This thing deserves its own post. Not only is it self-braking when nearing cliffs and certain flagged “unmovable objects,” but it is also pilotable by “AI” that automatically steers around corners at different speeds and tolerances depending on designer input, K-turns when facing the wrong way on a track, and spawns in patterns that can chase each other along randomly chosen junctions in the spline-based route.

See this other post for coverage on my first physics based vehicle.

Getting the horse-drawn physics right took several prototypes of different vehicle setups in Unreal. Finally I had the idea to attach a “horse vehicle” to a “carriage vehicle” using 18-wheeler tractor-trailer logic, heavily modified to reach a “bat out of hell” feel. With the auto-correcting balance that I implemented (designed around a magic-using character who would cast a spell to keep the carriage upright whenever tipping over too much), the carriage attains a wonderfully playable feel, and was a star of the GDC 2024 demo.