LudumData

Spur of the Moment Racing by gemberkoekje

[raw]
made by gemberkoekje for LD 41 (COMPO)

Ever looked at racers on TV and jealous how they make those spur of the moment decisions?

Now you can do it too with Spur of the Moment Racing! Every second you set up your next move, so you have all the time in the world to make those spur of the moment decisions!

Features: - Time trial mode - Quick race mode - Laughable AI - Sound & Music - Time trial highscores - Minimap

Made in Unity + Visual Studio 2017 Community

Other programs used: - Images: Aseprite - Sounds: SFXR - Music: https://pernyblom.github.io/abundant-music/index.html

Post-Compo to-do list: - Change values based on keypresses - Qualifying - Replays - Ghosts - Improve graphics - Upload times - Level editor - Bezier curves - Physics on each wheel - Revisit physics - Time dilution: Determine what you do every 10th of a second orso - AI revisited/Machine learning - pit lane - Warmup/cooldown lap - Start lights - Simulation mode; rpm, clutch, gears, etc - Pit stops - Slipstreaming - Extra bonusses through the level - Timed inputs - Battle mode (weapons whuuut) - Multiplayer

Other (web) http://gemblog.nl/SpurOfTheMomentCompo/
Other (document) https://youtu.be/xER80XoEPEc
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/spur-of-the-moment-racing

Ratings

Overall 408th 3.292⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Fun 482th 3.042⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 113th 3.813⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Theme 36th 4.304⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 520th 2.804⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Audio 427th 2.568⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Humor 434th 2.386⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Mood 591th 2.45⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Given 26🗳️ 30🗨️

Feedback

Danby
23. Apr 2018 · 07:51 UTC
Cool idea and concept ai like the racer tracks
fashionbatman
23. Apr 2018 · 07:55 UTC
Great job! All the cars bouncing into each other and drifting around was hilarious!
🎤 gemberkoekje
23. Apr 2018 · 07:59 UTC
@danby Thanks :)
@fashionbatman Yeah, the AI is pretty laughable at times XD - I hope to have some time post-compo, I'd love to do some machine learning on this thing, let the AI flesh out itself!
Potondo
23. Apr 2018 · 08:00 UTC
This game is really fun! A very neat concept.

Just a minor point, but I found the checkpoints a bit too big and felt they obstructed the course a bit too much, especially some of the green at some of the curves. I also wish you could control the steering, gas, and brakes with keys instead of the mouse, just to make the game loop a bit faster. Just nitpicks really.

Great work!
Aterlamia
23. Apr 2018 · 08:04 UTC
Great game, i think it fits the theme pretty well. And i do like the "prediction" of your next turn else it would be very hard to actually play this.
🎤 gemberkoekje
23. Apr 2018 · 08:06 UTC
@potondo Thanks! For a post-compo version I want to do bezier curves, so that the whole grass&checkpoint issue is a bit less. The reason they are so big is because otherwise you'd get really annoyed at sharp-ish corners. I'll put controlling with keys on my post-compo to do list as well, great idea and thanks for playing!
ysty
23. Apr 2018 · 10:18 UTC
Really nice use of the theme. It turns out even with all the time in the world I still suck at racing games :P
Andreadbx
23. Apr 2018 · 11:14 UTC
Very innovative and fun entry! i think this could be even better with the feature to plan like 2 moves in a row :D
🎤 gemberkoekje
23. Apr 2018 · 11:36 UTC
@Andreadbx Is already on my post-compo to do list, but yes! Thanks!
eddynardo
23. Apr 2018 · 11:59 UTC
Wow, this was really fun to play, everything was fine until I crashed on another car XD
I loved the future prediction and the way the AI works is really funny!!! great job
ragnta
23. Apr 2018 · 12:21 UTC
I had have the same idea when I heard about the theme of LD. Unfortunatelly, I didn't design that, but I am very happy, because others can do it! Nice job!
🎤 gemberkoekje
23. Apr 2018 · 12:58 UTC
@ragnta Honestly, I've wanted to make this game for a long time. This LD & theme just gave me the perfect excuse to actually take the time to make it. And I'm glad I did!
niborious
23. Apr 2018 · 16:33 UTC
Really cool game. It would be cool if there were some smaller tracks to start new players off on. The races seem pretty long right now, and its hard to keep up for 3 laps around a long track.
The_Icy_One
23. Apr 2018 · 19:22 UTC
The tracks are quite fun, but as @niborious mentioned, 3 laps are a little long for what feels like a casual game to pick up and play, since that works out to about 150 simulations at minimum. The AI dodgems at the start of the game was also surprisingly exciting once I had the hang of the controls.
vkmicro
24. Apr 2018 · 03:58 UTC
I was looking to Turn based racing game(s) to come from this theme and here's the first 1 :D

This was super fun and i really enjoyed the projection of what your car will do based on the changes you make next turn. very cool mechanic

my only issue I had with the game is, the car you control does NOT stand out at all! One key thing about game design is making your character stand out, so that's the only suggestion i have for you honestly, make the player controlled character stand out from the others.

Other than that, super cool, very fun, very engaging and interesting. I definitely enjoyed this.
Nice sound effects too
and my favorite part is the projection of your cars movement next turn!
🎤 gemberkoekje
24. Apr 2018 · 08:33 UTC
@niborious @the-icy-one Thanks for your feedback. The basic issue is that the tracks are randomly generated, and I simply didn't think about creating a track with less nodes. One of my plans is a level editor, and then it'll be easy to make a simpler track!

@vkmicro One of my plans was different skins for the cars, but I ran out of time T_T. At least it's reasonably obvious from the fact that you're the only one extruding a ghost car, but I do agree that a simple circle under the car or anything would've been even more clear. Thanks for the feedback!
Darylsteak
24. Apr 2018 · 14:04 UTC
This was really fun and I enjoyed it very much, the only trouble was other cars crashing into each other, but that only adds to the experience. I also like that you had to plan ahead and anticipate how your car was going to move during each turn.

Overall, loved it
mrspeaker
24. Apr 2018 · 14:44 UTC
This worked surprisingly well! I kind of wish it was keyboard driven instead of mouse - I found that because it was annoying to constantly adjust the sliders I just stuck with modifying left and right - with gas full and break 0. If the sliders were keyboard controlled it would better.

Also, that music loop was a bit insane - though I have a sneaking suspicion it was composed by Math.random...

Those points aside - fantastic idea... I played this game for wayyy too long, and I think it's something you should keep building on!
🎤 gemberkoekje
24. Apr 2018 · 17:50 UTC
@Darylsteak Improving the AI would be one of my post-compo points, they're really dumb right now XD Thanks for the feedback!

@mrspeaker It's already on the list of post-compo points, so I'll definetly make a new version with some more keyboard controls. The music was made with the abundant music tool (see the original post) but I wanted to be high-tempo and arcadey. I succeeded in making it high-tempo! Thanks for the feedback!
TomekS
25. Apr 2018 · 05:26 UTC
Like the idea and actual gameplay. One way to improve the enemy AI is to actually prerecord the sequences of moves of you playing the track its a lot of manual labour but gives decent result. Or use machine learning but it will take some time to set it up. Well done.
🎤 gemberkoekje
25. Apr 2018 · 15:53 UTC
@TomekS That could work.. if my levels aren't all randomly generated (The 4 levels are simply based on a specific seed which made relatively-nice levels) and I prioritized other stuff for the weekend... For the post-compo though I really have some ideas how to make the AI really cool! Thanks for playing!
alferbayter
30. Apr 2018 · 21:22 UTC
Really innovative! The mouse controls were a bit clunky, would've preferred to use the keyboard. Very nice idea with the ghost car for showing the expected path.