Lone Racer by gwheel

[raw]
made by gwheel for Ludum Dare 47 (COMPO)

Compete in a race against yourself! After your first lap a ghost driver will appear matching your previous lap. Keep ahead of it to stay in the race. Each lap gives your car a slight stat boost.

Unfortunately I started a bit late, so no audio or fancy skid particles in the compo build.

Ratings

Overall 209th 3.586⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Fun 153th 3.638⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 239th 3.466⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Theme 203th 3.828⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 372th 3.241⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Audio 436th 2.596⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Given 32🗳️ 2🗨️

Feedback

Gilad Bar Ilan
05. Oct 2020 · 09:43 UTC
Nice game, liked the idea. It's too hard to drive with the car but out of that it's a great game!
marbles
07. Oct 2020 · 05:40 UTC
It's a nice idea. There's something with the drift though. If I start to drift it turns too much so I have to let go of the keys to make a "smooth" drift. Maybe it's just me.

I'm curious, how do you implement the ghost mechanic? How do you record your actions and play it exactly the way it had run?
🎤 gwheel
07. Oct 2020 · 15:13 UTC
The ghosts take snapshots of the player's position/rotation and move between them, they don't actually use any of the vehicle physics.
coderTrevor
08. Oct 2020 · 04:59 UTC
I've never raced a bumper car before, lol. At first I didn't understand why the background was shifting around but when I realized it was perspective changing I thought it was cool. I get experimental-art vibes from this. The controls are hard to get used to but once you do controlling the little car around is pretty fun, and bumping off the walls doesn't feel punishing even though it slows you down. Nice job!
gilborn
10. Oct 2020 · 08:26 UTC
Cool idea!

But your KI didn´t work well, the other drivers were not very good ;-)

Apart from jokes, really cool idea! I would have liked to turn more rounds, till the game ends :-)

Good job!
quadtree
20. Oct 2020 · 08:02 UTC
Nice one! The car physics were interesting, and required some strategy to make those turns.
LuckyFeathers
21. Oct 2020 · 20:24 UTC
Fun little racing game. I actually quite like the way the car drives. It's difficult, but not too difficult. Really wish my lap time was displayed though.
xatulu
21. Oct 2020 · 20:25 UTC
Fun little racing game, takes some getting used to. Definitely agree with @luckyfeathers on the lap times!
F1Krazy
21. Oct 2020 · 20:27 UTC
This is a neat little driving game. It actually requires you to be a bit strategic: you need to make enough mistakes that you'll be able to beat your ghost on the next lap, but not so many mistakes that the lap becomes unrecoverable and you're unable to catch up to the current ghost. The steady-escalating speed gives you an edge,

I don't know whether this is intentional or a glitch, but the walls sort of wobble and distort as you drive around. It's very distracting. I can try and record a GIF of what I'm talking about, if it would help. As for the audio, I think the engine noises in the updated version are actually worse than the silence in the compo version, as they're *very* grating.

I'd like to see a polished, updated post-jam version of this! It has a lot of potential.
Mykola
21. Oct 2020 · 20:29 UTC
It turned out to be quite fun! Even though I was terrible, it didn't matter because the opponents were even worse. Still managed to lose to my third self.

Some things to improve would be to make controls smoother, currently they're a bit too sensitive and hard to manage. I didn't quite understand why the walls were changing size.

Overall, well done!
AceArcher
21. Oct 2020 · 20:31 UTC
I liked it! The art style is fun (although the sudden flipping of sprites is a bit distracting) and being so zoomed out makes it easier to plan the turns. The car is a bit hard to handle, but I think that balanced out the difficulty level a bit. I'd say aside from the obvious (audio, cool particle effects), a drift mechanic might also add a bit more to the experience, but it's a very solid base that I hope you come back to and flesh out!
Skleembof
21. Oct 2020 · 21:09 UTC
Initially I hated the mechanics and planned on quitting after the first lap, but then my ghost appeared and I really really wanted to beat it for some reason.

So I went another lap and did pretty good. After I finished that lap my second ghost appeared and I was so proud of my performance that I wanted to beat it again after getting better.

This really captured the essence of a true racing game where you are fighting against the physics of the car, and against the rest of the competitors. In this case the other racers are past versions of you who had less experience with the controls and the tracks. Overall this was an unexpectedly fun and rewarding experience.

My biggest criticism was the audio. The engine sound effects were painfully sharp and I had to take off my headphones to enjoy the game.
cottontshirtz
21. Oct 2020 · 21:45 UTC
Love the drifty car handling, made the obstacle course much more fun to navigate!
stipple3D
22. Oct 2020 · 01:16 UTC
At first I didn't think I would be able to play it with the controls on the first few turns. But, by the end of the first lap I had the hang of drifting around corners ok. I REALLY like the ghost challenge, it adds just the right amount of replayability. Overall, very fun game, nice job!
pbootly
22. Oct 2020 · 10:05 UTC
This was fun, though I suck and 5 laps in it looked like the first pass of an AI traning with NEAT. Sort of thing I think if the turning was either a bit sharper or more slides/drifts and there was a solid background audio loop i'd sit and just zone in. Great job! :)