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TIGSource ForumsCommunityDevLogsSuper Truckin' Multiplayer minigames cross between Mario Kart and Super Off Road
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Author Topic: Super Truckin' Multiplayer minigames cross between Mario Kart and Super Off Road  (Read 9900 times)
Wigen
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« on: November 07, 2013, 03:59:57 PM »

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Launching of our Steam GREENLIGHT is underway!
Please check us out and if you like it please vote for us HERE!








of a soccer level match!

Check out our AI system for the 3 types of AI we had to create!

Check out laying on PC/Tablet and using your phone as your controller!

Hey everyone, We are extremely excited here at in8bit and at the point in our development to start showing off our game and would love feedback from everyone. Here are the details:

  • "Super Off Road"-style game play
  • Up to 8-player multiplayer
  • Mini game-style levels (4 levels at the moment: Soccer, Racing, Knockout the Hay, Infinite Runner)
  • Themed trucks
  • Customizable truck items
  • "Mario Kart"-style power-ups
  • Cross platform (mobile and PC)
  • Unique controls

Pictures of the Soccer Level!



















Hay Level





Off Road Level

« Last Edit: November 25, 2014, 08:36:20 PM by Wigen » Logged

Dev Log: Super Truckin' on TigSource
Super Off Road / Mario Kart mashup!

Dev Blog | @in8bit | @Wigen
RedGreenBlue
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« Reply #1 on: November 07, 2013, 04:05:20 PM »

This looks goofy. And super fun.
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Wigen
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« Reply #2 on: November 07, 2013, 11:08:38 PM »

Yup! Those are our DeLorean trucks. Tires are sideways and they float a little bit above the ground.  It's a ton of fun!
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Dev Log: Super Truckin' on TigSource
Super Off Road / Mario Kart mashup!

Dev Blog | @in8bit | @Wigen
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« Reply #3 on: November 07, 2013, 11:24:31 PM »

I loved Super Off Road on Master system, posting here to keep track!
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... but that is mostly psychological. Check my devlog!
Wigen
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« Reply #4 on: November 08, 2013, 07:24:19 PM »

Awesome! Super Off Road was a great game and we hope everyone will have as much fun playing our game!

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Dev Log: Super Truckin' on TigSource
Super Off Road / Mario Kart mashup!

Dev Blog | @in8bit | @Wigen
Wigen
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« Reply #5 on: November 08, 2013, 10:51:03 PM »

Gameplay Gif! shows how some of the game mechanics work and 2 of the powerups you can pick up.

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Dev Log: Super Truckin' on TigSource
Super Off Road / Mario Kart mashup!

Dev Blog | @in8bit | @Wigen
Wigen
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« Reply #6 on: November 15, 2013, 08:28:50 PM »

We just changed the graphics. Check it out!

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Dev Log: Super Truckin' on TigSource
Super Off Road / Mario Kart mashup!

Dev Blog | @in8bit | @Wigen
Wigen
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« Reply #7 on: November 16, 2013, 12:30:40 PM »

Powerups!!!



  • Barrel: These little guys you can lay anywhere and act like a mine. They explode causing your truck to go flying.
  • Fire Balls: You shoot 2 fireballs that can knock anyone out of the way. Great for offense and defense.
  • Oil Slick: Lay down one of these and anything that runs over it slides across the level with almost no control. Watch out!
  • Mega Truck: Ever wanted to just smash into everything? Well here is your chance. Mega truck makes you bigger, stronger, and heavier. Plow through anyone and everything.
  • The Dozer: Flips trucks and other objects behind you. Giving you that great feeling of ruining their day.
  • Electro Ball: This bad boy is like having a wrecking ball attached to your truck. swinging it into anything will send them flying. Its a great way to create enemies!
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Dev Log: Super Truckin' on TigSource
Super Off Road / Mario Kart mashup!

Dev Blog | @in8bit | @Wigen
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« Reply #8 on: November 16, 2013, 01:36:31 PM »

Looks interesting. Will this game be available on Android too?
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Wigen
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« Reply #9 on: November 16, 2013, 01:59:15 PM »

Android, IOS, PC, possibly OUYA
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Dev Log: Super Truckin' on TigSource
Super Off Road / Mario Kart mashup!

Dev Blog | @in8bit | @Wigen
Wigen
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« Reply #10 on: December 06, 2013, 10:05:30 PM »

And we have the Racing level up and going. It is a ton of fun using all the power-ups and turboing all over the course. Need to watch out for the crane because it will knock you out if you're not careful.




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Dev Log: Super Truckin' on TigSource
Super Off Road / Mario Kart mashup!

Dev Blog | @in8bit | @Wigen
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« Reply #11 on: December 07, 2013, 03:16:39 PM »

Just got the AI running on this map. Caught it mid jump right after the box spawned and you can see a bomb in the center of the jump. The crane is ready to block anyone trying to go through.



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Dev Log: Super Truckin' on TigSource
Super Off Road / Mario Kart mashup!

Dev Blog | @in8bit | @Wigen
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« Reply #12 on: December 08, 2013, 12:19:14 PM »

We have been playing with different types of controllers for the game and here is one of the things that we have come up with.


Using your smart phone as the controller you can connect to your PC and race, smash, and score!

We are currently focused on a PC/Android release where you use your Android phone as the controller to the Super Truckin’ game running on your PC. Initial tests with Android tablets, iPads and the Ouya has shown that we can leverage all of these as second screens as well – so when we get closer to being done we hope to try and support those too.

Each of the three initial levels we have created allows up to eight different people to control eight separate trucks on the same screen at the same time, over the local Wi-Fi.


Today the controller is where you select your truck color, find the game that is already started on the PC and then join it. We are hoping to add more to the controller in time with vehicle add-ons truck selection and similar, but at this early stage customization is just color. Once joining a Super Truckin’ game you turn your truck by turning your phone like a steering wheel (leveraging the accelerometer), gas by pressing the right hand side of the phone, and after picking up a power up you can press the left hand side of the screen to use it. Double tapping the gas will enable turbos and releasing the gas for a quick second turns the turbo’s off. Tapping the center of the screen will honk the truck horn and also display your name on screen in case you lost your truck after getting blown up or respawning after going out of bounds.

What do you guys think?

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Dev Log: Super Truckin' on TigSource
Super Off Road / Mario Kart mashup!

Dev Blog | @in8bit | @Wigen
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« Reply #13 on: December 15, 2013, 03:41:15 PM »

Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Super Truckin'

With AI comes many complications. We not only wanted AI for racing, but we wanted it for all of our game types.  I would like to go over what we needed for the game type, what problems happened and how we battled it. If you'd like to see some code let me know! Want be in the beta? contact us!  https://twitter.com/in8bitgames

-Soccer-
Need: Each AI follows the ball to knock it into the opposing goal.

First thing we needed to add was how to track a single way-point. This is pretty standard and allowing our trucks to follow a way-point was pretty straight forward.


You want to hit a ball... you make the ball the way-point and your done. Right? Wrong! this will allow the AI to just smash into the ball with no clear direction. The soccer field will be like a 5 year old playing pool and smashing the ball off every wall in hopes to  make it in the pocket.

So we thought about adding direction.  Adding this was a little bit more complicated, we had to basically get the AI to get behind the ball and aim it towards the goal. Math cant do this? or can it! We need to know the goal and ball location, the direction in which to hit the ball towards the goal and some math magic to get the arch to go around the ball. Our first test results with this logic.


Whew... we started playing with it... and wow... this made it a lot harder to play against. They would steal the ball away from you and try to knock it towards their goal. It is not perfect but it works pretty well.

The problem with this approach is it acts as if the target is stationary for that moment in time. By the time the next update happens the trajectory changes. This makes the AI not as accurate when the ball is moving quickly.

That is all it really took to get AI working for soccer. Can we make it better? Oh yes, there are many ways to improve it. We could look at the trajectory of the ball, and speed of the vehicle and account that in the algorithm to where it needs to hit the ball. Eventually we will add this but for now the AI is already pretty challenging. If you guys want it to be harder then we wont want to disappoint.

-Hay-
Need: Each player tries to go for the hay and knock it out of the arena

We now have single way-point navigation, all we need to really do is turn off ability for aiming it towards a soccer goal. Sweet! Done and done...  until we tried it....


They became experts in finding the hay, and knocking it out before you ever have a chance to get to it as well.  They were impossible to play against and it wasn't fun.

So we added Object avoidance Which i will explain later. not only are they trying to always hit the hay, but they are actively trying to avoid it as well. This nifty trick made them just easy enough to be playable. They don't score every time they get the hay just like a real player would.

-Racing-
Need: Each player follows the track.

So adding onto the single way-point system we already have. we needed to add more to be able to allow the AI to follow a track. Awesome, easy enough. Just make the way-point a list of way-points and when it gets close to the current way-point make it go to the next one.



So now we have an AI set up for our racing level but this is when we saw problems we were not expecting.

The problem we had with this approach was we have several areas that a vehicle can get knocked into (such as the quad jump and hills they can fall off of) and how does the AI react when this happens? Right now they will keep trying to get to the next way-point and get stuck on a wall. So how we battled this was to implement zones. This allowed the AI to validate that this is the zone it should be in, and if not to react by either going to a new way-point or follow the track where it dropped like a normal player would.

Bad behavior:



Good behavior with Zones:



AWESOME! it looks like we have a way-point system and a zone system that the AI follows and if knocked out of either system it can figure its way back. We now have pretty amazing race AI.



-Object Avoidance-

I believe this needed its own section because we have now integrated this behavior in each of our AI's.
 •  In every Level (especially racing) the trucks would pile up  leaning into each other as they go to a way-point, ball or hay. This caused the trucks to crash and slow down and didn't look fluid. I could easily pass them when they are in this state.
 •  Early tests on the Soccer level you would see the vehicles stuck against a wall because they were trying to go through the wall to get to the other side of the ball.
 •  Testing the hay level they would pile up more than hitting the hay as well as clipping edges of jumps and causing them to lose control all the time.

The answer to these issues is to make the cars see. we basically gave them eyes so that they can listen to things around them and react. This changed our game. This made the AI react in ways that were more what a player would. It felt they were more human when obstacles popped up.



we added ray's in front of the vehicles  that listen to touching objects such as cars, sides of jumps, and walls. Left ray is touched turn to the right, right ray is touched turn to the left.

We could add the barrel mine to the things to avoid but this gif wouldn't have been as awesome.


It has been a lot of trial and error. Testing constantly with and without people. We think we have solid AI for each level and each having completely different behaviors. Are we done with the AI? nope! We do plan to constantly improve and balance each level to make them as fun as possible.

Thank you guys for reading and check back often for more awesome posts! If you guys want more information about anything else we have done please let us know!
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Dev Log: Super Truckin' on TigSource
Super Off Road / Mario Kart mashup!

Dev Blog | @in8bit | @Wigen
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« Reply #14 on: February 20, 2014, 05:00:12 PM »

Update on progress!

Lots of amazing happings to get this game closer to release!

  • We have added some background music to each level as well as some engine/dirt sounds.
  • The Dozer has a new graphic.
  • The FireBalls are now physics based and will now go up and off of ramps and jumps
  • The race level has checkponts you need to go through to complete a lap.
  • The race level also now displays your position every time you go through a checkpoint above your vehicle.
  • We changed the center of gravity on the trucks and added sparks when they hit eachother or walls.
  • If you are using your phone as a controller we added the turbo meter and what powerup you picked up.


Right now we are concentrating on UI on both the actual game as well as the phone controller.
Here is our initial prototype of the phone controller menu's

The changes we have changed since this design are that all the signs are now floating and not going to be part of the actual level (will help when porting to all the crazy resolution screens that android has.
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Dev Log: Super Truckin' on TigSource
Super Off Road / Mario Kart mashup!

Dev Blog | @in8bit | @Wigen
LeoArmstead
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« Reply #15 on: February 20, 2014, 05:03:22 PM »

I like the concept
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Savick
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« Reply #16 on: February 20, 2014, 06:07:54 PM »

Oh my gosh! I had completely forgotten what super off-road was until you made this thread! I used to play it all the time as a kid and it was just in the back of my brain gathering dust. The game looks awfully fun so far. Maybe use land mines as a weapon? Maybe not.
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Wigen
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« Reply #17 on: February 21, 2014, 10:42:01 AM »

Awesome, thanks Leo.

Savick we do have some landmine type of weapon. The explosive Barrel. If you pick up this weapon and plop it down on a hill it can roll off. It's great to put in front of your Goal on the soccer level or in a tight corner on the race level.

You can see it in action here


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Dev Log: Super Truckin' on TigSource
Super Off Road / Mario Kart mashup!

Dev Blog | @in8bit | @Wigen
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« Reply #18 on: April 11, 2014, 02:24:49 PM »

From Dino, our sound/art guy:
Making of Super Truckin's Music. #1 can be found on http://in8b.it

Although my mind changes depending on my mood, the Future Soccer level is my current favorite, and thus we will begin there…

Imagine playing soccer in space. What would that sound like? This was the challenge Alex and Jason brought to me for this level. A futuristic setting calls for some type of electronic music, so I immediately knew I wanted some nice synths. I didn’t, however, want to lose sight of the fact that this was still a soccer match…it needed an anthem, something with a catchy melody that would be easy to chant. What I needed was the lovechild of the Fifa’s Ole’ and Depeche Mode. Inspiration in hand, I went to work. Once I achieved something that I liked, I used a place holder synth to hold that melody and put it on repeat. With that on loop, I can start to play around with some new ideas.

http://w.soundcloud.com/player?url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F139660912&color=00aabb&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_artwork=true

Next, I started testing out drum patterns until something felt right. Often, I don’t know what I am about to play and begin by just simply hitting random notes. Hearing them play will often spark an idea – as if I am not really playing it, only listening and anticipating what the music might do next. I expected to come out of this song with a simple 4 to the floor kick, with a snare on 2 and 4 (which is common in most electronic music), so I am pleasantly happy with the drums because they have a bit of a hiccup by dropping the last kick.

http://w.soundcloud.com/player?url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F139661162&color=00aabb&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_artwork=true

So at this point I have a melody and a basic drum rhythm…which means it’s time to add some personality – a little bit of flair, if you will. Creativity and an open mind can go far, but patience is really the key in this department. I found this sound that when held sounded neat, but when played percussively had such awesome and different character. I’m a big advocate for trying every avenue when you are creating something – you’ll never know when you’ll create something beautiful out of an idea you almost dismissed for insanity.

http://w.soundcloud.com/player?url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F139660911&color=00aabb&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_artwork=true

Now the song is at a point where it is ear friendly – basically meaning that it’s listenable and easy to understand. At this point, I’ll let the team listen and get feedback, as well as any concerns. Compliments never hurt either Wink

Our journey for the week is at an end and I’m pleased to share all the put together pieces that make up what I consider the backbone of the music for the Soccer Level.

http://w.soundcloud.com/player?url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F139662235&color=00aabb&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_artwork=true

On an ending note….a word of advice. If I ever find myself overwhelmed and hitting a wall, I either take a break, or start on a different song. It can be frustrating, but even a little bit of progress can create momentum towards completion and sometimes taking a step back is the best thing for the big picture.
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Dev Log: Super Truckin' on TigSource
Super Off Road / Mario Kart mashup!

Dev Blog | @in8bit | @Wigen
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« Reply #19 on: May 30, 2014, 09:38:33 AM »

Been working hard on getting this game closer and closer to release.

We have just updated the soccer level's graphics.

Top is the old design and bottom is the new design.
We wanted the levels to have more texture work and a higher quality to them. In doing this we are also updating the vehicles texture/models as well.
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Dev Log: Super Truckin' on TigSource
Super Off Road / Mario Kart mashup!

Dev Blog | @in8bit | @Wigen
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