CARNAGE: my revenge on Spy Hunter

How it started

In the eighties my cars were made of metal and fit in the palm of my hand: Matchbox, Majorette and, later on, TCR and Scalextric. Then came the arcade machines and the Spy Hunter in my neighbourhood, with its infernal, ultra-sensitive wheel and that knack for squeezing one more coin out of you. Just imagining what it would be like to play it was magical. But however many coins I spent, getting anywhere was practically impossible, and for a 7-year-old it was a total letdown compared to everything that machine and its incredible cabinet promised. Shortly after, Knight Rider arrived on TV, and cars didn't just race anymore: they fought too, like in Spy Hunter and in our toy-car battles in the sand at the park.

Many years later, already working professionally in game development, I went through a period of real learning: hours on BoardGameGeek, studying game systems to become a better designer. In 2014 I got into car board games: Milton Bradley's Thunder Road (1986), Car Wars and Mini Car Wars. I printed them, cut out the paper cars and played with dice.

That's where the idea behind the whole game came from. In these board games you don't just decide which square to move your car to: it's strategy and resource management, choosing when to attack, when to repair and when to take a risk. What if all that, instead of being turn-based, were a fast arcade game? It may not look like it, but all of that is still in CARNAGE, hidden underneath the action.

2017: from prototype to drawer

In 2017 I signed up for One Game A Month (1GAM), a challenge to finish one game every month. January gave me Galactic Wars, February Sokogeon, and in March Thunder Road was born, my first attempt to turn that idea into a video game. First came the mock-ups, where I worked out how a hidden board would work: an invisible five-lane grid underneath a game that, at first glance, looks like pure action. Then came several prototypes, experimenting with the controls and the road.

[ The mock-ups and one of the first versions of Thunder Road, 2017 ]

But Thunder Road ended up in a drawer, just like my attempt to make a game every month: real life wasn't going to allow it. As a designer you park a lot of ideas along the way; some end up in the bin, others in a drawer, waiting for their moment.

[ Some of the Thunder Road prototypes ]

2026: back on the road

Almost ten years have gone by since then, and it still feels crazy to me: nearly a decade making pixel games with Volcano Bytes. Right now I'm fully focused on THE SEED, my Game Boy Color game. It's the biggest project I've ever taken on and it's going to take a long time, so in October 2026 I needed a break: something small, like back in the 1GAM days, to clear my head without letting go of THE SEED. I opened that drawer and the 2017 cars were still there. With everything I'd learned over those years, I felt it was time to pick it up again and finally finish it.

I kept it small from the start, but I cared for it like any other game: design, pixel art and plenty of test runs to tune the difficulty and cut everything that didn't add up. One of my first decisions was to cut those five lanes down to three, and I think it was key to the gameplay. The result is a three-lane road generated on the fly, so every run is unique: neither the road nor the enemies ever come in the same order. And everyone is trying to run you off it: rammers, kamikaze bikers, mines and a car firing missiles at you from behind. The higher up the screen you drive, the faster you go and the higher the multiplier climbs. Day turns to night as you drive, and 31 different situations show up along the way.

I wanted to stay true to the PICO-8 spirit that hooked me back then: small games and quick runs, to play alone for a few minutes and unwind, or in a group to compete with your friends.

Making it has been really rewarding and, above all, a lot of fun. I play my games a lot while I'm making them: I always say I'm the number one fan of Volcano Bytes games, because I make them first and foremost to have fun and to play what I'd consider a great game. Making CARNAGE and playing it has been a breather and a really fun process.

I truly hope it's the same for anyone who decides to play it, and that you enjoy this small but mighty game, which might one day grow into something bigger. See you on the road.

And now, back to THE SEED.