Mini Motors

[Dacobi]

Build from 9/11; 34022 bytes. Seems to be working ok (I mean, no AI early start or blue screen). Tracking still a little glitchy, but that's ok, work in progress. Don't think any VERA FX issue here.

Seems to be working fine except that with the build from 9/11 you should be getting the "Load Screen".

Btw, LOVING the Sun monitor : )

[Dacobi]

I just uploaded a new SD image with an initial version of the new "Desert" themed track.

Also hitting trees or lakes etc. outside the track will now cause the player to explode.

I've started getting some bugs where it seems that tile or sprite data isn't being loaded in correctly so it ends up as garbled data. Not sure what's causing this.

Also the "Waypoints" for the new track aren't quite done yet so sometimes there's bugs where the AI players will drive off in a random direction and players are not registered crossing of the finish line.

[voidstar]

Seems to be working fine except that with the build from 9/11 you should be getting the "Load Screen".

Btw, LOVING the Sun monitor : )

Thanks, yeah took me awhile to find that Sun monitor. It doesn't have the greatest contrast, but it is a good sized and it essentially has no glare! It's a tad heavy which is why I couldn't bring it to VCF with me (via airplane), and it runs on 14V instead of 12V (so can't use the SATA adapter off the picoPSU to power it; I guess I could inline one of those "step up" converters?).

Hmm, I think I had re-copied the whole TBL folder (edit: meant DAT folder), that would have the Load Screen? I'm not sure the best way to extract files out of IMGs, so I just use DirMaster (C64 tool) to open the IMG file and then drag the files out to the SD card.

[Dacobi]

Hmm, I think I had re-copied the whole TBL folder, that would have the Load Screen? I'm not sure the best way to extract files out of IMGs, so I just use DirMaster (C64 tool) to open the IMG file and then drag the files out to the SD card.
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The "load screen" is located in "DAT/LOAD". Not sure if the file being missing would result in black screen, maybe if the VERA hardware zeros the VRAM on reset?

I've just uploaded a new zip file with a "jump rocks" update to the "Desert" track. This zip file along with the SD image also has the MINIM folder, which can then be copied into the x16emu folder or onto a SD card.

The AI players don't handle jumping very well and with the new track I had to remove some jumps because they always died, but I've left one jump where they survive : )

[Dacobi]

I just uploaded a new zip file to GitHub which has a pretty big update to the "Meadow" TileSet and where the "Desert" TileSet has been almost remade from scratch.

There are new screenshots and a link to the zip file in the main post.

The placement of "jump rocks" in the "Desert" track has not yet been optimized which causes a lot of chaos that makes the track's playability less than optimal, but quite fun : )

[Dacobi]

I'm finding it difficult to find a balance for level design features between what could be fun when all players are human, but would cause the AI players to be left behind and be eliminated immediately.

One simple solution I've come up with would be to add another field to the waypoints that would tell the AI players if a waypoint can be skipped plus a factor for the probability that it should be skipped and maybe a flag to say that if the last waypoint was skipped the next should also be skipped.

This would allow for level design with corners that could be cut by jumps or similar and have the AI players do the same with some probability.

[Dacobi]

Build from 9/11; 34022 bytes. Seems to be working ok (I mean, no AI early start or blue screen). Tracking still a little glitchy, but that's ok, work in progress. Don't think any VERA FX issue here.

Hello voidstar

I just wanted to ask if you've tested the latest build and if there's any problems on the actual hardware?

[voidstar]

Ah yes I have! It plays ok - that 2nd map is a bit harder, and I typically win it by the AI players just ending up leaping off the coarse! haha. It's still a little jittery, but it does play ok with both keyboard and gamepad.

[Dacobi]

Ah yes I have! It plays ok - that 2nd map is a bit harder, and I typically win it by the AI players just ending up leaping off the coarse! haha. It's still a little jittery, but it does play ok with both keyboard and gamepad.

Ok : )

The placement of "jump rocks" and general track layout haven't been optimized yet for the 2nd track, so the AI players often end up getting eliminated quite quick.

I still haven't figured out how to calculate which player is leading without any glitches.

You haven't had any problems with the "load screen" being missing and such?

I'm currently working on an idea for a "Ice Sheets Floating in the Ocean" track.
I've generated hundreds of images of ice sheets using Midjourney but still haven't found something that I would be able to turn into a TileSet.

[voidstar]

Nope, no issues noticed on the loading!

I can see deciding which is the "lead" player being a challenge to keep track of. Was a lot of cases I could jump and cut some corners.