itch.io

Ripping them is the easy part; positioning them in the car is the hard part. They're a separate sprite sheet with their own animation: the hair flowing in the wind. So I can't just stick them in the car—they have to be placed in via code. I believe I've already done most of the heavy lifting for the Redhead, so I might try tilting the car up and down.

For the DX40, there are separate sprites again because of that damned spoiler in the way.

Yes, I know. The car animation itself shouldn't be too difficult. I've even experimented with it in the past, although I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to implement it. Should it stay in the upward position as long as you're going uphill, or should it only stay upward while the road is curving upward? Those are the questions I'm grappling with.

However, animating the occupants in the car is a real pain in the ass. xD

Fixed it! I was able to get to 1st place in the 3rd race on intermediate. I changed 1 thing last-minute though, so I hope I didn't make it too difficult again. xD

That's probably because of the car. The opponents are not downgraded enough when you choose a slower car. 😅 The DX40 should be more suitable at this moment.

Hello, I'm glad you like it!

I'll make a Linux build, but I probably have to remove the steering wheel plugin, because it works with Direct Input and it doesn't compile when I choose Mac, Linux, or web version. And removing the plugin with all the code connected to it is quite a chore.

So I won't update the Linux version as much as the Windows version.

I've made the opponents easier by the way. ;-)

Yes and no. They follow the same rules as you do: overheat the engine and the turbo won't be available. But those bastards immediately start with an L3 radiator.

However, I've found the problem. It's something that I changed a while ago. I reverted it and now they only use the turbo on long straights.

I've also rebalanced the ai difficulty. Easy and intermediate are now easier.

I'm afraid not. But you want to change the refresh rate? I believe changing the resolution merely changes the look of the game, not the actual resolution of the screen. So my best bet is to change it in your system settings for the moment.
I'll add an option in the future to actually change the resolution on a system level.

Are you using Windows? Or Mac?

Oh, I get it. It looks like the rival is using the turbo more often. Usually, when easy or intermediate is chosen, the rival only activates the turbo on the long straights after passing a checkpoint. Now they’re also using it just before the end of a corner. Not sure why. That's something I’ll look into tomorrow.

I’m also experimenting with a new type of rubberbanding. I already had a rubberband mechanic that adjusts the rival’s max speed through corners: the farther ahead they are, the slower they go through corners, and vice versa. Now, I’ve added a rubberband that adjusts throttle. The farther ahead the rival is, the less throttle they use. When set to zero, they won’t get much more than 200 meters ahead of you.

Once I fix the turbo usage, I’ll upload the new version.

What do you think has become more difficult? I've done some stuff in the ai's algoritm to make his inputs more smooth, but i feel like he's going slower now, especially when he is behind.

By the way: I've just uploaded a b-version. It fixes some bugs here and there. For instance: with a controller you quickly had to release the a-button when you went to the upgrade screen in Turbo OutRun mode, or you accidentally chose the engine upgrade. Oh and that's when the mechanics walked backwards.

That's weird. And to what resolution do you want to set it?

I've just tried it on my system and it seems to work. Not sure why it doesn't work on yours.

Eventually I'm going to expand the low res mode where you can also choose a resolution. That way the UI stays sharp while the road and stuff becomes pixelated.

Thanks! Yeah, the horn will be actually functional. Not only for challenging other cars in Cruisin' mode, but also for something else:
I've programmed the AI cars, especially traffic cars to not swerve into your lane when they want to overtake someone. It's something that I don't like about other games, where they intentionally seem to do that. But my system isn't watertight. That's where the horn will come in handy. When they swerve into your lane, blast the horn and they should go back where they came from. At least that's the idea. :D Now I have to program it... And add the sound effect.

Well, I've added a name entry menu at the beginning of the game. Insert gimmeall and you've unlocked all vehicles. (And then insert your name ofcourse.)

Have you pressed enter after switching? Yes, it's not very clear at this moment. Let me know if it works!

What makes it too hard? The corners, the time limit, the opponent, ...? Perhaps I can tweak some stuff to make it a bit easier.

And I'll think about adding a cheat code. 😉

I'm afraid not (yet). It the game too hard?

Yes! You have to unlock it. Win the original mode and you can drive it. 😉

Awesome! I'd like to buy the physical magazine with standard cover, but I live in Belgium. How much would it cost to send it to me?

Hah, I was already thinking about that. So now you can choose between 10 tracks, but I'm going to add an 11th one that is 100% random and therefore never the same.

Exactly! The code is there to do that, but I won't because that would indeed make it extremely difficult.

To be honest: there is only 1 track made by hand. All the others are randomly generated, with some minor tweaks.

Bumps: Yeah, the car almost react like I want when jumping over multiple bumps, but not quite.

Difficulty: You mean the opponent? Or the time limit? Or both?

Mechanics walking backwards: Yes, I noticed! Really strange. I don't know why that happened.

Hah, deer... I could do that with the new animated objects like the mechanics walking away at the starting line.

Have you finished the Turbo OutRun mode? If you did, the Porsche should be available. If that's not the case, I'll have to figure out what's wrong...

Yes, it's the most important reason why OutRun mode is still a work in progress. In all other modes, stages appear in a linear order, so the ai cars look through the list of road pieces in order to know how many lanes there are and which corner is coming up. In OutRun mode you have branches and therefore the ai cars have to recalculate with each branch the player takes to know in which stage they are driving. They regularly mess this up. They basically think that they are driving in a different stage with 5 lanes instead of 3 and therefore they don't interact with the roadside objects. It's a real pita to program this. 😅 But I'll fix it eventually.

What I did: max amount of throttle is lowered from 97% to 90-95% at intermediate difficulty, but I increased the cornering speed from 90% to 95%. So it's a bit more balanced I guess. I'm not sure if that makes it easier. I usually play on hard setting and then it's all 100%. 😁

Make sure that you use the chase cam. The little ramps are located near the end of the first beach stage on the right side of the road, at the cloudy/rain part. I'm going to tweak it though. You'll notice that the car goes straight ahead while in the air, but I want to see if it's more fun when it's still turning in.

Oh, what do you think of the difficulty of the opponent? Not too hard? You seem to be racing pretty close. 😁 Like it should.

I already noticed an oversight. 😆 When you choose the bumper cam, you don't notice the car jumping. I forgot to integrate it in that camera view.

I hope you like the Porsche! You can unlock it by playing the arcade Turbo OutRun mode. 😉 You don't even have to win.

Yes, there is still something wrong with that car. I'm working on it right now!

I'm glad you like it!

Yeah, the sprites don't have tire animation, so I'll have to make it myself.

And yes, forgot about the bumper cam. 😆

By the way: I believe the Porsche 959 is also available in your test version. 😉 Far from finished though, but it runs.

That's weird. I did notice that the transition from one camera view to the other wasn't always completed. I changed the transition loop and I think it works better now.

Soon I'm going to bind it to the Xbox controller and make it possible to rebind it.

Found a bug? A glitch? Something weird happened? Let me know right here!

And indeed, I just added one line of code after changing the camera: camViewButtonPressed = false;

It's fixed now.

Alright, this looks terribly wrong. 😆 And I thought it worked pretty much flawlessly on my system.

Edit: It's probably because the way the button is registered is different when I'm using my wheel. And I didn't test it with a controller.

Well, it's probably going to be custom made. Not even sure how it's going to look. 😆 Probably something like 80's Overdrive, or Slipstream.

Yes, I've been tweaking and switching some corners from left to right and vice versa to avoid a long sharp corner at the end of the stage. It's because of a flaw in my pseudo-3D engine.

I always thought you were improving! I haven't watched the whole video yet, but do you think that the game has become harder?

It's public until you've downloaded it 😁

Ahh yes. I uploaded a version for myself. My wife went away for 2 hours and I had to stay downstairs to look after the baby. So while the baby was asleep I wanted to test/play my game in its current state. I uploaded it so I could play it on my wife's laptop... But I forgot to hide it.

I'll unhide it for you. 😉 But if you make a video of it, would you like to mention that this version is not available for the main public?

Updates are:

- New background layer for clouds

- New tire sounds from Daytona USA

- Bumper cam (press C on your keyboard to change the camera)

- New stage in division 2: OutRun's Gateway stage

This is my very honest opinion:

First of all: the title of your game triggered my attention, but I haven't played the game yet. Why? Because this page isn't very appealing. I suggest you add a description of what this game is about, how it works, what the controls are...

I like the fact that you've added screenshots, because many people don't. But those screenshots also don't really tell what this game is about. So a description will definitely help.

- Yes, but those Porsches have 2 missing sprites each: the ones facing forward. The Corvette also didn't have those sprites, but because I drew that car many many many times in my youth, it wasn't too hard to draw those sprites myself.

- I'm probably going to add the possibility to add your own music tracks. That way I can keep the file size of the game small, while people can play the game how they want. Perhaps I can add the songs as a separate download.