Hi,
did you like the Light Cycle races in the TRON movie? There should be a game that takes the classic TRON formula and makes something fresh, lively and modern with it. That is what I am trying to create with this prototype. I have been inspired by Armagetron Advanced which is an excellent but stagnating light cycle game. I want to take it further by introducing new rules that explore the third dimension.
This really reminds me of the snake game added to GTA V Online. I really like how the camera is really far away from the ball, so that the slow camera turning doesn’t make the player disoriented in terms of where they’re going.
Although I can see some people still having some issues with how the camera works. Therefore an overhead camera mode could be something useful to consider.
With the speed the balls are moving at, I don’t think anyone is going to have time to even glance at the minimap (at least I wouldn’t), because they would be too focused on avoiding the lines. Although it would be good to be able to see what the map looks like at the end of each round.
The colors aren’t too bright, but vibrant enough for you to be able to tell the difference between everything, which is really important in fast paced games like this.
I also really like the kill streak system. It definitely adds an edge to the competitive side of things.
Best of luck on your project, I can’t wait to see what this evolves into. 
Looks neat. I would maybe like an even further-away and higher-up camera so that I can see a bit better what’s coming up ahead?
Thanks for your replies guys! I will work on the camera distance and angles, will also perhaps add it to the options menu for everyone to tweak.
Do you think this game is suitable for putting on Steam after some polish? What would be the most essential features it needs? (I am thinking AI opponents, curved grid, online play, original music… which of these is essential, not just nice to have?) Should this be a free game, or would it be appropriate to charge a small fee on Steam? Please let me know your thoughts.
It should either be free, or $3 max, your choice.
Out of all the stuff you listed, online play, and original music are essential. It would be hard to make a game of this type, fun without original music. Especially one that really fits with the surroundings. And while I’m on the subject of surroundings, 3D environments would be nice, like simple 3D levels, instead of a flat plane in the middle of space.
In a game with little gameplay, everything you mentioned is pretty much essential, or else the player(s) will get bored pretty quickly.
You should also add a points system, or a points mode, where you get points continuously, and bonus points for jumping over lines, turning very close to the lines, and stuff like that, to make people do risky stuff a lot more often.
And most of all, spawning and dying animations and sound effects.
Thank you Denis! Very sensible advice on what would make the game a more well-rounded complete experience.
I would really be curious how people feel about TRON and lightcycle games in general? What kind of expansions of the classic TRON formula would you like to see? I have expanded the classic formula with jumping, an open arena, acceleration and slowing down.
What would you be excited to see? Is TRON too basic to be exciting? What about TRON on curved surfaces, like spheres and donuts, as done in Cycleblob or Milksnake?
Here are some screenshots from Cycleblob:
…and from Milksnake:
A particle effect from a previous game I made. Working on making the TRON trails look like this.
Tile based AI work in progress:
I think the combination of those particles, inside an unusual shape like in the two games you mentioned, would be amazing. Because it would really add the edge to make the players pay more attention.
You could also make the trails have different levels of brightness on different levels, so that on some levels it just serves as an eye candy, while on others, it actually helps light up the level and show thew players, what the level looks like, as they play more and more.
Tron in itself is an extremely fascinating and very fun concept, the whole idea of light which can be used to destroy others, whether it’s attached to a Frisbee-like disk, or to a motorbike.
It’s definitely one of those concepts, that are so simple, yet so addicting. Much like flappy bird.
The way flappy bird kept people addicted, wasn’t for the fact that everyone wanted to get to the end. It was the random placement of the pipes, which forced the players to be focused non-stop.
You could do that in this. Add things which make the players put more attention to the level as a whole, maybe moving obstacles, like pillars moving from one surface, and into another.
I’m not saying make a Tron-Flappy Bird baby, I’m just saying add things that would cause the players to have to keep their focus up, more often.
Also, explore how music works on the brain (just in a general sense). Because although you might find a piece of music to be a cool addition to the game, it might make the players really stressed. For example, really fast paced music would be something that I personally would find quite stressful in a game like this. Mainly because it would slowly act up my ADHD, and listen to intense music and keeping up dodging things, would be too much for me. But I really think it will also apply to regular people.
Try combining different types of music and sound, with different levels, to create different feeling. For example, some levels might take place in complex shapes, and have very slow and soft sounding music, while others might be on simpler and bigger levels, but will have fast paced music, to act up the brain once there is little space to move for the players.
Thank you Denis, this is really helpful! It’s great to brainstorm these things. I agree that randomly placed pillars and holes (which are not the same thing in my game) could prove hugely exciting. Also thank you for your hint about music - I always had fairly fast retro-futuristic synthwave in mind, but slower music might actually calm people down. Thank you for mentioning these ideas.
I am gradually coding my way towards procedural generated level geometries. But for now, I am testing this new hand made level:
Laid the foundation for procedurally generated TRON grids. Here is a Sierpinski carpet:
A record high! Never had that many games in one session before. This was almost 350 games in about 1.5h playtime against my flatmate!
Here is a little test ride through the maze from the previous screenshot:
And here is some gameplay on a plain grid:
Here are some upcoming grid designs:
Playing the new grids is possible now. Here are two new grids in game form and matrix form:
Looking great so far!
Question, how did you make the matrix form images? From what I can see it looks like a really clever way of using MS Spreadsheet and graphs, but I’m 99% confident that I’m wrong.
Thanks Denis 
I am using Wolfram Mathematica, which is a massively powerful software for scientific computation of all sorts. The specific command is MatrixPlot.
Thanks to those for expressing interest and replying to this thread, it is good to know that there are a few more TRON fans out there!
An idea that I have been intrigued by recently are surface shaders. The tutorial video below was quite eye opening. The idea I expressed in a previous post - to run TRON on curved surfaces - seems to be best tackled with vertex shaders, just like in the tutorial video. It will take me quite some time to learn how to code vertex shaders, but in the long run I want to make my TRON run on a torus. I am not sure what that does to the gameplay but my inner nerd needs to see this. If anyone has insights on vertex shaders, knows great tutorials, or would like to warn me about rabbit holes please I would very much like to hear that.
Finally compiled a new build! It’s the first time that my game is ready to test on procedural placed tiles. Collision detection, jumping etc. all seem to work properly now. Will give it a good test with friends and hopefully record a short gameplay video in the upcoming weeks. Here is what it looks like for now:
A nice advantage of this tile based approach is that more things can be controlled by scripts instead of manual object placement. For instance, the confines box (which ends the game if any player leaves it) is now procedural controlled and its margin can be set in units of tile length. In this example, the margin on the XZ plane (which you can see) as well as the hidden Y plane is 2 tiles: