Rollator Racer mid-term demo, pics & demp

[Sijmen]

Rollator Racer school project

Yesterday we had the mid-term demonstration of our game to the school. This project is part of the 1-semester Game Technology course at Hogeschool van Amsterdam (http://hva.nl) (University of Amsterdam).

The game is a top-down race game featuring senior participants set in a residential home for the elderly called Theen.

http://a404.net/images/rollator_racer_midterm_small.png (http://a404.net/images/rollator_racer_midterm.png)

Playing the demo on large screen:
http://a404.net/images/rollator_racer_midterm_small.jpg (http://a404.net/images/rollator_racer_midterm.jpg)
(Left to right: tile/map artist + designer, item/weapon/hud artist, general artist, game tester.
Not on image: me, the other programmer, and another artist)


Download

Mac OS X 10.4 disk image (universal!) (http://a404.net/files/Rollator Racer Mid-Term Demo.dmg)

also available: Windows installer w/ editor (http://a404.net/files/Rollator Racer Mid-Term Demo.exe)


Controls (important!)

One of the key points of the game is the control scheme, which is a bit unconventional.

To stand still, hold the pointer in the center of the screen.
To accelerate, move the mouse up the Y axis
To decellerate, move the mouse down the Y axis
To turn, move the mouse along the X axis


Technology

The game is cross-platform. Game code is written in C++, using the OpenGL API for graphics.

Architecture overview:
http://a404.net/images/rollator_racer_arch.png
(Blended connections are same binary.)



Any comments or questions are appreciated.
- Sijmen

[AnotherJake]

A nursing home simulator, how interesting/weird!

- I would prefer arrow or wasd controls
- Your server connection speed is very slow here (like 4 to 6KB/sec)
- Is there any particular reason you didn't use SDL on the Mac version as well?
- You need to remember to copy your GLView to the window's backing store when the window gets miniaturize (minimized), so that you don't get the white window on miniaturize problem.
- Some sounds would be a great next step.

[Sijmen]

Hi, thanks for your reply.

A nursing home simulator, how interesting/weird!

- I would prefer arrow or wasd controls

That would be much easier, yes, but this was a deliberate choice. We want the controls to be difficult and unusual.

One gets used to the controls with time though :)

- Your server connection speed is very slow here (like 4 to 6KB/sec)

Yes, it's on my home server, sorry for that.

- Is there any particular reason you didn't use SDL on the Mac version as well?

Partially because we wanted Cocoa for the launcher anyhow (the actual 'launcher' is skipped in this build), but also as a learning experience.

- You need to remember to copy your GLView to the window's backing store when the window gets miniaturize (minimized), so that you don't get the white window on miniaturize problem.

Thanks for the tip!

- Some sounds would be a great next step.

Yup, working on that. Also coming:
- real races (with 'challenges', like NFSU)
- intelligent opponents
- weapons
- much better collision detection

[SladeinFull]

Maybe you could steal some steriods from the pill ward and go faster cause it is really slow.

[Fenris]

I too would have to submit that the control scheme is really, really annoying. It's very hard to find the center X to go forward, and very hard to increase speed without accidentally turning. I encourage you to find new and unique control schemes, but this just doesn't work. It was pretty OK to play with my Wacom tablet, but still annoying.

It might be easier to play if you add a larger "dead zone" in the middle (so that the center 100 pixels of the X axis is 0) but I doubt that would work. :-/

Other than that, I like the idea, and I really like the art direction. :)