gameplay mechanics, more traffic, more race variety, and much better visuals. But it also represents a change in perspective, literally. The top-down perspective is still available, but the new primary camera angles are offset, lower to the ground, and more dynamic.
While Speed Demons was inspired by watching traffic from airplanes, Speed Demons 2 is inspired by watching traffic from a helicopter. More specifically, a news helicopter following a high-speed highway chase. The vehicles in Speed Demons go fast, with the fastest vehicles well over 200mph (300 km/h). They don't go any faster in Speed Demons 2, but they feel much faster thanks to both a change in perspective and a focus on "sense of speed" enhancements.
STYLE AND GAMEPLAY EVOLUTION
The various sense of speed changes have been fun to add, but figuring out the visual style of Speed Demons 2 has been the biggest development challenge. As mentioned in the Instruments of Destruction 1.1 update, I spend a relatively long time tweaking visuals in my games. For SD2, I made major visual changes many times, and would often switch back and forth between different versions of the game trying to figure out what looked best. The vehicles aren't difficult to adjust since they have a lot of geometry detail in the new models. The backgrounds and roads (and visual effects) on the other hand, were a lot more difficult to get just right. I'm happy with where the visuals ended up, I just wish I got there a little *wink* faster.
In terms of non-camera gameplay changes, there were tweaks and additions to controls, vehicle physics, AI, game modes, race modifiers, and more. The new Turbo mechanic, which works similar to other arcade racing games such as Burnout, was supposed to be the main new feature. And at first I was trying to limit the number of changes, but the sequel realization let me adjust things without fear of doing too much.
BEFORE THE LAUNCH
Speed Demons 2 is planned to release in summer of 2025 on PC and consoles, and I expect a demo to arrive just before the June Steam Next fest (wishlisting it ensures you'll receive a notification when the demo launches). Exact details for the date and specific consoles are TBD, but I can confirm it runs at 4k120hz on at least one console already. The hard parts of development are over, but there are still more vehicles to add, the UI to overhaul completely, and a lot of races to work on.
There are also a couple other projects I want to wrap up before finishing SD2. The console versions for Instruments of Destruction, all versions of Fireball 2, and the final demo for Rhythm Storm (also in the June Next Fest) are all a high priority. Aside from Rhythm Storm needing a lot of gameplay rebalancing, that's not as bad as it sounds.
Regardless, I'm really excited for everyone to play Speed Demons 2. If you're excited to play it, be sure to share the trailer or Steam page with your friends (and wishlist it). Thanks! -Luke