(EDIT : Updated the image above to the latest loading screen - the text below is the orignal thread - latest updates in newest posts )
Hi all, I’ve been working for a few months on this and would be grateful for some feedback. Current target is Android, but you can try a WebGL Dev build here https://bittengames.com/brdev
What is it?
A fast paced, vertical scrolling, road/track building game in development for mobile devices
The driver is heading your way fast - you must build the road ahead as fast as you can whilst avoiding all obstacles in your way - and don’t let the driver reach the end of the line!
Current Features
Endless play.
Different vehicles : Cars, Trucks, Trains,
Different environments : Forest, Pine Forest, Snow Forest
Static obstacles, destructible.
Pick-ups - Dozers (let you destroy an obstcale), Coins.
Collectables will spawn in impossible to reach places - this is on the fix list.
Changes due to feedback:
The position of where the next track piece will go is confusing. I have a visual fix for this planned where there will be a short track piece under the cursor.
vv ## EDIT ## vv
I’ve moved the original screenshots from the first post to here, to keep the dev story and put more recent visuals first.
Been doing a lot of work on some underlying mechanisms with Buildy Road and adding some gameplay features.
Here’s a gif of a new pattern matching challenge that will occur in certain zones - the plan is to reward success with a score multiplier or additional power-ups/coins - here’s a first look
Updates:
Previous builds used arrays for tracking/culling all the obstacles/tracks/land pieces, etc, but this was proving more and more inflexible - so I’m trading a little performance by using colliders instead. This gives me much more scope for level design now.
Fixed - collectables appearing in inaccessible places.
Added - two types of moving platform and required death checking
Re-worked the procedural land generation - increased path choice in the more dense areas
Implemented a combo/pattern matching system as above.
Update the cursors to include a half-piece of the current track type - visually makes it clearer where the next track piece will go.
Looks good. I just think the graphics can use some changes.The shader should be a toon shader, as well as a more toon style as that looks like what you’re going for. Or if you wanna stay a little less toony, I’d highly recommend some more lighting on your textures, like this game. You can see it on most of the objects, including the trees specifically where there’s gradients…
Hi and thanks for the feedback - yes that should be on the list too
Fix shaders / make it look good !
I’m just using the basic mobile/diffuse shader with a palette texture for most things. I’ll have nose around and see if can find a better low-poly look… any suggestions anyone?
Al.
Been working on integrating a tile map system I created for the game into the routines for procedural land generation. This uses a Blob Tile approach I based on the info found here : http://www.cr31.co.uk/stagecast/wang/blob.html
So land can now be dynamically created/changed at runtime whilst remaining seamless - giving me scope for much more interesting environments now…
As you can see from the screenshots, I’ve used this system, combined with the moving platforms above, for creating water/rivers and also just some holes in the ground as a test. You’ll also notice that I’ve changed the shader to a flatter/more low poly feel, rather than the cartoony colours I had before… but this is till WIP.
Been working hard to finalise the tile map system to allow for infinite land creation within a small array of tiles, but that also allows for dynamic creation and destruction of the land in real-time. Had a few issues when the indices needed resetting but finally worked it out
Updates:
Tilemap system allows for dynamic destruction/creation on the fly.
Added falling rock obstacles to test the tilemap system.
Here’s a short gameplay video demoing the features so far.
Al.
I been busy re-configuring a few things behind the scenes with the game, as well as adding additional obstacles.
Here’s a gif of snowballs - appropriate with the weather we’ve just had in the UK!
Updates:
New Obstacle - snowballs!
New Obstacle - Floaty Ice… (same as floaty logs, just different model)
Reworked the land meshes. The dynamic creation/destruction was too obvious on the surrounding land prefabs - ie looked bad.
Standardised all the mesh UVs to use consistent textures palettes - reworked all UVs in the game!
Texture palettes can now be swapped out to give different looks using the same assets e.g. winter/summer/autumn
Introduced a random ‘decoration’ routine to give the land more interest. (Yer so purdy…)
Added basic shadow caster/receiver to my custom shader. It works much better than the mobile/diffuse shader - not sure why - even on my target mobile device (galaxy note 2 - yes, it’s old)
Thanks @carking1996 - As well as creating the shaders I also realised something was wrong with my lighting setup.
Annoyingly the main game lighting setup didn’t seem to work until I remembered that I was additively loading the main game scene - and the lighting wasn’t correctly set up up in the ‘loader’ scene - there wasn’t any ambient lighting at all which was giving everything too much contrast! Oh the simple things…
Today I’ve started working on a new environment - Desert. Here’s a couple of WIP pictures.
I think I’m almost there with the colour palette. I just need to create a full 3D tilemap for the big rocks/cliffs so that it’s not just a collection of rocky stacks, but a seamless plateau … oh and extend the tilemap / land build systems to work with tileable obstacles too…
I played it a couple of times, and it’s actually pretty fun, although I’ve got a few bits of feedback.
First it didn’t take long to load, but most of the loading was black screen and then the loading screen flashed up really quickly. After the game loaded it wasn’t super obvious what to do next. I ended up clicking on the car icon and selecting a car, but then nothing happened, as I didn’t realise I needed to click on the screen to start the game.
I feel like if you’re good at the game then you’ll usually be pretty far ahead of the vehicle, and if you die it takes a while for the vehicle to catch up, which can be a little bit frustrating.
Also I have no idea what the icon in the top right is. I collected 4 of them once, but not really sure what I can do with them.
But it’s definitely fairly addictively entertaining Keep up the good work, it’s looking really nice.
Hi Steve - thank you for the feedback - it’s great and glad you liked the game.
The loading screens are shortened in the web version just to get into the game quicker - the black screen was maybe the initial caching of the WebGL files… try it again and it should load quicker (if you haven’t cleared your web cache)
I will be adding a tap-the-screen icon and a tutorial to help at the beginning as I know it’s a little unclear.
The ‘dozers’ as I call them allow you destroy an obstacle rather than it destroy you - something I’ll include in the tutorial.
I have a couple of ideas about speeding up the ‘waiting to crash when game over’ situation… either bring up the retry menu as soon as it’s game over, or speed the car/time up into the crash - or maybe a button to allow the player to super speed the crash.
I’d highly recommend a new icon for the dozer… here I found one for you. Just make it your color scheme… yours looks like a duck that’s about to quack, right now.
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