so, ive been working on this racing game, Zero GTR, off and on for 4 years now... i think i've rewritten the engine from scratch 7 times or so. heh. mostly testing out different physics and collision systems. a few months ago i decided to make a drastic change to the gameplay and add in FPS elements... first person shooter in a racing game? wha?? hehe...
basically, here is ideally how it would work. ever get to play with those little scooters in gym class that are a square base that you sit on, and 4 wheels at the bottom? imagine you and a handful of friends are all sitting on those on the outer side of the center ring in a basketball court... then someone throws a bouncy kick ball into the center and you guys wheel around trying to grab it.... once you do, you head to the outer edge of the court where there are a series of rings in which you have to drive the scooter through. you get a point for making it through the ring, but your team gets a point only if you make it through all the rings. at any point someone else can wrestle the ball away from you and start making laps too. once the ball makes it through all the rings, or a certain time limit is reached, the ball goes away and everyone heads back to the center before it gets thrown back in. i really wish i thought of this while i was in elementary school, cause it sounds like it would have been crazy fun.
now, imagine this same gameplay concept, but the game starting out inside a sort of spherical room, called the chamber, where a blue plasma like game ball is fired into, bouncing and rolling all around the room. and instead of being on a scooter, you're inside of what seems like a hover-tank that can drive on the walls and the ceiling. at this time, the gameplay works more like what you would see in quake. run, grab armour, pickup upgrades, try to blast other players, and try to pickup the ball.
once you get the ball you run to one of multiple exits to the room that all combine to form a single hallway that is where the racing begins. in here your tank folds into a racer and the gameplay is more akin to wipeout or f-zero. but like the chamber, you can drive on the walls and the track doesnt stay horizontal, it shifts between spirals, hair pin turns, vertical straight aways, and can fork.
at any point in time you can switch between tank mode and racer mode. tank mode is faaaar slower, but gives you the ability to use your more powerful weapons and takes much less damage. whenever you want to go back to the inner chamber you can teleport and spawn back inside it.
http://www.zerogtr.com/download/junk/2010_06_14.ziphere is a small demo of the fps aspect of the game. just one player that can run on the walls and ceiling. nothing fancy yet, just a proof of concept of the physics and collision detection. you can walk on any grey surface, and should not be able to walk on or penetrate red ones. it still has some collision bugs that im trying to work out, so if you run into any, please let me know where/how they happened. thanks!
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