[Release] Lil racerz flash racing game

http://www.blastone.com/games/lilrac...ages/title.jpg

http://www.blastone.com/games/lilracerz/

Ive finally finished my lil racerz game! It now has Desert, forest and snow tracks. Its a sweet little top down racing engine built on top of the box2d physics engine for accurate collisions.

I rewrote the AI, and I have changed the operation so that ow youo need to win tracks to unlock new tracks and new cars.

- 6 Car types, Subaru Impreza, Ford Focus, Skoda Fabia, Mitsubishi Lancer, Toyota Celica and some bright orange Alfa Romeo with a barely discernible Yagermeister logo (mmmmm Yagermeister)

- Snow, Desert and Forest terrain, tarmac and dirt roads.

- Semi smart AI (Car ai is disturbingly hard to write)

Some screens:

http://www.blastone.com/games/lilrac...es/screen1.jpg

http://www.blastone.com/games/lilrac...es/screen2.jpg

http://www.blastone.com/games/lilrac...es/screen3.jpg

wow...very cool. I just played 2 dirt tracks, but it seemed like I could go as fast off the track as on, is that right?

they drive the same speed on and off the track. The functionality is there to penalise the driver for going off the road, but it annoyed me ;) and the way I figure it... they are rally cars, and from the times Ive hammered around in them I go as fast on road as off :D

AI's are horrible. Sorry, but it's true. It's very easy to come in first. But, you can't go fast, since the turning physics of it are pretty annoying for me...

Graphics on the other hand are amazing!
Sound is also very nice, and not repetitive.

You really need to work on the game play, so AI + car driving physics.

P.

The engine sound is awfull! Sorry to be so blunt, but that totally put the game off for me. I also would like to use more of a sliding style racing, as this is a rally game. When I put my car in reverse it would turn right in reverse, without me even pressing right.

I like the game FK, but it really needs some polish.

man I loved the art, the menu trasitions,
and liked the music.
dig your style,
But the game needs some balance, the ai sucks
It isn't challenging it rolls all around the place it doesn't look nice make it slow down when is off the tracks and make it try to avoid obstacles with some opposite gravity from every obstacle.

The background I don't know if it is my cpu but it shakes.

The camera is very uncomftorable try giving it some smoothness to see how it looks like.

it looks like you can fix everything except the ai in less than a day

Edit: a wasd and azerty options

TOdorus: Thanks for finding that reverse bug, Ive now fixed it and also added WASD keys as well thats another good idea.

Wasd keys cool, when do you think you'll have the ai working?

ps. If you recieved a different post sorry I confused treads for a second

Neverland: tell me more about your AI problems, they behave ok for me.

The AI for me will simply miss the first checkpoint, and then they just zip around in circles for the rest of the race for me. This is why I said your AI sucks, I'm sorry that I didn't specify exactly why.
On the dirt track, some of them just go straight for it, and others will turn away from it, and then try to turn into it, but miss. As I mentioned, they all start to circle around it from then on, and it's a matter of you taking time to finish the race and place 1st...

P.

ok, I cant replicate that one, so Id be interested to hear if its isolated or a common experience. What platform are you on, and if you hit the ~ key can you tell me what your frame rate it?

I'm on Windows XP SP2, 1.15Ghz, around 800MB memory, Firefox 2.0.0.2.
I'm hitting around 11 - 12 fps. But that's probably because of the graphics...for some reason my computer isn't too good at handling that. It's an older machine...though I'm getting a better one soon...

P.

what type of ai are you using are you using point to point, a total vector projection, or a dinamic thing with hittestpoints

Game is fantastic! A couple of points, though:

-There is a bug with starting a race, if you are holding the up key while entering the race, the message telling you to press up to start will stay on the screen. Happened to me twice, I finished the game.

-The first race is too hard in my opinion. Many of the other races were easier then the first (because of having the slow starting car). The only way I could win it was to take a shortcut based on the checkpoint positions.

-Just a small note, you should make the finish line checkpoint a different graphic, as in line it with black and white flags or something, so you know you are approaching it. Perhaps mark it on the minimap too.

Apart from that I thought it was a fantastic game, didnt get one AI bug the whole time.

the game needs th play around 30 fps to behave properly, I think thats why the ai is screwing up.

The ai uses a waypoint system, its a fairly involved beasty and includes slowing on tight corners as well.

Jok3r thanks for picking up those bugs, and for the suggestion... its a good one

Only getting around 10 fps here. (unplayable)
2.0 ghz, ATI 9800 Pro, Win XP, Firefox 3.

Hey Flashkit, I didn't really have any issues here. Seemed to play fine. P4 2.4ghz in firefox.

For us noobs, could you please tell us how you're rendering everything? For instance, are the cars display.sprites() or copypixels() or draw()? What about the background? If/when you have time.. thanks! ;)

cars are bitmapdata, objects, and everything else is too. I pretty well use copypixels for everything to squeeze out as much speed as possible.

http://www.blastone.com/games/lilrac...ges/celica.png

The background is made up of a background, and a forground all pasted together into a useable bitmap data object.

That kicks a$$! Thanks for the tech info. Very cool of you to do so. :)

@Flashkit: you can save ~ 75% of that large spritesheet by cropping to its smalest bounding box and by removing the last 1/2 of them as they can be copy mirrored via code.
I can PM you some specific tutorials regarding this I did for the project I once PM´d you about. Its basicly using Photoshop CS3+ (video frame edit features) and some general concepts.

Maybe send me the spritesheet without the white in the background so I can give it a try

sounds great :D Ive attached the alpha channel that I used on that sprite sheet, and please PM away more info is good info!

And if anyone wants to use this car in your own projects ....
feel free :D

I recently upgraded my computer...

OLD:
2.0 ghz AMD, Win XP pro SP1, 1 gb RAM, Firefox 3 = 10 frames per second

NEW:
3.2 ghz Intel, Win XP Home SP3, 2 gb RAM, Firefox 3 = mostly 29 frames per second