Well, that was quick… I made a lot of progress today. I expected the changes I had planned to take a few days and that I would likely finish them up this weekend. Instead, things have been pretty easy to modify, so practically all the changes I had planned are already done.
As I noted yesterday, I’ve removed the level intermissions (the short time when you’re cruising with nothing to do). Levels are still in there and the “LEVEL XX” message still appears (though I think I need to shrink it a bit), but there’s no finish line and there’s no delay at the end of the level (the next level starts immediately). I actually like this better – you hit “GO”, and you’re committed until you die. (Or quit. Quitting is still an option. If you’re a quitter.)
The explosion still moves at a constant speed (a bit slower than speed 2), but it gets a small boost when you hit an X panel. If you sit at speed 1 too long, or if you hit too many X’s, it’ll catch up. The boost the explosion gets will eventually increase with each level to a maximum (which will probably be at level 10), but for now it’s a constant boost.
WARNING: SIMPLE ARITHMETIC AHEAD
In this version, I’m using some simple math to calculate the distance between the player and the explosion. For now, here’s how I’m doing it: each speed level for the player adds 50 to their total speed (e.g., speed 1 = 50, speed 5 = 250). The explosion moves at a constant rate of 70, so at speed 1 (50), the explosion will slowly catch up to you. At max speed, you’ll very quickly hit the maximum distance. Every tenth of a second, the distance you’ve traveled is calculated as (speed – explosion speed), then scaled using a multiplier (0.1). So, as an example:
Speed 1: 50 – 70 = -20 * 0.1 = -2
Speed 2: 100 – 70 = 30 * 0.1 = 3
This distance is applied to both the player and explosion equally (in reverse for the explosion). Currently the maximum distance is 300, which may be a bit short (I can easily tweak it later. Once the distance hits zero, the player is killed: game over.
The plan for the X panels is to give the explosion gets a boost equal to the current level number times your current speed level (1 at S1 L1, 50 at S5 L10). The math for this boost is very likely to change as I test it out and figure out what feels right.
Levels work exactly like before. As you travel along, your distance is tallied up and checked against a level distance. Once you meet the target distance, there will be an in-game effect to show that you’ve progressed, your total distance resets (but not your distance from the explosion), and you start the next level.
It still needs some balance, but these changes are coming along nicely. If this all feels right, I might start tweaking the difficulty modifiers and finish adding in some of the calculations mentioned above that aren’t in yet. After that, hopefully it’s just a few more layers of polish before it’s ready to go.
Here’s version 23A: Tunnel Racer v23a