Initial Internal Name: AC_FifthTrack [Same as another track due to reusing their an existing SOC entry in a resources PK3]
Initial Folder Name: send me to the sky
Second Internal Name: AC_SlalomTrack
This track, unlike...almost every other track I've made in Kart or RR, was actually first drawn on paper during a time I wasn't at home and carried my drawing notebook. The concept was initially to do something tentatively similar in theming to Ridge Turnpike but with Sonic Rush Adventure's Hovercraft music, as well as having a lot of sneaker panels for you to use and sliptide through [which is why I had done the slaloms at first], so theoretically I had a lot of plans in mind for the map...but you might notice that all of those things didn't end up happening in the final result.
When I started blocking out the map in HVR, I actually started poking at it first with Advent Angel textures. Checking the earliest surviving file long after this being actually completed and recording how it looked...it's pretty obvious that it was quite rough looking between the texture choice and nothing else being done.
Between precise feedback that basically had me called out for having yet another nebulous track without a clear motif and too many boosters, I did end up adding some more offroad to the edges and removing almost all of the sneaker panels altogether...and yet, because I still hadn't figured out a way to decorate the map yet that made me satisfied [the rough layout looked pretty rough with the AA textures and default sky it had at first], I was initially demotivated for several days to pick it up again.
It wasn't only until after I finished the V1.1 update and hotfix which had some pending tweaks to the maps in visibility and cut patching when I started looking at it again- once again pulling blanks for some minutes at first.
Although on that August 30th it already had got the feedback stick and had offroad areas added, it was in the next movie from September 5th that showed bit more of progress between one of the straights having a sloped right area [before both sides becoming half-pipe ramps] and decorating a tiny bit the first turn.
The name went from Bomber Slalom to Sunset Slalom Attack due to the combination of the back-to-back sharp turns and the sunset sky, but to simplify it, it eventually turned into just Sunset Slalom Zone, which is shown in the menu as Sunset Slalom.
The textures had stayed there for the most part until the day I decided to revisit the idea [which was September 13th] and try a new batch of textures as I was neither confident in how those were looking with the layout nor had a clue on how to continue decorating if I had stuck with that layout. There's even a movie file from that date that even still had the original Bomber Slalom name as it had the B64 TSA music added [but not the new textures] where I was testing the bot waypoints. Walls for the half pipe area as well as decorating anything else wasn't done yet, so despite a few things looking more familiar, it still looks more like the old prototype that was kind of lukewarmly received.
And then, enter Carbon Crucicle.
More specifically, its textures. I already had poked at using a battle map's textures for a race track when I first made Blast Processor through Deluged Metroplex, but in this occasion it was a surprise to see a green colored texture that looked cool for the track- reminding me of the usual Bomberman battle mode stage. And that's when the motif clicked: I already had been using Bomberman music for the track because I thought it fit the layout, so finding textures that happened to look like it felt like a natural match. Pair that with the sunset texture that's usually not really visible in the actual Carbon Crucible stage...and that's how the first retextured version of the map was started.
You might tell that some of the slopes were far harsher than before- things that were smoothed out on the way until the first test versions, as I was aware that the track had to be reliably smooth to drive on if I didn't want it to feel like a slope-launching mess. After that first retexture test and second waypoint test...things just finished clicking together gradually from there. The beams, extra walls and starting structure were made with some minutes of being unplugged from the servers to be able to focus into...actually making those decorations, and then being able to see the results look satisfying enough to give me full confidence on the track again.
So simply picture that last work in progress video being what I had before sitting down, locking in, and piecing together the rest of the decoration that's into the final version now after several minutes of unrecorded testing.
At first, there were two Orbi capsules and two Kitchen Sinks placed at the start for position tomfoolery, and while there was a singular player thinking that it was weird + detracted from the rarity of sinks (But mind you that Sinks are IMPOSSIBLE to get unless you specifically Hyudoro someone carrying an SPB...or grab a capsule with one, another one thought it was funny enough to say to keep it.
While there wasn't a definitive jurisdiction in that regard as of writing the original text here [16/09/24], as stupid as it looked, it definitely would be the epitome of "because its funny" and giving players a reason to rush the conveniently placed near the edge of falling off the start and fault themselves.
It did go from a Test Version 1 with plenty of rings that I was advised to tone down a notch, to a Version 2 with more balanced item sets [Ver.1 had only two single items at the end of the two starting halfpipes and then a single item set near the spiral] and reduced ring placements...and Ver.3 readjusted that again with adding more rings to avoid starving players that don't take extremely particular lines just for rings and adding yet another item set for a total of four.
After a slope near the end of the spiral being adjusted, that was it for Sunset Slalom, finally heading to the public with Super Striker GP's Round 2 release...
...Until I heard a day later after about people somehow getting an accidental broken exploit if hitting someone with the sink- even themselves. So at the end, as of v1.2's Hotfix 1 specifically made to address that, the Kitchen Sink capsules had to be dispatched to unexpected, unforeseen consequences.