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[c023-DeV]

Yeah! Looking cool! Like the foliage in the last shot!

[woodsmoke]

Yes, those alien plants are excellent 

[marcgfx]

thanks! I've been given some nice feedback on my vegetation, but it I've been told my track texturing sucks... it's not an easy problem to solve. I cant simply texture the outside bits darker, as I will get results like this (intersection of polygons causes this).


so I've come up with a solution using a lot of randomization. it's still not really road like, but maybe its better?
original is top-left image.

[Seaport]

I think the top right road surface is my favorite of the 4 (though is that the original?), its all looking good especially the foliage.   

[Seaport]

Just noticed you have a demo too, I'll give that a go tonight

[marcgfx]

thanks seaport, that would be great! the more feedback the better
top-right... yeah I wrote top-right was the original. I obviously don't know left from right and have corrected that in my last post now. the original was of course top-left

[eyeliner]

Why not make the curves a bit more separated? Just add a bit of space between the kerbs. You can have a 180 curve, but not so tight.

Not sure how to explain.

This might be better:
http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/hairpin-curves-2967153.jpg

[Zizka]

Liking the new changes.

I'll give the game another go once it's more different than the build I've already tested.

Could you show screenshots of the car descriptions? 'Cause I was thinking of something like this:

[TammiDev]

Really nice progress. I don't like racing games but I'm willing to give this one a try ^^

[marcgfx]

thanks for the suggestions guys!

@eyeliner: the sharp curves are a bit of a problem. I am planning to change them a bit. my idea was to rotate the checkpoint by 90°, effectively making the end of the corner into additional sliding space. but maybe I should consider redesigning the way I create the track itself. maybe this could lead to even more interesting tracks

@zizka: I see what you mean. I was trying to avoid having to create a lot of detailed close up art stuff ... maybe it is a good idea. but I would also need to come up with super awesome names for my cars. the class system for speed, grip is actually quite good, as it's hard to translate game physic settings into real life...

@tammidev: thanks for the nice words

[marcgfx]

I've been working on the track textures a bit more. this is a muddy type of road. the last version hat just a fading effect, now it has a lot more strukture.

I've also made some quite drastic changes to slippery surfaces. so far the cars tended to get faster, as they were not slowed down by the surface. this has been fixed, as it does not make sense that a car would be able to go a lot faster on ice. they also tend to start turning, so the driving experience is more difficult now. unfortunately my changes also had an effect on a lot of extras, so I will have to do some tweaking to find a good balance.

[Zorg]

[...] the sharp curves are a bit of a problem. I am planning to change them a bit. my idea was to rotate the checkpoint by 90°, effectively making the end of the corner into additional sliding space. but maybe I should consider redesigning the way I create the track itself. [...]

Maybe you could limit the corner radius to ~1.2 times track width over the whole track?

Your game looks super cool but i'm not very fond of the name.

Is the zfx community any good? I could register and write some feedback in german.

Edit: I prefer the bottom right track texture.

[marcgfx]

thanks for your input zorg the zfx community is great, but very small.

the corner stuff: I'm not entirely unhappy with the whole thing, in the extreme cases it just looks a bit stupid. but it still works. I have some ideas how to improve it, but so far haven't found the motivation to try. the track generation code is not very fun to mess around with... limiting the corner radius could be an option, but has some drawbacks.

the name: originally it was meant to be an AI-battle game for programmers. little tanks shooting each-other, a bit like code wars. just in the browser with javascript and only using divs/html. I did not really do much advertising and the response was pretty much inexistant. so I decided to make a real game with what I had. now it's a racing game using webgl. but... I still have all the make your own AI-stuff in the background and hope to reanimate that in the future.

but I do agree, maybe the racing game would deserve it's own name. or maybe I should rename the whole project. I do own cyberlympics.com/net, but .org has been taken and has been used very actively. currently I just don't know what to change it too, or if I even want to change it.

some more of the new muddy tracks:


I've been doing a lot of small changes recently. the starting positions are now prioritizing track-segments with no curve, the speed ups are also favoring straight passages. this has of course changed all the tracks yet again, not all for the best. but thats what happens when you go full-procedural

I've also updated the extras (some can only be used by the player now) and made visual improvements to explosions (rotation, yay).

[marcgfx]

just found one of the first screenshots of the racing track with a car from 2011 

[marcgfx]

I'm now creating preview images from the tracks


the big question is: should i save the speed-ups/extras too, or not. the thing is, there are 6 settings for both -> 36 possible outcomes. ah and I just remembered, the seed can be further randomized. mmm... ok I will have to remove the extras/speedups from the preview. question resolved.

I will also have to think of a good way to store/load the preview images, I'm considering using mongodb as I want to work as cloud-based as possible.

[GalaethGames]

A really nice variety of tracks!

[marcgfx]

thanks sionco!

I've added the track-previews to the main menu now. this only works for tracks that have been played by me locally, as I don't have any server-code that can handle image upload atm. I've also added music and tried to improve usability of the menu.

things I am struggling with:
- good names for tracks
- good names for championships/grand prix
- good name for the game itself. I'm not sure if I should change it, but it's probably not that catchy right now?

[marcgfx]

received some helpfull feedback from alvarop over in playtesting:



I haven't addressed many issues he brought up yet. he was having some performance issues so I finally decided to drop one of my ai-scripts. it tended to use about 40% of the cpu... so now all units have much simpler ai and the cpu should even have some idle time. its not that it makes much of a difference really, but it was still hard, as I had invested a lot of time into that ai (neural net stuff, genetic algorithm). I will likely be using some parts of it, when I get to make a new ai though.

tried the first track with 170 cars. it works, but the audio goes crazy... makes little sense all in all

[Zizka]

The preview images of tracks are pretty much necessary ihmo.

Cool that your game is getting so much attention recently. Keep it up!

[marcgfx]

I agree. makes it more obvious what you are getting yourself into
can't say I've noticed a spike in attention, have I missed something? the video recordings are useful, if thats what you are referring too