Steam The Race Factory | Top-Down Racing | On Steam/Xbox/Android

O.Stogden

Member
Hello everyone!


You can buy TRF on Steam & Xbox now, Play for Free on Android or download the demo on Steam!


Xbox: https://bit.ly/3zvtzQc

Android (Free to Play): Google Play Store

Discord Server: https://discord.gg/PPxj2R2Qek


Features of the full game:
  • 9 Vehicle Classes (Street, Sports, Super, Hyper, Karts, Formula, Trucks, Boats, Busses)
  • 27 Prebuilt Tracks
  • 3 Prebuilt Battle Arenas
  • Track & Battle Arena Editor, with Steam Workshop support for sharing tracks
  • 12 Game Modes (Race, Elimination, Drift, Zen, Infection, Pass The Bomb, Hold The Gold, King of the Hill, Return the Flag, Time Trial, Cops & Runners, Kill Trail)
  • 1-4 Player local multiplayer
  • Online Leaderboards for Time Trials

Controls:
  • WASD - Drive
  • Left Thumbstick - Steer
  • RT - Accelerate
  • LT - Brake
  • E, A(Xbox) - Fire Weapon
  • F, L3 - Toggle Headlights
  • R, Y(Xbox) - Reset Car
  • Editor controls are shown upon entering editor
  • SHIFT/CTRL - Gear Up/Down

I hope you enjoy, any feedback is welcome.

You can follow me on Twitter to keep up to date with developments.

 
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S

SamSam

Guest
Hey,

The gameplay is very promising. The handling of the car was hard at first, but once I got the hand of it, it began to be really fun. I built a round track and just had fun drifting around.

I think the game will really be cool with the gamefeel features, like powerful motor sounds, screen shakes and particles. Even maybe a camera that zooms in and out depending on the speed or when you are dealing with traps.

Maybe a first level with walls near the road would be a good thing. I may prevent new players from completely get out of the track and get frustrated since the AI is pretty hard to beat.

Are you going to leave the possibility to turn around while not going forward like a tank ? If you do so, you'd maybe want to change the car skins for something more fictional, to avoid gameplay/universe inconsistency.

Good luck !
 

O.Stogden

Member
Version 0.1.1 has been uploaded, changelog in the spoiler below.

-----------------------------------------
0.1.1 - Released 18th January 2019
-----------------------------------------
ADD: Sakura Tree added to editor.
ADD: 1 new track added. (Thanks SamSam)
CHANGE: Strength of brakes halved. (Thanks Naxirian)
CHANGE: Map is now changed by clicking the "change map" button in lobby, not the map preview.
CHANGE: Level select buttons have increased in size to accomodate larger track names.
FIX: Diagonals no longer crash when placed in the track editor.
FIX: Ambulance no longer crashes the game when saving a track in the editor.
FIX: You can no longer push ambulances.
FIX: Elimination mode should no longer crash at the end of rounds.
FIX: Changing pages in level select when having a large amount of tracks now works.
FIX: Fixed a crash that could happen when saving a track with no corners.
FIX: You can no longer save empty tracks, at least 1 track piece must be placed.

The gameplay is very promising. The handling of the car was hard at first, but once I got the hand of it, it began to be really fun. I built a round track and just had fun drifting around.
I'm glad you enjoyed it, the car is supposed to be a little difficult to drive, I wanted drifting to be a core part of the game, rather than just a realistic racer. So judging the angle to approach corners and how much you need to steer to get around the corner fast are some of the main mechanics.


SamSam said:
I think the game will really be cool with the gamefeel features, like powerful motor sounds, screen shakes and particles. Even maybe a camera that zooms in and out depending on the speed or when you are dealing with traps.
Very much agree, the weapons need more work on the particles to show you've been hit, as sometimes it's not always clear. And some effects and camera movement would really help the sense of speed I think. Thanks.

SamSam said:
Maybe a first level with walls near the road would be a good thing. I may prevent new players from completely get out of the track and get frustrated since the AI is pretty hard to beat.
A new version of the game (0.1.1) has been uploaded, it contains a new track which might help. Although I think now I should have built it a bit wider, but it does have walls to prevent you from flying off into the trees.

SamSam said:
Are you going to leave the possibility to turn around while not going forward like a tank ? If you do so, you'd maybe want to change the car skins for something more fictional, to avoid gameplay/universe inconsistency.

The turning while stationary will probably stay in, as I think it helps you get out of tricky spots, going for a realistic turning circle would cause problems given the games arcadey style I think. However I'll bear it in mind and have a look at similar games in the genre to see how they handle it.
 

O.Stogden

Member
Hey everyone,

0.1.2 and 0.1.3 were released today, 0.1.3 after some bugs were introduced with 0.1.2.

They're available to download at the usual place.

Here's the changelog for the two versions:

-----------------------------------------
0.1.3 - Released 19th January 2019
-----------------------------------------
FIX: Fixed crash when attempting to test/create path in editor.
FIX: Spawn positions correct for any oriented startline.
FIX: If editing a completed track, couldn't create a path for it.
-----------------------------------------
0.1.2 - Released 19th January 2019
-----------------------------------------
ADD: Lighting system has been added to the game.
ADD: Headlights have been added to cars. Press F to toggle.
ADD: Weapons now have lighting associated with them.
ADD: Weapon pads now have lighting.
ADD: Time of day selection has been added to lobby.
FIX: Not every tree is a Sakura tree.
FIX: Game could think there was 1 additional player.
FIX: Crash related to unimplemented gamemode in split-screen.
FIX: P1's screen should now be displaying correctly in split-screen.

The most noticeable introduction was the addition of a lighting system, which has allowed me to add a Time of Day option to the lobby, meaning all tracks can now be played at Dawn, Day, Dusk or Night.

Other notable fixes are that starting lines can now be oriented any direction and they'll work, and split-screen is now working again, not sure how it got broken without me noticing.

If you encounter a bug in these new releases, I'd be very grateful if they're reported, and any criticisms you have are more than welcome.

Here's a couple of screenshots of the new lighting system:



 

O.Stogden

Member
Just a note to say I am aware of the crash that happens after a race in the 0.1.3 build. There are also a couple of issues with gamepad controls right now, such as activating the weapon cooldown when you have no weapon, no way of toggling headlights and inability to use the pause menu. These have all been fixed in 0.2.0, which will be the next release.

0.2.0 is mainly a sound update, and will add sound effects to the game, engine and tyres, and will also add positional audio, which will mean you won't hear the AI firing a weapon from the other side of the track. This is taking a bit longer as I can't use the GMS audio emitter system, as that doesn't work very well when you have split-screen games. The volume of music has been slightly lowered as I thought it was a bit over-powering.

Brake lights have also been added to the game, and lights are now properly destroyed along with the car they belong too.

There will be an additional track included in the next release.

I plan on releasing 0.2.0 this weekend, or early next week.

I would still be grateful of anyone playing 0.1.3, despite the after-race crash, to let me know what they think of the game so far.
 

O.Stogden

Member
Hello everyone!

The 0.2.0 update is here, primarily focusing on sound!

It is, as always, available to download HERE!

A bunch of things were added, changed and fixed, perhaps most importantly, positional audio was added, so the volume of audio drops off as the source of the sound gets further away from the player. I had to make my own script for this as the audio emitter system doesn't really work well for split-screen games, so it took a little longer than I thought.

Also there was a lot of fixes, including all of the fatal crashes that I am currently aware of, so it should be a much more stable experience.

Full changelog here:

-----------------------------------------
0.2.0 (The Sound Update) - Released 25th January 2019
-----------------------------------------
ADD: Added car engine sound.
ADD: Added tyre skidding sound.
ADD: Brake lights added.
ADD: Positional audio for all sounds, and working in split-screen.
ADD: New sound effect for clicking menu buttons.
ADD: New sound effect for hovering over menu buttons.
ADD: 1 New Track Added.
ADD: Basic background added for Neon environment tracks.
CHANGE: Volume of music lowered slightly.
CHANGE: Volume of all sounds increased slightly.
CHANGE: Music volume is changed in real-time as you adjust.
CHANGE: Skidmarks are now aqua instead of black on Neon environment tracks.
FIX: Fixed a crash upon returning to lobby.
FIX: Lights are now properly removed with the car.
FIX: Gamepad users can now toggle headlights with left thumbstick.
FIX: Gamepad users can no longer trigger weapon cooldown when having no weapon.
FIX: Cursor is no longer visible during race.
FIX: Keyboard player can no longer toggle other cars headlights.
FIX: SFX and Music volume sliders should now show correct volume.
FIX: Buttons in the editor should now play sound when clicked.
FIX: Change map button now plays sound when clicked and highlights when mouse is over it.
FIX: All sounds are now properly adjusted with the sound volume.
FIX: Pausing now stops sounds.
FIX: Skidmarks are no longer displayed above cars.
FIX: UI now correctly positioned in mid-tournament level select.
FIX: Tournament standings image no longer cuts off part of tournament standings table.

1 new track has also been added to the game, using the Neon track environment for the first time. It's not quite where I want it to be visually yet, the track pieces don't align quite as well as I'd like, and the background is basic as I've been trying to find a background that fits in with the Neon theme whilst not being hard on the eyes. So it's something I'll improve over the coming updates.

Here's a screenshot of the new track (during nighttime):


Future 0.2.# game versions will be focused on improving the current feature set.

0.3.0 is planned to be an update to the track editor, to make it easier and more user-friendly, as well as fixing some bugs that are definitely present there.

Any feedback is much appreciated!
 
W

Walky

Guest
Nice!, I love old-style racing games like Super Speed and Super Off Road.

Some feedback:

- I do feel something's off with the controls. Maybe changing the car's rotation speed based on forward speed or on how "drifty" the car is might help? I think that might give the car more weight. Continuous rotation at the same speed feels a little like a spaceship sometimes.

- Another thing to try would be differentiating front/back wheels drifting and move the rotation center proportionally to the front or back of the car accordingly.

- Not an expert on drifting mechanics so take the above suggestions with a grain of salt.

- Brake lights would look nice and feel like additional car feedback (I though they were already implemented, but I can't see them in 0.2.0).

- On the neon track, the car's lights could leave neon traces.

- The player controls selection overlay becomes invisible after coming back from the options menu or track editor (but it still works).

- Any way to control player 1 with a gamepad? It's automatically assigned to player 2.

- Is there a particular reason why analog controls only allow for two rotation speeds instead of being proportional?
 

O.Stogden

Member
- I do feel something's off with the controls. Maybe changing the car's rotation speed based on forward speed or on how "drifty" the car is might help? I think that might give the car more weight. Continuous rotation at the same speed feels a little like a spaceship sometimes.

- Another thing to try would be differentiating front/back wheels drifting and move the rotation center proportionally to the front or back of the car accordingly.

- Not an expert on drifting mechanics so take the above suggestions with a grain of salt.
Thanks, I had it like this and decided to keep so that you and the AI could get out of a situation where you were facing an object, as there's currently no way to reverse and I never got around to adding it. But I will add reversing in the next update and look at changing the drift physics.

- Brake lights would look nice and feel like additional car feedback (I though they were already implemented, but I can't see them in 0.2.0).
An oversight on my part, they are implemented if you press F (or left thumbstick) or you play a track at night time where your lights are turned on. However they are invisible if your lights are turned off currently, even when braking.

- On the neon track, the car's lights could leave neon traces.
Neon tracks are very much a work-in-progress, as I mentioned in the previous post, even the track pieces aren't final. I'm also looking into rewriting the lighting engine so I can get the track pieces to light up in the dark, as it doesn't look right when playing at night time. I changed the skidmarks from black to aqua so they looked more futuristic, and I'll play around with light trails to see if they could work. Thanks.

- The player controls selection overlay becomes invisible after coming back from the options menu or track editor (but it still works).
Yes, I keep noticing this and always forget to make a note of it, it'll be fixed in 0.2.1. Thanks!

- Any way to control player 1 with a gamepad? It's automatically assigned to player 2.
Player 1 is assigned the keyboard at launch so people can just go ahead and play and not get confused about having to join. If you press ESC on the keyboard (Should say so at the bottom) it should drop you out so there's 0 players. Then press A on the gamepad you want to use and it should set Player 1 to use that gamepad. The menus will then be controlled by the analog stick and the A/Cross buttons.

- Is there a particular reason why analog controls only allow for two rotation speeds instead of being proportional?
The analog controls are proportional. There is a deadzone applied however so the steering starts at about 30% and it's probably hard to tell much difference beyond that point, this is because Xbox 360 controllers have very poor centering and if you don't have a fair amount of deadzone they'll steer on their own, I had to apply an overly generous amount to make them work well. PS4 and XBO controllers probably fair much better, and I will try lowering the deadzone and adjusting the code to find a good balance.

Thanks for all that feedback!
 
W

Walky

Guest
I tried again and, indeed, it's analog just as you said, sorry for the confusion. Starting at 30% seems like a bit too much for fine controls, though, but I'm sure you'll find a good balance (I'm using an XBox 360 controller).

Thanks for the clarification on how to change the controls, I'm on a 768p screen so the bottom overlay was not fully visible at first, and when going to the options menu to change to fullscreen it was gone.

BTW, I noticed that when using the gamepad with Player 1 the mouse cursor doesn't update (it's invisible but it works), this doesn't happen with Player 2.

Have you considered a "reset car" button in case the player gets stuck?
 

O.Stogden

Member
Thanks for the clarification on how to change the controls, I'm on a 768p screen so the bottom overlay was not fully visible at first, and when going to the options menu to change to fullscreen it was gone.
Thanks for this note, I only have a 1920x1080 screen, and haven't really tested on other resolutions. My friends use 2560x1440, so again, this hasn't cropped up in my private testing.

BTW, I noticed that when using the gamepad with Player 1 the mouse cursor doesn't update (it's invisible but it works), this doesn't happen with Player 2.
I hadn't noticed this, however some code was changed to make the cursor invisible during the race and a lot of adjustments were made to gamepad controls, it's possible something went wrong in the process. I'll have a look.

Have you considered a "reset car" button in case the player gets stuck?
I hadn't until now, but I'll add it in the next update. I'll also make the AI respawn, as currently they can get a little stuck on trees.

Thanks a lot for all your suggestions and notes, very helpful.
 

O.Stogden

Member
Just an update on progress so far, rather than a new release.

Ok @Walky , all of your suggestions except the light traces on Neon tracks have been added to the game or changed.

As for the cursor being invisible when switching to gamepad controls, I believe this is because you were playing in windowed mode and your mouse was probably not over the game window when you switched to gamepad, thus obj_cursor was outside of the visible area and you couldn't see the cursor. This is what happened to me anyway, but the cursor can no longer leave the game window, so it should be fixed.

I have rewritten how the physics works, turning strength is lowered at very (very) low speeds, and prevents turning when stationary, and quickly builds up as you reach a low speed, then as you reach a high speed, it begins to fall off. This means you may need to reduce your speed a little to tackle corners in the next release. Also when you're not accelerating, the car can still turn a bit and take corners, instead of just drifting off. This isn't a viable way to corner, as the game is built around drifting, but it does look a bit more realistic than before.

To account for all of these changes, the AI now calculates the angle of the turn it needs to do, and will brake to adjust its speed accordingly, meaning it should fly off the track less and it seems to improve their lap times a little.

A reset button has been added, mapped to R for keyboard users and Y/Triangle for gamepad, it'll reset you to your last valid track position (last track piece you were on before skipping/falling off the track). AI will now also use this feature, if they haven't been able to move for the past 2 seconds, they'll reset themselves. This greatly reduces the AI getting a DNF result from getting stuck on a tree. You are ghosted out from collisions for 2 seconds after a respawn.

Gamepad deadzone I found out was actually set at a ridiculous 50%, I'm not sure why I had it set to this. It has now been reduced from 50% to 20%, and it handles much nicer with a gamepad now. Braking was also for some reason either 0% or 100% when using a gamepad, it will now activate from 10% to 100%, same as acceleration.

Some lighting and sound errors are also fixed, such as brakelights being invisible with the headlights off, and tyre squeals happening when you're driving off road. Player selection is now always visible when in the main menu or lobby.

Just posting this update here as I won't be releasing this version right now. 0.2.0 seems to be reasonably stable, despite a few bugs that I'm aware of, so I don't feel the need to rush an update out unless a fatal error is reported.

Because of this, I'll skip the 0.2.1 release, and the next release will be 0.3.0. The 0.3.0 release was meant to be an update to the track editor, as it contains some buggy objects, and isn't very user-friendly. However I feel an update to the AI is necessary for people to truly be able to build what they would want to in the editor. So 0.3.0 is likely going to be an AI update, with 0.4.0 being the editor update.

Feedback is still welcome on 0.2.0, especially for features you'd like to see added.
 

O.Stogden

Member
I've decided to upload 0.3.0 now as the physics update. I was going to wait, as I said above, but I feel like the change in physics and the slightly improved AI and bug fixes are worth a release.

0.3.0 can be downloaded here!

Also the next update will be a while after this, I'm making a racing line editor in the track creator, so once you've specified the track order by driving the track in the path editor, you can then manually adjust the racing line to optimize it how you like. This is especially important if you want to put obstacles ON your track, as right now the AI pathing is very simple and just follows path points placed in the center (or on the inside of corners), which means they'll hit straight into tyre walls placed in the middle of the track for example.

However this is obviously going to take a bit of time to add, and means modifying the current pathing system and adding a whole new system in for moving path points, having multiple path points per track piece, inserting track points in the middle of the path (if you want a part of your track to have more complex AI than the rest). I'm also adding a feature to allow you to specify a speed that the AI should aim for at specific parts of the track. If you have a tight chincane for example, you may want them to travel at a lower speed so they can successfully navigate it.

You will still need to make the AI follow the track, as if you skip track pieces, the positioning system and anti-cheating system will kick in and they will not be able to finish a race.

Without any further a-do, here's the changelog for 0.3.0, which is available to download now, HERE!

-----------------------------------------
0.3.0 (Car Physics Update) - Released 29th January 2019
-----------------------------------------

Car physics have been completely reworked.

ADD: Reset button added, R on keyboard, Y/Triangle on gamepad. (Thanks Walky)
ADD: AI reset if no movement detected in 2 seconds.
ADD: AI now brake if entering a tight corner at high speed, results in more consistent AI.

CHANGE: Volume of tyre squeal is now affected by speed.
CHANGE: Gamepad deadzone lowered from 50% to 20%. (Thanks Walky)
CHANGE: Default display mode is now fullscreen.
CHANGE: Braking with gamepad is now analog.
CHANGE: Brake values adjusted.

FIX: Tyres now only squeal when on tarmac.
FIX: Cursor is now locked to screen, prevents invisible cursor when using gamepad. (Thanks Walky)
FIX: Brake lights now visible even when headlights are off. (Thanks Walky)
FIX: Brake lights now visible when braking with gamepad.
FIX: Player selection now always visible in main menu and lobby. (Thanks Walky)
 
W

Walky

Guest
Nice! the handling is much better now.

I found a few bugs:

- I got the following error after playing with a gamepad and pressing the spacebar when the race was finished:

Variable obj_gamestate_hud.poslisthuman(100994, -2147483648) not set before reading it.
at gml_Object_obj_gamestate_hud_KeyPress_32

- Spamming the car reset button reduces the max speed. Spamming it more reduces it to crawl levels.

- I can move the cursor with the analog stick, but it's only visual. UI is triggered by an invisible, mouse-controlled cursor.
 
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O.Stogden

Member
- I got the following error after playing with a gamepad and pressing the spacebar when the race was finished:

Variable obj_gamestate_hud.poslisthuman(100994, -2147483648) not set before reading it.
at gml_Object_obj_gamestate_hud_KeyPress_32
Finally managed to replicate this by pressing "A" on the gamepad on the race results screen, then switching to pressing SPACEBAR on the keyboard on the tournament standings screen. That variable isn't initialized or used on the gamepad, and it is initialized and used when using the keyboard, so it causes problems if you switch between the two on those 2 screens. I'll get it fixed, but should be fine if you use the gamepad or keyboard for both the results and the standings screen.

- Spamming the car reset button reduces the max speed. Spamming it more reduces it to crawl levels.
This was a known bug and I had fixed it, but only for keyboard users. There's supposed to be a 2 second cooldown on the reset, you shouldn't be able to respawn while you're ghosted out, however it seems I forgot to add the cooldown code to the gamepad, meaning you can reset over and over and multiply the physics properties, which means the friction and weight of the car becomes very high.

If it hasn't become apparent by now, I do most of my testing on the keyboard, and I don't always remember to test the gamepad controls out, glad you're catching these. Will make sure to test the gamepad controls a bit more thoroughly next time.

- I can move the cursor with the analog stick, but it's only visual. UI is triggered by an invisible, mouse-controlled cursor.
The orange cursor you move will click on buttons if you press the A button on your 360 controller. However it is only an object, the invisible mouse can still be moved around as that's part of Windows, and I can't really stop that, however I will add code to stop the invisible mouse from clicking on or highlighting objects when P1 has selected gamepad as their input, to make sure that the gamepad is the only actual way to control the game.

Thanks for the feedback, I'll get on fixing these and have a bugfix out for the weekend.

EDIT: 0.3.1 is out now, available to download at the usual place, changelog below:

-----------------------------------------
0.3.1 - Released 31st January 2019
-----------------------------------------
REMOVE: Removed incline/decline track pieces from the editor.
REMOVE: Multiple redundant sprites/sounds removed to improve file size and loading times.
CHANGE: Changed how the game is packed.
FIX: Gamepad users can no longer spam reset, fixes car physics bug. (Thanks Walky)
FIX: Crash that could occur on the race results/tournament standings screen (Thanks Walky)
FIX: Buttons now play hover sound when hovered over in gamepad mode.
FIX: Buttons now highlight when hovered over in gamepad mode.
FIX: "Invisible mouse" removed, the cursor is the only object that can control menus (Thanks Walky)
FIX: Map preview in level select now finally works for gamepad users.
FIX: Bug that could occur when entering track builder as a gamepad user, prevented further gamepad input.
 
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O.Stogden

Member
Hey everyone.

Just a quick update as I haven't posted in almost a week.

I had created a new dynamic AI pathing system during Friday and Saturday, however by Saturday night I realized that although it had the nice function of being dynamic and adjusting itself, meaning track creators didn't need to create their own racing lines, it ended up just being too inaccurate, and when dealing with even basic chicanes/slaloms, it kept hitting the walls.

So during Monday and today, I've been working on the original plan. You still drive the track to create the track order, which will place basic path points on the track that the AI will aim for.

However now, when in the path editor mode, you can click on path points to move them around, you can also click on the line connecting the two points in order to insert a path point and create a more complex path, such as if you want a corner to have 4 path points instead of just the default 1, if it requires the AI to be a specific point in the corner in order to tackle the next part of the track for example.

There is also a speed adjustment UI element added to the path editor, which means when you have a path point selected, you can choose a number between 0-100, how fast the AI should approach that point. Setting it to 50 for example, would mean the AI would drive at half speed at that point, which is useful if you're preparing for a tight or complex part of the track, where the AI need to be slow to tackle it.

I'll also be revamping the editor in general, making it easier to use, adding more features, fixing bugs, and allowing AI in the test mode, so you can test your racing lines without having to save and then enter a proper race through the lobby.
 

O.Stogden

Member
Just another update on the track builder update coming next.

I've pretty much finished adding the new system, it just needs a couple of UI bugs sorting out and it's probably ready to be released, hopefully this weekend.

Here's some stats for you:

OLD AI (The preset AI before you edit Path Points):
⦁ Neon Raceway Best Lap: 39.0
⦁ Neon Raceway 5 Lap Average: 3:19.0

⦁ Sakura Raceway Best Lap: 23.0
⦁ Sakura Raceway 5 Lap Total: 2:00.5

⦁ Track 1 Best Lap: 26.5-27.0
⦁ Track 1 5 Lap Total: 2:25 or so

⦁ Track 2 Best Lap: 30.5
⦁ Track 2 5 Lap Total: 2:42ish, although most AI DNF

NEW AI (I spent about 5 minutes or so editing the path points for each track):
⦁ Neon Raceway Best Lap: 38.3
⦁ Neon Raceway 5 Lap Total: 3:16.0

⦁ Sakura Raceway Best Lap: 22.7
⦁ Sakura Raceway 5 Lap Total: 2:00.0

⦁ Track 1 Best Lap: 25.5
⦁ Track 1 5 Lap Total: 2:15.5

⦁ Track 2 Best Lap: 25.5
⦁ Track 2 5 Lap Total: 2:16ish, all AI finished.

As you can see, when I manually edited the path points, as well as adding in some new ones for more complexity, the AI performed better on all 4 tracks currently in the game.

Sakura Raceway sees the least benefit, because driving around the track and bouncing off the walls is a valid way to go fast, although it has the risk of spinning you out if you hit the wall at a poor angle.

Neon Raceway is pretty much a flat out circuit, very wide track, sweeping corners, so manually editing path points doesn't help much here, all that I managed to improve on was stopping the AI cutting a corner quite so much and hitting an inside wall, which lowered their lap times by approx. 0.7 seconds.

Track 1 and 2 however are different, these tracks both have tight/technical parts to them, which is what the new pathing system is made to help with.

Track 1 features 2 sets of 4 corners in quick succession, in the old system, the AI frequently went off into the trees and got stuck or at least were slowed down. This does still happen on occasion, as it's a tight track with lots of cars, but now we can lower the target speed of the AI at certain parts of the track, I've made them slow down for the corners, meaning they're much more in control, and generally stay on the track, this means that they get stuck less.

Track 2 saw a massive improvement. Track 2 is a fairly large track, and is very tight throughout, using the new pathing system, I was able to bring the path points closer to the inside of the corners, this meant the AI drifts tighter into the corners, and doesn't skid off the outside of the track, as it was frequently doing. 2 points of the track have lowered speed targets, these are at the end of the 2 straights, as the AI were flying into the corners and skidding off the track, now they slow down and take the corners usually without going off-road. This dramatically cut down on the DNF's happening from cars being stuck in the trees. It took about 6 or 7 minutes to edit the points, and it lowered the average lap time for AI by 5 seconds.

There are also some quality of life improvements to the editor as well. The help page for instance, only shows for the first time this boot, so it won't reappear everytime you load a track in the editor, or exit the editor to play a track and then re-enter.

You can now use the mousewheel to zoom in/out whilst in the editor. Holding SHIFT also makes the camera move faster in the editor.

The maximum track size has increased from roughly 5000x4000 to roughly 12000x12000, perhaps we'll see a new track take advantage of this?

Testing tracks in the editor now spawns AI, so you can see how they handle the track without having to leave the editor. Weapons are disabled when testing. And a few bug fixes related to testing too.

I noticed in 0.3.1, that you can't actually control the menus in fullscreen, this has been fixed, but it does make 0.3.1 difficult to access.

And a ton of other bug fixes, mainly related to the editor, but also some lighting and UI fixes too.

I should have the new version out by Sunday, a full changelog will be posted then.

If you wish to play 0.3.1 and are stuck in fullscreen, navigate to: C:\Users\>usernamehere<\AppData\Local\The_Race_Factory and open data.ini, then change Fullscreen=1 to Fullscreen=0
 

O.Stogden

Member
Hey everyone,

I quietly released 0.4.0 yesterday, however I found some bugs within a few minutes of release, so decided not to make a post and try and fix these bugs before announcing the update, so the version now is 0.4.1.

DOWNLOAD IS AVAILABLE HERE FOR V0.4.1

This contains a massive update for the track editor, mainly the ability to modify AI racing lines, as well as more than doubling the maximum track size, meaning you can make some huge tracks. A track concept is available to drive in 0.4.1 which shows off the new track size. Also a ton of bugs within the editor were fixed, although I am aware of a couple that remain, such as the "name track" dialog box not following view properly when zoomed out.

Quality of life improvements also featured, you can now zoom out in the editor using the mousewheel, you can hold SHIFT when moving the camera to increase how fast the camera moves, when an AI racing line is set, AI will now drive the track while you're testing, to let you see how well they handle the racing line. Pressing CTRL during testing lets you toggle which car you're looking at, so you can always keep an eye on the AI as they drive your track.

Aside from this, all 4 tracks that were in the game have had their racing lines optimized using the new editor, as explained in my above post, and the Nitro weapon and boost pads have changed a little, so when used, they boost you in the direction you're pointing, rather than in the current direction you're sliding.

Here's the full changelog for 0.4.0 and 0.4.1:

-----------------------------------------
0.4.1 - Released 9th February 2019
-----------------------------------------
ADD: 8 cars are now in the game. Currently randomly assigned to players.
ADD: Added a concept of a large track using the new editor abilities.
FIX: Fixed a bug related to the pathing system when in a race.
FIX: Fixed a positioning bug caused by the new pathing system.
FIX: Fixed a crash related to loading a level with no path points.
FIX: Fixed unclickable UI buttons related to zooming in editor.
-----------------------------------------
0.4.0 (Track Builder Update) - Released 8th February 2019
-----------------------------------------
ADD: Added the ability to add/remove/move path points in the track editor.
ADD: Added the ability to set a target AI speed for path points.
ADD: Added a little border to some of the editor HUD.
ADD: AI will now work while testing in the editor when the track has an AI path.
ADD: Holding "SHIFT" makes the camera move faster in the track editor.
ADD: You can now zoom out (mousewheel) to 20% when in the track editor.
ADD: You can now press CTRL while testing in editor to change which car is being viewed.
REMOVE: Wall objects, except tyre walls, have been temporarily removed from the editor until their collisions can be fixed.
CHANGE: Track builder now uses same cursor as rest of game.
CHANGE: All 4 tracks have had their racing lines optimized.
CHANGE: Buildable area in the track builder more than doubled.
CHANGE: Changed the grid in the editor to be a bit nicer.
CHANGE: Updated help page in editor with new information.
CHANGE: Editor help page is no longer shown everytime you enter the editor, only the first time each boot.
CHANGE: Nitro & Boost Pads now boost you in the direction you're facing, rather than direction you're drifting.
CHANGE: Car sprite has been changed, more will be added at a later date.
CHANGE: Changed the way FPS is calculated back to a more accurate version.
FIX: When loading tracks in the track editor, environments are now loaded correctly.
FIX: Exiting testing should no longer crash in the editor.
FIX: Fixed some issues with the scaling in the editor.
FIX: Fixed a lighting crash while testing in the editor.
FIX: Fixed a crash related to weapons firing while testing in the editor.
FIX: Can no longer reset car while testing a track in the editor.
FIX: When testing, cars will now be rotated and placed correctly.
FIX: Can now move the view across all of the track builder.
FIX: Grid now properly covers the editor room.
FIX: You can now click menu buttons when in fullscreen. *Facepalm*
FIX: Lighting now works correctly in fullscreen.
FIX: The "OK" text in the track editor settings menu is finally centered.
FIX: Removed some debug test from the options menu.
FIX: Fixed a duplication bug in editor that could cause a crash.
FIX: Removed debug text from diagonal track pieces.

And a screenshot showing the large track concept that's present in this version, it has no decoration objects or weapon pads in it yet, as I mainly designed it to show off what you can do with the available size. I'll update it as new versions come out however, and it should feature as a track in the final game.



To give you an idea of scale, this track takes approximately 3 minutes, 10 seconds to drive a lap.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy this new update, available at the usual place.
 
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Sn3akyP1xel

Guest
Good job, love the vehicle physics. It has that 'just one more go' factor, which is a good sign.
Reminds me of a game i had on the Amstrad which was super addictive. The Amstrad game had oil slick on some tracks which made things interesting on corners, maybe this could be a feature.

Do you have any plans for track width editing or split track lines so the player could take more than one route ?
 

O.Stogden

Member
Good job, love the vehicle physics. It has that 'just one more go' factor, which is a good sign.
Thanks a lot, yeah I had to tweak the car physics a bit to get them right, wanted it drifty without being overly floaty. Hope I got there.

The Amstrad game had oil slick on some tracks which made things interesting on corners, maybe this could be a feature.
Oil slick was the 2nd weapon I added to the game, after the Bolt. However it was removed as I had trouble making the AI cope with it as well as players could. However the code is all there in the game, and I could play around with it and see if it could be re-added. Or as you said, perhaps as an object in the track editor that people can place.

Do you have any plans for track width editing or split track lines so the player could take more than one route ?
Track width editing is currently done via the "Scale" buttons in the editor, either 75%, 100% or 125% scale. Track 1, 2 and Sakura Raceway use 75%, whereas Neon Raceway uses 100%, you could make a track even wider than Neon by using 125% scaling. Scaling can cause a few issues with alignment though, so I'm trying to keep an eye when issues crop up.

If you mean change between multiple widths during the same track, that's a bit difficult right now, but I could add a track piece that could align to connect a 75% to a 100% track piece for example, to let players narrow/widen tracks.

As for split-paths, this would be difficult right now. The positioning system relies on detecting your current track piece, so I would need to rewrite that. Also the way AI racing lines are generated would need to be rewritten. It MAY happen in the future, but I wouldn't make any promises.

Thanks for checking out the game and the feedback/ideas, much appreciated!
 
S

Sn3akyP1xel

Guest

1) (above bug image) I had a single editor path point on the track editor, tried to delete it and this bug.
2) (above bug image) Same error when i tried to save a completed track in the editor complete with race path.
3) Minor issue with placement of the 'back button' on high resolution screen 2560x1440 at the main menu, button gets higher.
4) After being asked to drive the car around the track during path creation, the gridded edit screen was trying to
scroll sideways at the same time as i was trying to drive the car to make a race path.

The menus seam solid, but mouse clicking the buttons seams unresponsive in places. Sometimes having to click two or three times to open a drop down in the editor for example.
Hope this helps, if not already known about :)

Suggestions:
  • Maybe remove the skid marks on night tracks and just have the cars rear light trails showing instead.
  • Maybe set up a surface for track decals, so car skid marks remain on the track permanently during a race.
  • Weather conditions.

edit - playing on PC btw, using keyboard/mouse
 

O.Stogden

Member
1) (above bug image) I had a single editor path point on the track editor, tried to delete it and this bug.
2) (above bug image) Same error when i tried to save a completed track in the editor complete with race path.
3) Minor issue with placement of the 'back button' on high resolution screen 2560x1440 at the main menu, button gets higher.
4) After being asked to drive the car around the track during path creation, the gridded edit screen was trying to
scroll sideways at the same time as i was trying to drive the car to make a race path.

The menus seam solid, but mouse clicking the buttons seams unresponsive in places. Sometimes having to click two or three times to open a drop down in the editor for example.
Hope this helps, if not already known about :)

Suggestions:
  • Maybe remove the skid marks on night tracks and just have the cars rear light trails showing instead.
  • Maybe set up a surface for track decals, so car skid marks remain on the track permanently during a race.
  • Weather conditions.

edit - playing on PC btw, using keyboard/mouse
Thanks for the feedback.

1 & 2. I wasn't able to replicate this bug, and it seems an odd bug to happen, as forward_x and forward_y are always together, and x is before y, so I'm confused as to why it's having an issue with forward_y but not forward_x. I've messed around in the editor a lot, creating and deleting path points, spamming buttons while in test mode, but wasn't able to make it crash. Not to mention obj_fire_fly is the car object, so if the car didn't exist at that point, I don't know how it could throw an error...

3. Thanks for this, I don't have access to any display above 1080p, so it isn't possible for me to test how the game works on 1440p or 4k screens, so it's very useful to have people test on higher quality displays.

4. You mean the editor view was moving whilst you were trying to drive? I presume you are using WASD for driving? I tried to replicate this also, by holding down W/A/S/D while clicking on the create path and test track buttons, but the view always stuck to the car once it was created.

For bugs 1, 2 & 4 you might be doing things in a way I haven't, or doing a sequence of events that eventually causes an error in the game. Unfortunately that makes it very difficult for me to track down what's gone wrong for that error to happen.

I just checked the drop down arrow for editor mode select and it seems the collision for the cursor is a few pixels off, I'll get it fixed in a bugfix soon.

I'll look into light trails, they might be difficult to pull off with the lighting engine, but I'll see if I can do something with it.

Permanent skidmarks I tried once before, as the skidmarks are actually a particle, not a sprite/object, it caused tremendous slowdown after a few corners of them being permanent, but I could probably make it more efficient. My experience with surfaces is minimal, but I'll have a check.

Weather conditions are planned (as you can see in the lobby, there's a weather setting I believe), however I decided to focus on other things before getting round to it, the lighting engine for instance, I felt was needed before I could add proper weather effects.

Thank you very much for this feedback, I'll keep trying to replicate the bugs and see if I can fix it.

EDIT: If anyone fancies making a track in the track builder (provided it doesn't crash) and upload it somewhere and link it to me, I might include it in the final game. :)
 
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O.Stogden

Member
I'll report back if I can routinely trigger the bug.
Hey Sn3akyP1xel,

I literally found the bug about 4 hours ago when testing Elimination mode, which is currently quite buggy, but noone seems to play it so I haven't really been keeping it as up to date as the rest of the game.

I'm not entirely sure why it happened, but it shouldn't happen anymore.

Still haven't found out why the view scrolls in the editor while testing though, as I can't replicate that.

A little update on progress made since last release:

A crash caused by the player car spawning in editor/elimination mode has been fixed, the save track dialog buttons in the editor now work with zooming, attempting to place 2 start/finish lines in the editor no longer results in a crash.

An option to change the amount of cars has been added to the lobby, although this is still a Work-In-Progress, I should have added it and tested it during tomorrow. You can choose between 2-8 cars to be present.

When travelling at high speed, it is no longer impossible to steer, just difficult.

A track piece has been added which transitions between 0.75 and 1.00 scale, and 1.00 and 1.25 scale straight track pieces, effectively allowing players to narrow/widen the track.

Elimination mode bugs should also be fixed and the mode should be fully working in the next release, it currently has a couple of fatal crashes in 0.4.1, and for some reason you can respawn facing the wrong direction sometimes.

New music should be added.

A credits button in the options menu will be added in the next release.

Thanks for all the feedback.
 
S

Sn3akyP1xel

Guest
Nice, had no crashes on latest play test apart from with the known bugs.
 
S

Sn3akyP1xel

Guest
bug report - powerups stopped working.
Played track 1 and finished the race, started the track to play it again and the powerups were collected but wouldn't release.
 
S

Sn3akyP1xel

Guest

just finished Neon Raceway, hovered over track 2 button and game crashed.

Edit update -
This bug can be triggered by moving the cursor between the various track selection buttons really fast :)
 
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O.Stogden

Member
bug report - powerups stopped working.
Played track 1 and finished the race, started the track to play it again and the powerups were collected but wouldn't release.
So you could pick up the power-ups from the weapon pads, but couldn't fire them? Did the power up icon appear at the top of the screen to say what weapon you had?

just finished Neon Raceway, hovered over track 2 button and game crashed.

Edit update -
This bug can be triggered by moving the cursor between the various track selection buttons really fast :)
Thanks, this is the same bug as what happens when you place 2 start/finish line track pieces in the editor. It's caused by the previous track not being deleted before the new one is loaded in this case, resulting in 2 start/finish lines existing at the same time, which the game doesn't like. This is fixed in the next update.
 
S

Sn3akyP1xel

Guest
Ignore the powerup bug, keyboard error at my side.

While on the topic of power-ups. I was trying to shoot the Bolt weapon to destroy Gates and Mines. Could be a nice touch?
 
S

Sn3akyP1xel

Guest
new bug -
Crashed into tree on the grass, reset to track and this is what happened next:


Like the car suddenly weighed 10 tonnes, other cars were bouncing off and i couldn't drive above 2mph.
 

O.Stogden

Member
Ignore the powerup bug, keyboard error at my side.

While on the topic of power-ups. I was trying to shoot the Bolt weapon to destroy Gates and Mines. Could be a nice touch?
Thanks for that suggestion, might make the Bolt a little more useful, as it doesn't affect AI much right now.

new bug -
Crashed into tree on the grass, reset to track and this is what happened next:


Like the car suddenly weighed 10 tonnes, other cars were bouncing off and i couldn't drive above 2mph.
Had a similar bug caused by resetting a while ago, but that was caused by spamming the button and therefore multiplying the physics properties, which shouldn't be possible anymore. I'll have a look into this, thanks.

Also might be an idea to edit older posts to add info to them if noone else has posted in the meantime. Posting multiple times in a row in a short period of time is against forum rules. :)

As a quick update on what I've been working on:

Basically the whole positioning, track numbering, path creating system is being changed again. This will hopefully make it easier to understand, more flexible, and allow for more features in the future. But it's taking ages and requires doing work on things I thought I was finished with, so it'll be a while before the next update.
 

O.Stogden

Member
(Had to scroll ages to find this topic again!)

Just an update on what's going on with the game over the past month.

I spent about 2 weeks trying to add branching paths/shortcuts, and unfortunately I kept running into walls with this. It's something I'd like to add, but it's probably not going to be in the game for a while.

However in the meantime I have completely changed how the positioning and checkpoint system works.

Instead of using track pieces to determine how far through the track you are, and whether or not you're following the track, the game now uses the racing line to work out these things.

The main advantage this gives over the old system is that not all track pieces need to be driven on in order to complete a valid lap, if for example, you wanted to have track pieces as decoration at the side, or if you wanted "run-off" areas and the like. This does greatly help when doing track features such as crossroads, or large areas of tarmac.

Elimination mode has been fixed up even further, there was a problem with the camera on large-scaled tracks which could cause the camera to follow the incorrect car.

What's left to work on before the next release?

Well I'd like to add some more/different music to the game.

I'm also working on adding some more effects/particles to the game, to make it look nicer.

Track pieces are going to be refined so they align properly and look good. Particularly the Desert environment hasn't had any attention in a while, and I'd like to make that look decent.

A 5th track will be added to the game.

An additional textbox will be added to the save track dialog letting people insert a username to be displayed when people play their track.

Adjustments to weapons and some balancing.

Additional vehicles and speed classes. I'd like to have 8 vehicles per class, across 3 classes. Street Cars, Sports Cars and Super Cars. Each will have their own speeds, and they basically convert to easy/medium/hard. Think WipEout, or Mario Kart (50cc, 100cc, 150cc)

That's all for now, back to work for me!
 

O.Stogden

Member
The music in the game has been changed.

I thought the music I made myself for the game was a little amateurish and in the case of the racing music, a little intense and hard on the ears.

The 3 songs that were played during races have been replaced with 3 new songs.

The menu/post-game music has been replaced.

A new song has been added which plays while in the Track Editor, which is more relaxed/calmer than the other music in the game, to let you concentrate better.

The HUD in elimination mode has been updated in the next build, so it's now a bit easier to read. I also fixed the position list and elimination mode HUD showing the correct car sprites for each car now. Elimination HUD should now scale with the resolution, instead of only working properly in 1280x720.

I've also added a credits button to the options menu, for everyone who's contributed and helped with the game so far.

Hope to have a new build out sometime later this month. I'm trying to test my builds a bit more before releasing, so that means I probably won't be throwing out a new build every week like I have done in the past. I'll stick to larger, more stable updates.
 

HayManMarc

Member
Played the game a little last night.
Looking pretty good so far. Looks like a lot of work, and a lot to go, eh?
One thing I noticed... I changed all the car colors around and picked a track and then raced. After the race (I lost, last place), I expected all the settings would stay the same and just selected "race" to go race again. The car colors had reset to their original colors. (I can't remember if the track reset.)
Playing the race, it took me a bit to get the hang of controlling the car. After trying out a few tracks, the wide tracks are the easiest (neon track). I could not get above 7th place on the narrow tracks -- very hard.
Probably a good thing about the music, tho I didn't think it was bad. I made the mistake of having multiple games running, so I can't really comment on the sounds until next time I play. lol
Anyhow, that's it for now. I'll play again soon and see what else I find. :)
Cheers!
 

O.Stogden

Member
Looking pretty good so far. Looks like a lot of work, and a lot to go, eh?
Thanks, and for sure. I released 0.2, then a few days later 0.3, then again, 0.4. Then I realized that I was increasing the version numbers too fast for what I want to include, so it might be a while before 0.5. :D

One thing I noticed... I changed all the car colors around and picked a track and then raced. After the race (I lost, last place), I expected all the settings would stay the same and just selected "race" to go race again. The car colors had reset to their original colors. (I can't remember if the track reset.)
Everything will most likely reset, as the variables are initialized in the lobby. I'll get around to changing this, will just mean I have to shift all of the variables over to a game start event to initialize everything. Easy thing to fix, but I'll have to be in the mood for some tedious work. :D And this does get annoying for me while testing to be honest, I constantly quit a race and then boot it again with slightly different settings to test it, and then realize all the other settings are wrong for what I wanted to test.

As for laps and gamemode, they were meant to be set by the track creator, in the editor you can set the recommended laps and game mode for your track, and when people load your map, it sets it to those settings. However this has been removed, and the recommended laps/mode will just be shown in the info box for the track now.

Playing the race, it took me a bit to get the hang of controlling the car. After trying out a few tracks, the wide tracks are the easiest (neon track). I could not get above 7th place on the narrow tracks -- very hard.
It's a little easier with a gamepad than the keyboard, as you can adjust the steering little bits and acceleration and braking are also done in an analog fashion. Also like I said above, there'll be 3 speed classes, effectively slow, normal and fast, and the cars currently in the game are close to what "normal" will be, so there will be an option to drive slower cars until you get used to the physics. This is probably hard for me to gauge with playing it so much, I usually get in the top 3 on the narrow tracks and finish a few seconds ahead on wide. Sakura Raceway is definitely the hardest track in my opinion, as there's no run-off, and it's not easy to get past other cars. Funny, because I built that to be a "my first track" for SamSam.

Thanks for trying it out, I appreciate the feedback!
 
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O.Stogden

Member
Hey everyone,

0.4.2 will release next Friday, on the 22nd of March.

It's the biggest update so far, it contains new music, a ton of bug fixes (17 as of this post), improvements to the usability of the track builder and general improvements to the UI, additional options for races and more.

I just have a couple of things I'd like to add before release, which I should have finished by Monday, then I'm reserving 3 days for finding and squashing bugs, so I hopefully don't release a version with 17+ bugs in it like I did with 0.4.1. :)

The release after 0.4.2 (barring any hotfixes), will be 0.5.0, which will be a major update adding new features.

As I said before, anyone who wishes to design a track in the track editor can make one and PM it to me, and I'll have a look over it and see if it can be added to the base game.

Thanks for everyone's feedback and support so far!
 

O.Stogden

Member
Hey everyone,

0.4.2 is available now, a day earlier, as my day is quite busy tomorrow so I figured I'd prep it all a day early.

As always, it's available to DOWNLOAD HERE!

It's a pretty big update for a minor version number, but I'm slowing down the versioning so I can fit more into the game before V1.0.

Probably the biggest change is that there is now car classes. Street, Sports and Super.

The cars you've been used to driving now come under "Sports", these are mid-range, Street is lower end and easier to drive, and Super is the fastest class, and therefore the hardest to drive. There are 8 cars to choose from in each class (for a total of 24 cars), and they can now be selected via the "Select Car" button in the lobby, where you can set every players car.

You can also now choose how many cars take part in an event.

There's been a few UI improvements, as well as a new track piece to bridge narrower/wider track pieces. A new track designed by @Sn3akyP1xel has also been added to the base game.

The way of creating racing lines in the editor has changed, you no longer drive the track in order to create a racing line. Instead you just click where you wish to place a path point. You can drag path points around, as well as change the order the path points should be passed through. Right clicking will delete a path point.

The music has also been completely changed.

There were a few things that I wanted in that I didn't manage to get in before my specified release date, so I'll be releasing a 0.4.3 release before 0.5.0.

0.4.3 will smooth out what was added in 0.4.2, adding better gamepad support to the car select, and fixing a couple of known bugs in the game. As well as adding in some things which didn't quite make the cut in time.

Feedback is very much appreciated, including criticisms and bug reports!

Here's the full changelog for 0.4.2:

-----------------------------------------
0.4.2 - Released 22nd March 2019
-----------------------------------------

ADD: Added track piece to narrow/widen the track. (Thanks Sn3aky P1xel)
ADD: You can now select how many cars are in an event.
ADD: Weapon cooldowns are now shown in Elimination mode HUD.
ADD: Eliminated cars are now crossed out on Elimination HUD.
ADD: A credits button has been added to the options menu, for all the great people that have helped me with the game!
ADD: Separate music added to the editor that is less intrusive than the menu music.
ADD: An "accept" button has been added to the track select, this will now be used to choose a track, instead of just clicking on a track name.
ADD: Added additional line of text to the track info window to show who the creator was.
ADD: You can now change the selected path point's order in the racing line with the buttons on the bottom HUD.
ADD: Added button in lobby to change the car class for the event/tournament.
ADD: Added 16 additional cars. 8 Street and 8 Sport cars.
ADD: Added 3 different car classes, street, sports, and super. Each have 8 cars to choose from. They have slightly different performance.
ADD: Car select screen has been added to the lobby.
ADD: Added Skidpan track by Sn3aky P1xel to the base game.

REMOVE: The "create a path" button in the editor has been removed.

CHANGE: Travelling at high speed no longer makes steering impossible, just difficult.
CHANGE: Positioning system completely re-done, allows for more flexibility in tracks.
CHANGE: Elimination HUD has been rescaled and worded differently so it's easier to read.
CHANGE: The 3 songs that play during racing have been changed to less intrusive songs by an actually skilled artist.
CHANGE: Menu music has changed to something more in line with the rest of the game.
CHANGE: Race settings are no longer reset after a race. (Thanks HayManMarc)
CHANGE: Clicking a track in the track select now selects the track, as opposed to starting it. This will help with track select mid-tournament.
CHANGE: You now get asked for confirmation when deleting the racing line in the track builder.
CHANGE: When a player is close to winning in elimination mode, their points counter will flash red.
CHANGE: Update help page in editor to reflect changes to the editor.
CHANGE: Screen mode is now set to windowed by default, for compatibility reasons.

FIX: Removed some debug text from editor saving.
FIX: Save track buttons and dialog now move with view and work with zooming.
FIX: Fixed a crash when placing a 2nd start/finish line.
FIX: Fix a crash that could sometimes happen on car spawn in editor and elimination mode. (Thanks Sn3aky P1xel)
FIX: Fixed a problem with elimination mode camera that could happen on tracks using a high scaling option.
FIX: Respawning in elimination mode should now be more accurate and sensible.
FIX: Elimination HUD should scale with resolution better.
FIX: Correct cars are now shown in the position list and on the Elimination HUD.
FIX: Music now correctly resumes when unpausing a race using the mouse.
FIX: You can now change game mode mid-tournament without causing the game to glitch.
FIX: Instruction text for deleting tracks is now drawn in a place it can be seen.
FIX: Event settings are now shown at all times when selecting the next event in a tournament.
FIX: Deleting tracks no longer creates duplicates of the buttons in the track select.
FIX: Correct track environment is now loaded for tournament events.
FIX: Correct cars are now shown in the race results and tournament standings screen.
FIX: Stopped race results glitching out when switching between race and elimination modes mid-tournament.
FIX: Removed some unnecessary code which improves performance whilst in the lobby and during races.
FIX: Convertible roof colours no longer change with the car.
FIX: Fixed more issues to do with UI displaying properly in fullscreen.
FIX: Fixed an issue with the lighting engine, should improve performance when playing multiple races in one session.
FIX: Fix a crash when having the back button highlighted when transitioning between menus.
 

O.Stogden

Member
0.5.0 should launch in April 2019, here's the plan for 0.5.0 as of 26th March 2019:

Drift Mode, score points by drifting, keep the drift for a multiplier, no car collisions, no weapons. - In Progress, 50% completed.

Time Trial Mode, no opponents, just you and a target time to beat, I'll include set target times for the base tracks, and hopefully include a way for track creators to set target times for their own tracks. - May be delayed.

UI Update to allow full and easy gamepad control of the menus, using the d-pad etc. Instead of just controlling cursor through the analog.

Add a Manual to the main menu, with a contents menu etc.

Add Mutators to allow more varied gameplay, such as icy roads, permanent acceleration etc. - May be delayed.

New Weapon: Reversed Steering, Fires a bolt that temporarily reverses the targets steering.

Add Weather Conditions, rain, snow, something else.

Add Delta Timing for slower computers - Likely to be delayed to a future version if it proves to be too big a job.

Weapon improvements, make the Bolt more useful, improve how Pulse works, add visual effects to Nitro.

0.5.0 is currently planned for a 26th of April launch.
 

O.Stogden

Member
Does anyone have any suggestions for what they'd like to see in a top down 2D racer?

I have a few ideas like above, but any features or gameplay mechanics people would like to see. I'm more than welcome to hear.

P.S. Drift mode is almost finished.
 

O.Stogden

Member
I asked 2 people separately what they wanted in the game. Somehow, they both said meteors.

So... here's meteors... sigh... what am I doing with my life...


Still a WIP, need to make them affect cars, and need to add a couple of graphical details to them as well.

No audio in the video as the meteors have no sounds yet, so I thought it'd sound a little odd.
 

O.Stogden

Member
Currently working on balancing out the games weapons, and also little adjustments to AI to make them a little better, such as shooting a weapon that they have no use for instead of holding onto it forever. Still on target for 0.5.0 coming out on the 26th.

As a side project, I'm porting the game over to Android, it'll have reduced features compared to the PC release, but because of that, it will be available sooner for general release. Possibly within the next 2 months. I may release a test build on here alongside the next PC update, in order to get feedback on how it plays on different devices.

Weather conditions have been added, although they don't affect the physics of cars as yet.
 

O.Stogden

Member
Still on target for a 26th April release of 0.5.0.

I'll feature-freeze it on the 21st and do some private-testing to make sure no glaring bugs are present in this version, as they have been in previous releases.

I've spent the past few days adding in "Mutator" options, I had more planned, but have had to cut some out as they won't be ready for the 21st. There'll be a couple that you can use in 0.5.0 though.

Drafting has been added, and is classed as a Mutator option, so you can enable/disable it if you like. I think it helps keep racing tighter, and can also help catch up to 1st place, as it can be a pain to catch up to them.

The Bolt power-up has been made more powerful, and it can destroy mines and strikes now.

The mine's effect will be adjusted to be slightly shorter, as I feel it's a little powerful now, and it can get annoying.

Reversing has been added, as I finally found a way to do it decently.

Numerous UI improvements and bug fixes also so far.

The Android port has also had a bit of time spent on it, and I have tested it on a few different devices and come to the conclusion that it'll need a bit more optimization and testing before a release should be made, and therefore it won't launch with the 0.5.0 release. I like where it's going, and I think the game works well on a phone, but I want it to run smoothly.

The Android version will be a dumbed down version of the PC release, and it will be free forever, whereas the PC version is planned to go commercial at a later stage. It doesn't feature lighting, time-of-day, multiplayer etc. But will allow you to play on the base tracks and I am working on getting the track editor to work with it, so you can make your own tracks.

This will probably be my last post until 0.5.0 comes out on the 26th, so I'll see you then!
 

O.Stogden

Member
0.5.0 is now in feature freeze and a pre-release copy of the game has been sent out to a few private testers. Hopefully this way of doing things will cut down on fatal crashes in released versions. 0.5.0 will be generally available on the 26th of April (Friday).

I didn't manage to include all I wanted to in this version, but I got a fair amount of it in, and I hope I did it to a higher standard compared to previous releases, where new features were buggy and often crashed.

In my playtests, I haven't had a fatal crash the last few times, and hopefully over the next few days before the release, those testing the game will catch and report any fatal bugs that are encountered.

Thanks for the feedback and support so far!

Feel free to drop by the Discord server to offer suggestions, give feedback, or chat about the game: https://discord.gg/nUGbJxq

And follow me on Twitter, where I post everyday that I work on the game: https://twitter.com/o_stogden
 

Yrbiax

Member
Hey, i tried your demo.

I have always loved games with level editor. :D
I think checkpoints could be done differently in editor (dragging lines for example). UI didnt seem to show up when i played my own track.

I was about to comment about reversing, but it seems you have already added it.
 

O.Stogden

Member
Thanks for trying it out.

Yeah, the path system is something I've spent a lot of time on trying to get right, easily 100 hours.

Clicking on a line inserts a path point, and you have to click and drag a path point to move it. I tried various other ways of doing it, but in the end decided this was a good mix between spending too much time on it, and flexibility for track creators.

As for UI not showing up, were you testing the track in the editor? There's no UI in test mode. You'd have to save the track and load it up through the lobby to play a Race/Elimination game on it.

If not, there was a bug in 0.4.2 (fixed in the upcoming 0.5.0) which means if you tested a track in the editor, and then save and load up your level in the lobby, it can get stuck in test mode. A reboot of the game would fix it.

If none of these things worked, you can always send me your level file. (Found in appdata/local/TRF) And I can look over it and see what's wrong.

I always try and put a level/track editor and some form of multiplayer in everything I make. As they're usually the best parts of games for me.
 

O.Stogden

Member
Hey everyone!

After a month of hard work, TRF 0.5.0 is here!

It is available to download on Itch.io as always!

And also now on GameJolt!

Headline changes:

All car classes are now faster, this was done as I tested running the game at a much higher pace, and I found it far more enjoyable. So all cars are now a little bit faster. If you want to get used to it, you can start with the Street class, this is fairly slow, and should be easy to drive.

A new car class: Hyper. Hyper is almost twice the speed of what the "Super" class used to be. Think of it like 200CC in Mario Kart 8.

All base tracks have been rebuilt to be wider. This is to accomodate the faster cars.

A new game mode: Drift, chain together drifts to score big, don't hit anything or go off-road or your chain will end! Weapons and collisions with other cars are disabled in this mode. Currently no AI is programmed for this mode, they'll just drive around the track, not really trying to achieve a high drift score, but you can play this against your friends for now, and I'll add some form of competition soon!

Weather has been added to the game, Clear, Rainy, Stormy, Snowy, Blizzard-y, Meteor-y, weather conditions are now in the game. Currently rain/snow has no affect on car performance, but it is planned to do in the future. Meteor weather condition means meteors will rain down on the track, when they hit the ground, they have a similar effect to the "Pulse" weapon, meaning they will push any cars away from the impact area.

Further event settings have been added, such as disabling weapons, and adding mutators to the game to make it more interesting. There are only 3 mutators in the game for now, but more are planned!

One of the mutators added is Drafting, which can be enabled/disabled, this will allow you to slipstream behind another car to gain a speed advantage!

A new weapon: Reverse has been added, this reverses the opponents steering when it hits. Speaking of reverse, you can now reverse your car by holding down the brake button while stationary.

A "radius" setting has been added in the track editor, this shows where a car must be in order to count that pathpoint (essentially checkpoints in TRF) as passed. This means you can have a very high radius if you have a wide track and want to allow players to travel far away from the path point and still class as "on-track", or you can have a very small radius, to force players to stick close to the track and prevent cheating.

Here's a couple of videos to show some of the new features: Firstly Hyper cars (with the new wider tracks), and then the Meteor weather condition.


Follow me on Twitter for the latest Dev Updates, where I tweet about what I've been working on that day.

Join TRF's Discord channel here, to talk about the game and offer suggestions/feedback.

Feedback is, as always, very much appreciated and necessary for me to continue work on the game. :)

And here's the changelog for 0.5.0:

-----------------------------------------
0.5.0 - Released 26th April 2019
-----------------------------------------
ADD: Added the "Drift" game mode.
ADD: "Hyper" car class has been added.
ADD: Weather added to the game, Clear, Rainy, Stormy, Snowy, Blizzard and Meteor Showers.
ADD: You can now reverse by holding down brake while stationary.
ADD: Added setting to enable/disable weapons.
ADD: Added 'Go Fast' Mutator.
ADD: Added 'Hunted' Mutator.
ADD: Added Drafting of cars. This is a Mutator, which is set to 'On' by default.
ADD: Added a "radius" zone for path points in the track builder, this is how close you have to be to a path point to be declared "on-track".
ADD: Added the "Reverse" weapon, which fires a bolt that reverses the steering of the car it hits.
ADD: Nitro weapon now has particle effects.
REMOVE: "What's New" box removed from main menu, all changes are still detailed in CHANGELOG.txt
REMOVE: Removed a redundant object that was causing performance issues, performance should be higher on all computers now.
REMOVE: Large Raceway has been removed, as it got corrupted with the changes to the track editor.
CHANGE: The speed of all car classes has increased. Street is now what Sport was, Sport is slightly faster than what Super was, Super is about 25% faster.
CHANGE: All base tracks have been made wider to accomodate Hyper cars, and the faster speeds of the slower classes.
CHANGE: Turning drop-off at high speeds is greatly reduced, turning should only drop off at very high speeds now.
CHANGE: Race results now shows Elimination points in Elimination mode, instead of Best Lap.
CHANGE: HUD is no longer visible once the race has finished.
CHANGE: Optimized position checking system.
CHANGE: The power of the Bolt weapon has been increased slightly. (Thanks Arktirian)
CHANGE: Bolt weapon can now destroy mines and strike attacks. (Thanks Sn3aky Pixel)
CHANGE: Car lights have been optimized, should improve performance on low-end computers.
CHANGE: Select Car screen now scales to resolution better.
CHANGE: Improved the clickable area for the "plus" button.
CHANGE: Improved the clickable area for the "mode arrow" button in the track builder.
CHANGE: Mine weapon disables controls for 0.75 seconds down from 1 second.
CHANGE: Car colours are now changed in the car select screen rather than in the main lobby.
CHANGE: Game file size has been halved due to how the game files are stored.
CHANGE: AI will now travel slightly faster before braking.
CHANGE: Diagonal road pieces now have the same detailing that other road pieces have.
CHANGE: Optimized Sakura trees.
CHANGE: Boost and Slow Pad's have been restricted to 0.75 scaling, to prevent erroneous physics.
FIX: Fixed multiple issues with race results and tournament standings screen.
FIX: Fixed a crash that could happen when entering mid-tournament track select.
FIX: Cherry Blossom now appears over cars, not under them.
FIX: Can no longer drive after DNF'ing in a race.
FIX: Fixed a bug where the game sometimes got stuck in "Testing" mode.
FIX: Fixed a crash that could occur when switching between singleplayer and split-screen in the same session.
FIX: Tournaments should no longer crash when loading the second track.
FIX: UI for mid-tournament track select should now be positioned correctly.
FIX: The Strike weapon should work more often and fire more accurately.
FIX: Lighting now works correctly, when switching between singleplayer/split-screen/windowed/fullscreen.
 
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O.Stogden

Member
Still hard at work on 0.5.1.

Most of the work has been spent on the Android build these past couple of weeks, adapting the UI to it, making sure the controls are nice to use, optimizing the game so it runs well on the devices I have available to me.

Some of these changes have also benefited the PC version, such as optimization.

Delta-timing has been added, which means even if your PC can't run at a solid 60FPS, the game should still play fine. I have a laptop that runs the game at 25-30FPS, and you can play fine on it. This also helps the Android version.

The UI in certain areas now scales better to resolution changes, and when playing at a resolution above 720p, the game should look nicer than it did. The UI itself has also been adjusted, and hopefully is more neatly laid out and presented.

Car classes are now slightly faster than in 0.5.0, and a few balancing changes along with this to make sure the game works well.

The Pulse weapon now works as intended.

Championships are being added, they might not make it into 0.5.1, but they will be present in the Android addition at its launch, and whatever the PC version is by that time. This involves me creating a lot of tracks, so most of my time in May will be spent finishing off the Android changes, and then adding additional tracks and progression/objectives to the game, such as championships to compete in and win.

Thanks for reading!

Remember to follow me on Twitter to keep up to date with all the latest.
 
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