Mad Tracks

Mad Tracks, also known as Small Cars 3D in France, is a 2006 racing video game developed by Load Inc. and published by various publishers for several platforms. Inspired by toy cars produced by Darda, players control spring-powered toy cars and compete in racing competitions and minigames through various everyday environments.
Mad Tracks is the debut title for the Paris-based studio Load Inc. It was originally a licensed game based on the Darda toy cars but was reworked and retitled after the studio failed to secure the intellectual rights to use the brand. It was originally released for Microsoft Windows in 2006. It was later ported to the Xbox 360 via Xbox Live Arcade on May 30, 2007, and became backwards compatible with Xbox One in February 2017. It was also released on the Wii in Europe and Australia in 2009, followed by a mobile port on iOS in 2011 and Android a year later. In February 2019, it was announced that the game was delisted from Xbox Live Arcade because of a change in publishing rights from D3 Publisher to Plug In Digital. The latter released a reworked high-definition version of the game for Steam on March 10, 2020.
The game was a commercial and critical success, being praised by critics and journalists for its multiplayer elements.

Gameplay

In Mad Tracks the player assumes the role of a toy car, set in various everyday environments, such as a bistro, toy store, or mini golf course, each of which is rendered and presented in 3D. There are 46 courses in total, each divided into races and minigames.
Players control toy cars that feature spring-powered batteries. The longer the player accelerates, the weaker the spring becomes. The battery eventually runs out, after which the player can no longer accelerate. The player can regenerate power by letting go of the acceleration button; the spring immediately recharges. It will also recharge while the car is airborne or reversing. The amount of usage of a spring will also depend on which type of car used. Other methods of recharging the spring include finding and using one of the power-ups, along with one that drains opponents' batteries. The player can also teleport to the last reached checkpoint, automatically or manually by pressing a button, if they happen to fall off the track. The player can switch between camera angles, including first-person, at any time.
The game features two modes: the single-player mode and the multiplayer mode. In single-player, the player's objective is to achieve gold trophies by completing objectives, such as driving around a track or landing cars on a dartboard. The multiplayer modes are similar to the single-player mode and include the same objectives. Up to four players can play together locally using a split-screen format, and up to eight players can play together online.

Development

Mad Tracks was developed by Load Inc., a Paris-based studio founded in 2003, by former employees of Ubisoft, Denis Bourdain and Thomas Leinekugel, to make video games independently. The studio consisted of a ten-member team experienced in making racing games such as POD (video game) and F-1 Grand Prix. The developers decided to make a licensed game based on the Darda toy cars, which they played with in childhood, as their first game for the studio, after seeing the potential for the "mid price car game" following GDC and E3 of 2003. The game was reworked and retitled Mad Tracks after the studio failed to secure the intellectual rights to use the brand.
Two other racing games served as inspiration; Micro Machines inspired the visuals, split-screen and multiplayer, while Trackmania inspired the physics and the environment interactions. The studio used proprietary middleware to develop the car physics and racing-related aspects of the game. Some concepts for the game were cut during development, including the toy cars that could be unlocked and spare parts for them, that the player could use to customize their toy car for benefits during minigames or racing. Thomas Leinekugel served as project manager; Hervé Nedelec was a creative director, and Florian Pernot was the lead programmer. Bertrand Carré served as technical director, Thibault Gicquel as level designer, and Nicolas Jeannot and Emmanuel Petit were the respective graphic and 3D animators. Music was provided by La Chimiz Prod, and Denis Bourdainin was a business developer.

Xbox Live Arcade

Mad Tracks was initially developed for Windows and PlayStation 2. At E3 2004, a PlayStation Portable version was announced to be developed, as the studio thought it would take better advantage of the texturing than the PS2, and as part of a planned cross-platform release with online support. Similarly, an Xbox port was announced in March 2005. As development progressed, both Microsoft and Sony criticized and opposed the game's release on multiple platforms, as both companies wanted nothing to do with each other. This harmed the team's morale, making them think less like developers and more like "business people". In the struggle to choose either company's console for the intended platform for port and potential cross-platform between the PC version, the following Microsoft console Xbox 360 was chosen in the summer of that year, following Denis's arrival at Microsoft in Seattle. The director of Xbox Live Arcade, Ross Erickson, found Mad Tracks to be suitable for Xbox Live to fill the gap in the shortage of racing game titles on the service. The studio received the first development kit of the console in September of that year. While the reasons for the cancellation of the PSP version were unknown, the PS2 version's cause was due to the console's increasingly less viable target platform and a more difficult development process than the Xbox 360.
Development of the port took over the course of a year, with 7 employees of the studio. It was one of the first games on the service to feature support for multiple languages. The port has also been updated to support the tenth version of DirectX. Unlike the PC version, which only supported its ninth version during its development. However, one of the challenges when porting the game was limitations regarding storage made by Microsoft, the game had to be split into three parts.

Release

Mad Tracks was first revealed to the public as a demo prototype at the E3 trade fair in May 2004, where at the time, the studio's search for a publisher had begun. Which, in November, became Micro Application for the French release. At that same event, it was showcased the following year. While the original release of the game was slated for mid to late 2005, in November, it was delayed to February 2006. On January 10, a public demo was released, featuring three courses. Three days later, the game's French version of the official website was launched, with a German version following suit in November 2005.
The game was released in France on February 17, 2006, for Microsoft Windows, published by Micro Application, in all Auchan supermarkets of the country. Later that same month, the game was released in German and published by Frogster Interactive. This was done alongside a patch update—version 1.1. This update fixed bugs, improved performance, graphics cards, controllers and online support. The game's file size was dropped from 55 to 29 MB. Another patch update, version 1.2, was released on April 20 and improved online multiplayer support, fixed a problem with the game's level of detail for 2D mipmap rendering, added matchmaking and support for non-Western keyboards. In June 13, the game was published by Akella and released in Russia. Unlike other releases of the game, the Russian version features 2 CD discs instead of one. In July, the game was released as a digital distribution, with its publisher being Element5. That same year in Poland, the game was published by Nicolas Games and released on October 20.

Xbox 360 version

The Xbox 360 port of Mad Tracks was announced in April of 2006. Its release date was planned to be in June of that year, then pushed to October. In August 10, the game was delayed and slated for the following year, due to a combination of time and technical difficulties, with online multiplayer support, in addition to the code being rewritten from the ground up to be runnable on Xbox Live Arcade. In January, 2007, the port was shown at The Game's Life conference. In February, and May, D3 Publisher of America, Inc. announced that the game would be ported, alongside RocketBowl and Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords, though the port's release date was unknown. On May 15–17 of the same year, the game was greenlighted after being verified and certified by Microsoft Game Studios. It was also confirmed that the game would cost 800 Microsoft points, but according to Denis Bourdain the release date was unknown. Around May 28–29, it was announced that the game would arrive on the Xbox Live Arcade on May 30.
The port was released on Xbox Live Arcade and published by D3 Publisher on May 30, 2007. On July 12, a patch for the Xbox version was released that fixed a bug that prevented progress in the game and affected some players who could not purchase the full game after first downloading its demo. This was earlier discovered in June by the reports in the Xbox forums, shortly after its initial launch of the port. Denis expressed that "a minority of Xbox users suffered from this bug". Two downloadable content packs for the Xbox 360 version of Mad Tracks were produced, each costing 350 Microsoft Points and adding 15 challenges in total. The first was "Bravo" and was released on July 25, 2007, alongside an extra theme, "Crazy Cars" for 150 Microsoft Points. The second was "Encore", which was released on June 27, 2007. Each of these content packs added 9 races and 6 minigames.

Ports and re-releases

A port for the Wii was released on October 30, 2009, in Europe, and was published by Bigben Interactive, and in France on December 4, by Neko Entertainment. It was also released in Australia, though the publisher remains unknown. Following its announcement in February earlier that year. A mobile version of the game for iOS was published by Namco Bandai and released on December 15, 2011. An Android version was released on February 15, 2012. On February 2, 2017, the game became backwards compatible with Xbox One. In February 2019, it was reported that the game was delisted from Xbox Live Arcade following a change in publishing rights from D3 Publisher to Plug In Digital, who would later be handling the new release for Steam. While the Steam version's release date was slated for "early 2020", the page for the game on IndieDB specified that it was meant to be and was released on March 10 as an HD version. Later that same year, on June 22, the game was released on Twitch Prime (Prime Gaming), until July 17.

Reception

Sales

Mad Tracks was a commercial success, but the initial sales during the release of the demo on PC were considered overwhelming by Load Inc. In the first two weeks, about 6,000 were downloaded in Brazil. GameSpot and CNET Download later relayed it, each getting about 100,000 downloads. As a result, Load Inc. decided to sell the game on their website.
In the following months, however, the sales accelerated. In July 2006, Load Inc. reported that a demo of the game on PC had been downloaded 400,000 times since its release. By January 2007, it had sold digitally 100,000 times on PC. Later that same year, in December, it was reported that sales reached over 1.8 million units, and its demo since its release was downloaded 1.2million times. Six months after the Xbox 360 version's release, the Xbox Live Arcade release had over 630,000 users. In June 2008, Engadget and Yahoo Finance reported that the Xbox 360 version's demo was played 700,000 times and had sold 72,000 units. That same version had been downloaded 1 million times by February 2010.

Critical response

In previews for the PC version of the game, journalists compared the game to other racing games like Re-Volt, Trackmania, and Micro Machines. Both Andreas Altenheimer of Gameswelt and JeuxVideo praised the gameplay, premise and its variety of both minigames and racing tracks. With the latter expressing that "The game is strongly reminiscent of Re-Volt and is very fun to play." as well as praising the efficiency of the physics engine. Though the former criticised the controls, audio, lack of track editor and graphics, calling the last as "a better shareware game".
For the Xbox 360 version, Jonathan Miller, writing for IGN, described Mad Tracks as "a decent racing romp, but you better bring your friends." Greg Sewart of GamesRadar+, praised gameplay, variety of the courses and online support, but criticized visuals, confusing early sections of the courses and a small amount of content.
The Wii version, however, received negative reviews. Both Jeuxvideo and noted its poor controls, Wii wheel accessory and its lack of responsiveness. The latter expressed that " seen some unplayable games with plastic accessories that you plug your Wii mote into, but Mad Tracks is simply unbelievable. It's an experience you absolutely must experience." The former criticised the forced Wii Remote to play of the game and noticed the "monstrous lag between player movement and the car's response". Recommending playing the game with the Nunchuk instead, for better handling. Both critics cited the game's graphics as being "ugly", though praised a steady frame rate.
For the iOS version, Peter Willington from Pocket Gamer praised the game's overall variety of content, multiplayer, and controls, but criticized the visuals, graphics, audio, and items aspect, and he also lamented the grinding required to progress through the game.

Awards

On September 21, 2007, the Xbox 360 version of Mad Tracks was nominated for Best Home Console Game, during the Video Game Festival Award 2007 at Paris in France.

Year	Award	Category	Result	Ref.
2007	Video Game Festival Award	Best Home Console Game

Legacy

While Mad Tracks never gathered much interest from the gaming press, Load Inc. started development on their next game, Things on Wheels, for Xbox 360. Released for Xbox Live Arcade on May 12, 2010, it featured a similar premise to Mad Tracks. It was removed from the Xbox 360 store on July 29, 2024, along with over 220 digital titles, making it no longer purchasable, nor backward compatible with Xbox Series X/S. On June 11, 2008, Load Inc. announced the third game, codenamed "WCTYY", that was meant to be released on Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation 3 via PlayStation Network. The game was in development until 2010, and the reason for its cancellation was unknown.
Following the closure of the studio, one of the founders of Load Inc., Denis Bourdain, started working at Canard PC as an advertiser, with its staff nicknaming him "The Little Jacques Séguéla of gaming".