Rally 4k (title to be confrimed)

[moogie]

Heh, it is a little odd

In the nature of friendly competition I say let the best man win!

Mind due, I really am not entering the competition for the sake of winning, i just want to see what i could program into 4k and be of reasonable quality in both graphics and gameplay.

[moogie]

Added Opponents

I have created a very simple AI to control opponent cars, It needs some fine tuning as it seems very conservative in the sharp corners.

I have not bothered compressing the JAR yet as i want to finalise my AI first.

There is no collisions or physical effects yet.

I have included a mini-map, however this may be dropped if i need the bytes

[stephencarmody]

Cool, I gave it a try.

They seems to stick rather closely together though.

Would be good if each opponent had a slightly different driving ability.

That way they'd string out more, led by the best AI, followed by second and so on...

But hey I'm not going to even have opponents so your doing better than me already.

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[moogie]

Cool, I gave it a try.

They seems to stick rather closely together though.

Would be good if each opponent had a slightly different driving ability.

That way they'd string out more, led by the best AI, followed by second and so on...

But hey I'm not going to even have opponents so your doing better than me already.

Thanks for trying it out.

Yep, thanks to no collision detection yet, they get very close I am hoping with the addition of collision detection and the resultant elastic collision will cause the AI cars to sort them selves out. If there is room i will attempt to introduce some randomness to the skills of seperate cars, but i dont think that will occur

Well i have the AI sort of done... but no physics implemented... i am not sure how i am going to shave the bytes  to get it all to fit in 4k....

I would love to see how your project has progressed.

[stephencarmody]

It sounds like you get a lot more time than me to work on your game.

I've tried harder the last few days, but I still don't seem to be getting anywhere.

The view panning is becoming a real headache.

I'll have another go tonight and post an update, no matter if its working or not.

[moogie]

for the moment yes, I have just started a new job and they dont know what to do with me yet while my clearance is transferred.

[stephencarmody]

Lucky bastard!

Ok it still doesn't work properly, but I had a small break through with the panning code tonight.

So as I said I'd do, i've updated it at http://stephencarmody.wikispaces.com/Racer4k

Don't laugh. In my mind it will all make sense in the end.

Oh yeah and the way in which that wiki returns the jnlp, it doesn't report an updated codebase. So either clear your webstart cache or just run the jar from the download link.

[moogie]

The panning does defintely add to the game. Pity my tile-based game means that I cannot easily perform zooming...

hmm... i wonder if i might be able to make a pseudo-panning mechanisme by generating discrete levels of zoom for all the graphics... It will probably blow out the byte cost imeplementing it...

[Anon666]

The panning does defintely add to the game. Pity my tile-based game means that I cannot easily perform zooming...

hmm... i wonder if i might be able to make a pseudo-panning mechanisme by generating discrete levels of zoom for all the graphics... It will probably blow out the byte cost imeplementing it...

It'll kill the fps (unless you are using the ogl pipeline), but you could just AffineTransform.scale everything?

[moogie]

The panning does defintely add to the game. Pity my tile-based game means that I cannot easily perform zooming...

hmm... i wonder if i might be able to make a pseudo-panning mechanisme by generating discrete levels of zoom for all the graphics... It will probably blow out the byte cost imeplementing it...

It'll kill the fps (unless you are using the ogl pipeline), but you could just AffineTransform.scale everything?

If i am going to go own that road i would pre-generate all the graphics... sure it may increase the memory use... but there was no limit on that was there?

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[stephencarmody]

No there is no limit on memory.

I render something like a 3000 x 3000 map scale to the current zoom.

[stephencarmody]

Ok moogie, don't know if your still checking this thread but anyway...

I've progressed some on my racer:

http://stephencarmody.wikispaces.com/Racer4k

How are you going with yours?

[moogie]

Ok moogie, don't know if your still checking this thread but anyway...

I've progressed some on my racer:

http://stephencarmody.wikispaces.com/Racer4k

How are you going with yours?

Looking good!

I have spent the last few days trying different combinations and tricks to reduce my JAR size..

So far i have removed the mini-map and reduced the car colours to only red and blue. And through many optimisations i have managed to get it down to 4106 bytes.  I may yet only have one colour car as i need to impelment the following:

- collision detection
- end of race condition and load next track
- off-of-road detection

I may have to remove one of the track types... i dont want to but i am definitely feeling the pinch in bytes.

[moogie]

I have managed to gain 95 bytes by various methods and in doing so found some interesting "quirks" which i did not know about java. e.g. the first 3 numerical varibles declared in a method are cheaper (in bytes) to access than the rest of the numerical values. This saved me 20 bytes when i made sure that my index variables (i,j) were declared at the top of my method.

The rest of the savings came from heavily reusing variables and changing the embedded map data from mutliple streams into on concatinated stream.


I have also improved the AI a little.

Now i should have room to implement the remaining features and i will be able to post the complete game.

[moogie]

Update

I have added preliminary collision detection and the AI is a "little" smarter... (not much tho)

*note* the latest jar has not been compressed down.

[stephencarmody]

Haha thats getting to fun to play.

I like how the cars shy away from you if your infront of them. I spent the entire lap just racing ahead then stopping and watching them avoid me at all costs :-) Then speeding up and repeating it all over again.

Could they drive a little faster?

Looking good though. Oh and whats the deal with the tiling...is the map essentially infinite in all directions? And also I noticed some weird effect on the left of the screen when driving to the right, sort of like a swirly pattern thing going on, but only when driving at top speed.

[moogie]

Yeah, it is fun making them run into you

The collision detection is still a little if-fy in that they still manage to drive over you eventually. Have to work on that. And it has the assumption that you will never have a head on collision as if you do the "bouncing" is incorrect. Also, you and the car colliding with you are faceing almost identical directions then the bouncing is almost non-existant, which probably causes them to be able to drive over you, This will need to be fixed

They drive flat out on the straight, but slow down to half speed on the long turns and quarter speed on the sharp turns, These figures are purely place holders, once i finalize the AI I will test to see what are the best values.

Also when the pseudo physics is added the type of road surface will effect their top speeds.

Thanks for the compliment, it has been a real challenge to save bytes! I am almost able to say that i will be able to fit all the functionaliy into the 4096 quota... i was not certian for a while there. I just hope i have room for multiple tracks as well!

The map is really only a maximum of 100x100 ( but the current track is nowhere near that size) if you go out of the map bounds there is nothing but grass. It is cheaper to do it that way than to have a boundry!

Yes i also notice the non-drawing of the tiles on the left edge if out side the map, the same occurs on the top edge, but I think i will leave that "feature" in as it does not detract from the game as you really should not be that far off the track

[moogie]

updated

I have "finalised" the collision detection and have mostly fixed the drive over each other bug, It still does it in extreme circumstances such as hard breaking.

for fun i have left my test settings in the updated version, that is, there are 25 opponent vehicles... it is funny to watch, especially at the end of the lap

[moogie]

UPDATED: more tracks

There are now multiple tracks to play, in order to get to these tracks you have to win all the previous races.

The opponents are now a little faster on the long turns and should be a little more difficult.

The final game will increase the number of opponents for race.

Does any one know if javagamefactory is offline? i wanted to try and make a webstart version, however i do not have a host which supports jnlp extensions.

[stephencarmody]

OI moogie! Wheres your entry?

I don't see it on the games list.

Unfortunately my time management skills or lack of, got the better of me for this contest.
All is not lost though, it just means i've now got a whole year to perfect my inaugural entry!

Hope the same hasn't happened to yours. I'm very interested in seeing the finished product.

---
Stephen

[moogie]

I am actually creating the jnlp file now...

I have managed to get it down to the required 4096 bytes. It has been Extreamly difficult shaving bytes. But i got there! phew!