Category: Projects

Tonight’s another minor update. I’m still working on the lane shift speeds. They’re slower in this version, ranging from 0.625 seconds (slowest ship at the lowest speed) to 0.1 seconds (fastest ship at the highest speed). They still don’t feel quite right.

I’ve also found a new bug and I have no idea what’s causing it. If you hit an “X” panel while shifting, your shift will get cut short (you’ll stop between lanes). There’s a temporary fix in that will force your rotation to what it should be after every lane shift, but it’s a jarring effect and as soon as I figure out what’s going on, it’s coming out.

The good news is I’m learning more about PlayMaker’s capabilities and cleaning up my FSMs, so it should be easier to manage everything… As soon as I figure out what’s causing that damn lane shift bug…

Tunnel Racer v13a

EDIT
There’s also some bugs with the UI shaking. I think a lot of my problems revolve around FSMs responding to certain events every time they occur, and I’m not resetting states properly… Work for tomorrow, I suppose.

EDIT AGAIN
OK, so I figured out the UI shaking problem, and it was exactly what I thought it was. Still don’t know why the lane shifts aren’t working properly…

Tonight’s build is mostly fixes and work towards fixing the controls. I learned how I should be handling animations with PlayMaker, so they’ve been updated to work that way. Overall, it makes handling the animations significantly cleaner. Now, the pieces that control the animation and the input (along with ship rotation in the tunnel) are separate, meaning I can tweak them separately without having a negative impact on any of the others… In theory.

Along with those changes, I totally changed the speed system, but right now it’s in this weird intermediate state where it feels a lot worse than before. I think I’m working with a more solid foundation but it’s going to take time to figure out what’s right again.

With that in mind, I’ve got a teeny debug window running in the corner that shows animation speed and animation time. The normal turning animation is 0.5 seconds long. Each ship’s turn rating determines a speed multiplier. A turn rating of 1 is equal to a 1x speed multiplier. For each point above 1, there’s an increase of 0.02 to that multiplier, with an extra boost to 1.2x at rank 10. This multiplier is combined with your current speed to determine the animation speed. So, with a speed multiplier of 1x, and a speed of 5, the animation runs at 5x speed, or 0.1 seconds (assuming my math is correct). This results in really quick turns for even the slowest of ships. the highest multiplier of 1.2x at speed 5 results in 6x speed, or about 0.083 seconds.

I think what I’m getting at is that a flat multiplier like this probably isn’t going to work. The minimum animation speed should maybe be around 0.8x (0.625 seconds), and the maximum around 2x (0.25 seconds) or maybe 5x (0.1 seconds). I’ll have to whip out Excel and make some graphs. (Whee! Numbers!)

Anyway, despite the problems with this build, I’ve decided to put it up here anyway, if only so I can look back and see how things changed over time.

Tunnel Racer v12a

A quick post tonight. I’ve done a little work fixing bugs and trying out some new graphics, but the graphics in this version are almost identical to the last, just a little cleaner. I tried using a “neon sign” style for the boost pickup, but because of the design you couldn’t see it until you were right on top of it… So that didn’t work out.

I’ve also started working on a few ideas for fixing some issues with lane shifting. At higher speeds it was difficult to control (sometimes shifting multiple lanes with a single keypress) because your shift speed increased to the point where you could shift more quickly than you could release a key. This version has my first attempt at fixing that problem, but it’s not perfect yet.

Other than that, there was a lot of work on some of the FSMs to clean a few things up, but nothing too major.

Tunnel Racer v11a

Oh, and I decided to name the second ship from the last post “Gemini”, because of the twin-cockpit thing. Which is obviously an important part of this version.

EDIT: Bean played my stupid game.

With this version, I’ve introduced three new ship models. One is a new starter ship, and the other two are unlockable ships. The previous ship (shown here) will become the best ship in the game (mostly because I love the design so much). I’ve given most of the ships names, but I don’t know if I’ll ever show ship names in the game. I’m still working on balance and tuning for the ship stats – I currently have health and turn speed on a scale of 10, but I think I might make the turn speed work on a scale of 5 or even less. The starter ship would have a turn rate of 1 or 2. One of the new ships has the lowest turn rate but high hitpoints (I call it “Brick”), but I don’t really like it too much; the game really isn’t as fun at slower speeds. I might drop the turn rate changes entirely and simply have variable health.

I’ve also found a few new bugs with the mutators (game modes) and ships. The mutator effects are applied when you click the button, so if you click “Sudden Death”, and then pick a different ship, the hit point reduction applied by clicking “Sudden Death” is overridden by the ship settings. It’s an issue that’s been around since I added the ships, but I just hadn’t run into it yet (though I had a feeling it would cause problems). I’m planning on having those worked out within the next version or two.

Tunnel Racer v10a

A few important updates today. I finished wiring up some panel events, so when you hit a booster or health panel, there’s an effect that fires on your ship. The booster effect I’ve shown before. The healing effect is a cool “shield” that forms around your ship:

I’m still working on a good “damaged” effect. There’s some overlap between the “damaged” and “dead” events, so I have to figure a way around that as well. Aside from that, I’ve fixed a few bugs. From here on out I think it’s just minor changes and getting the feel of things right, so there probably won’t be any more big surprises. I’m starting to see some framerate dips, though, so I might need to do some tuning to my FSMs.

Tunnel Racer v9a

Tonight I added multiple ships to Tunnel Racer. Well, not ships, but stats. (Modeling ships takes time.) For now, there’s room for six ships. After experimenting with some values today, I’ve determined that it’s going to be very difficult to balance six ships. I also need to determine a rating system for the ships, since the numbers I’m using now are a little bogus.

Here’s the latest version:
Tunnel Racer v8a

Week One In Review
Tunnel Racer has changed from a simple experiment to learn PlayMaker to a full game that I really want to finish. In a single week, I’ve gone from a little ship that can spin around a tunnel to a game with an objective and unlockable features. (Or they will be unlockable once I get to a beta stage.)

I’m really enjoying playing the game as well. For some reason, it feels really fast when I play, and it’s exciting as I weave between bomb panels. I like a good racing game, and this is a very simple game that scratches that itch. Hopefully it’ll do the same for others.

Not much new tonight. Slight adjustments to speed and a boost when the game starts (so you don’t have to wait so long). I’m going to work on some new vehicle models before I call it a night.

Tunnel Racer v7a

I think it’s time for a new ship. I did some sketching today and when I got home and modeled it, this is what I ended up with:

I like this design. It’s a bit sleeker with some steeper angles. You don’t see it quite like this in-game, though:

I also added some color to the ship engines. I’m not sure if I’ll keep it, though, since I have a nice monochrome thing going with the rest of the UI and effects.

I’m working on setting up a boost effect. I like what I’ve got (kinda like a sonic boom), but it’s not wired up properly yet:

I cut the max speed back from 10 to 5. At speed 10, you have no chance of survival – things are moving so fast you can’t react. At 5, you’re still moving plenty fast but have a good amount of control. I also added score tracking, so your high score and lifetime score are both tracked. Your lifetime score will be used to unlock features like modes and ships to pilot.

I need some better sound effects – I’m not happy with what I’m using. But those can be changed easily later. So I think my next task is going to be setting up some new ships to pilot.

Here’s the new one: Tunnel Racer v6a

I’ve tried out a few random things that haven’t worked, and I’ve begun adding totally new things. Today introduces game modes. I’m starting with two game modes: “Accelerator”, which gradually increases your speed over time, and “Sudden Death”, which starts your HP at 1 and removes health pickups.

No new screenshot – there’s nothing new to see.
Tunnel Racer v5a

Another night, another version. I’m really liking where this game is going. I’m finding it really fun to play myself (a good sign), and the tweaks I’m making to spawning and speed are creating a good difficulty curve. I think it’s still a little too easy, though. Right now I’m not interested in adding difficulty levels (I want to keep things simple), so finding a good balance is critical.

Tunnel Racer v4a

(On a side note, I’ve decided to simplify my version numbers. Instead of v0.4a, I switched to v4a. I’ve also gone back and updated my posts from this weekend.)