Should have made this thread days ago, but procrastination and  work can sure put a damper on game jam progress. WHOOPS

So I didn't get to properly finish my game for last year's LOWREZJAM, which put me into full on determination mode this time. My starting idea was to make a type of racer that used sprites in 3D space - not exactly the same but similar looking to things like Outrun, Super Hang-ON and specifically F-Zero. I don't know how to exactly how to code things similar to Super Scaler and Mode-7 tech, so I'm going to work with a mixture of 2D and 3D Unity tech to (hopefully) get the look and feel I want.

Test 1.  This is of course using a test track (Mario Circuit from Super Mario Kart), but the general look is what I'm going for. It does also show that a LOT of detail gets lost, so I will likely have to use a super simplified coloring and sprite style to make sure things look clear and interesting.  

A problem I realized I'd hit very quickly was working with Physics + Physics2D issues. This ended up being an issue for mainly the movement and triggering system (that'll come up a bit later) , but primarily for getting the ship to recognize different terrain. Due to the rotation of the camera, the sprite wouldn't lay correctly on the "terrain" to pick up terrain friction,  so I jerry-rigged a solution: 

On the left is the sprite I'm using for the track. On the right, is the heatmap I'm using for my gameobject to raycast the color for - thus knowing what type of color or terrain they're currently above. The added bonus for this that I didn't think about until much later was that this can also help for non-terrain specific situations - such as the charging pads in FZero. Here's the setup for my player controller currently:

That was all done in the last 3-4ish days. Today was relatively less nerve-wracking than that - at least it didn't involve me scrapping a Unity project cause of code frustrations. I focused mainly on getting a nicely working Checkpoint and Lap system in place - I think my current goal for considering myself at least 'done' is 3 levels with a time trial setup. 

That said, here's my Checkpoint system:

Here's some views of my checkpoints - basically having colliders as triggers and an animating flag with a border around it (done using a circle sprite and circle sprite mask, easier than I expected) for iconography. I also decided to have the user see what's the next checkpoint to go to via having it slowly fade in based on how close you are.

I think it looks pretty good - save for the instant going away once you touch the collider. I'll probably change it to turning Yellow until you finish a lap, but that might not be tonight. Tomorrow will likely be that + setting up lap times and total time.

As for theme, I'm thinking instead of a future racer, I'm going to make it a submarine racer. The main mechanic being toying with being above water vs underwater, and the advantages/disadvantages those can give. Things I'm thinking about are like moss or weeds on the water surface you can dive under for shortcuts, but will slow you down. 

Okay, so I didn't stop for the day and made that quick checkpoint fix.

Looks so much better.

Tomorrow: Lap times, race times, GUI stuff then hopefully to more theme fixing!

Didn't get a chance to work on things yesterday, so I tried to power through a bunch of smaller things I knew I wanted to do before I went to sleep.

I spent most of the time trying to get proper lap times as well as best lap time working correctly. After that, I spent a bit of time getting 'simulated' terrain working, as well as adding a small bobbing animation for when I eventually get a submarine sprite in there. I say 'simulated', as since I couldn't have 3D terrain working with my current setup, I'm modifying the values using a terrain class and that heatmap I made earlier. Most of that is shown in some way in the GIF below!

Here's a proper video of how the lap times work. It ended up being way easier than I expected, but I had to get around confusing myself with a bunch of values. This video's a bit older than the GIF so it doesn't have any of the terrain or bobbing stuff.

Once again - going slower than I'd like, but I'm aiming to finish and have a basic playable thing by Monday, so I can worry about the bugfixing and extra smaller things Tuesday night.

Main two things I added were Medal times you can aim for, as well as a "water jet boost" bar. As you release the acceleration, your boost charges so the next time you press it, it's a instant boost of speed. It's actually fun to get used to trying to shoot around the track well, but I definitely need to add in the collision if I want to make it actually useful...

I did also add the diving to this, but there's not really anything to test it on just yet, so eventually!

Anddddd done! Finished a first build of it, although there's a ton of changed stuff I neglected to actually devlog about...

https://dynamicdonut.itch.io/subshred

Main thing to note is that I totally ended up skipping the diving mechanic. I feel like after a small break away from this, I will likely work on it some more, but building the diving and designing obstacles around it would take too long. I also even changed how water boosting worked - instead you now just charge your boost as you move and it releases when you let go of the gas. The largest issue I had with it is making the mechanic something worth using (regular driving was always quicker) but also not intrusive. I think this is a good push/pull mechanic that could maybe use tweaking in the future, but works for now!

Other quick things I did:

• All new assets everywhere! A friend assisted with making the submarine, but the rest I made in a quick pinch. I wanted to learn Bosca Ceoil for this, but something about music making easily gets me frustrated so that ended up being a bust.
• Main Menu!
• New track! This was a weird combined effort between Photoshop and Illustrator, but I like the result. Plus it  was a fairly straightforward process that worked great - albeit the textures don't blend super seamlessly.

Definitely play some and let me know what I can fix! I hopefully will be able to get some quick bugfixing and adding done tonight, after some Sonic Mania of course!