PGDmC: 2-bit Racer

[Ingemar]

I have to admit, from the name it sounds like 4 bit color/grey...

Maybe I should call it "2-button Racer" then?

[WILL]

Well technically with 2 bits you can count from 0 to 3... so that's 4 states.

[paul_nicholls]

Well technically with 2 bits you can count from 0 to 3... so that's 4 states.

he's got you there Ingemar, but name it what you want - still sounds cool

cheers,
Paul

[Ingemar]

A little status report:

- Collision detection is now really good. I have experimented with stationary objects and it works well, quite stable.
- Camera placement is now decent. For quite some time the camera kept catching up with the car which looks bad.
- I have done some work on my own models. Sadly, I am no 3D artist so they are either simple or look terrible.
- Start/finish/checkpoints, not finished but soon. Maybe working this evening.
- Work on level data files.

Left to do:
- Make the checkpoints work properly (and related game mechanics).
- Computer players with decent AI.
- Particle system for smoke.
- Better sound effects. (cfxr is a great tool, but the sound quality is not always ideal.)
- Optimization through VBOs and frustum culling. I will probably skip that for now as long as it runs fine on my MacBook.
- Make it fun to play. Really the hardest problem of all.

The biggest critical problem still unsolved is how to make AI players, and I really need that. But anyway, for being a 3D racing game that is not built on any 3rd party engine, I am rather happy.

[paul_nicholls]

Sounds great Ingemar, keep going mate

cheers,
Paul

[Ingemar]

Sounds great Ingemar, keep going mate

Thanks! Sadly, that's exactly what my game AI's does not do right now. They get stuck. Oh well, they are the latest addition so I just have to figure out a few more rules for them to follow.

[Ingemar]

Test upload made! It is called "2-bit racer test 1.zip" and is a binary for Mac OSX 10.6.

The game looks a bit strange since the cars have no wheels, but otherwise it is getting close now. The game AI works, it is not very good but it is possible to perform a full race, currently with two opponents. A full race is three laps.

Linux/Windows version? Well... no. I won't have time. Most of the code is fully portable, especially to Linux, and to Windows shouldn't be hard, but I don't have time for that. Most critically, I don't have any Windows development system with FPC that I am comfortable with. But if someone would like to help me with that, it might be easy.