Requesting your opinion on design and production values

Well, development on my Rush hour game has been non-existent as I have been on vacation with my girlfriend (and still am, she doesn't like me sitting at the computer though... schh) and thus am spending a lot of time with her, and getting away from your computer for some time can actually help the progress of your game, believe me. When you aren't thinking in bits and bytes, you start to think about the design and layout of the game, and I have worked out two different options on how I should make the game. FOr more info about the game and it's mechanics, check the plan I posted before this one.

The two different options doesn't touch the mechanics of the game, since I refuse to change that ;) They do differ the productionvalues of the game hugely though.

Option one:
The game has a roadmap, with different locations. The further you get, the harder the levels are.

The game has multiple different backgrounds, depending on where you are. The small community where you begin has some small roads and pick-ups for instance, while the final huge city has sportscars etc. Think GTA-based progress ;)

The game has a huge variety of cars, maybe 40-60 different cars (where cars can look the same but have different colors)

The game has around 150-200 levels

Summary of option one:

Option one features the bells and whistles that pretty much all indie games has these days. The problems will be creating different backgrounds (think a new background for every 10th level) and cars - I have spoken to an artist who can create ten cars for $80 and has a reputation for having cheap rates - multiply that with 6 and add the costs for logo to the game, roadmap with different locations, as well as sounds and music, and you have something that is way above of my budget. I hope you understand my concern.

Option two:

One background, no roadmap, ten cars and maybe 60-80 levels.

Summary of option two:

Option two is, well... Cheap. I have contacted a artist who can create ten cars, logo and background for $160, which seems like a pretty fair price after all. The reason for having only 60-80 levels is due to the low number of cars - nobody wants to play a game with 200 levels without graphical variation. If I go with option two, I might get it to a portal or two, make some money, and have enough to finance the graphics and sounds/music for making option one as a sequel.

Casual brainstorming

Going with option one will give me a solid game with great production values and nice variation - with the right contacts and as long as I don't screw something vital up, it could become a decent hit. Targeting the right crowd, it could create some pretty nice $... And I sure wouldn't mind having a game with nice production values as my firstborn. I could probably handle creating a nice road-map, since I am rather skilled with static (non-animated), simple stuff in photoshop, but creating the buildings for the road map would require a proper artist. The cars would definitely have to be done by a artist, but I could probably create the backgrounds by myself, as long as I have worked out some nice building-blocks to create them from. Logo could be done by me, but would probably yield a result in the same class as a proper artist could create. I will try to create some cars myself using car-blueprints as templates (without creating a complete copy of the car, don't want no problems with the car companies)as soon as I get back home.

Option number two would save me a lot of money, but probably wouldn't end up doing more than so-so.

Conclusion

So, this is where I stand. It ended up quite a long plan, but I hope that some people made it through and are willing to post their opinions and tips.

Best wishes,
Anders