Hello there. It's been about one week or so since I have started to create my first game with Arduino (car race game). Today I just wanted to hear a piece of advice concerning my way of doing it until it has not got too far in a wrong way. Below I have provided a link to the Wokwi project which is under a demo stage of development. Please, let me know if there is anything of any importance which I may have done in an incorrect way (programming code, datatypes, equipment choice etc.). Also, I would be glad to hear your advice on how I can possibly continue with this game.
I have updated my code for the Wokwi link in the post #1 according to your advice (you can check it out if you like). Thank you very much again as it's been quite an important notice which I should have taken care of myself from the very beginning. Please, let me know if you have any time to find out more on this topic. I would be glad to any piece of advice which may possibly improve this demo. Have a nice day.
I think it's a great idea. Also, there should be something on the screen before somebody pushes it, something like a splash screen with a title of the game and buzzer melody, for example. I am going to name this game as "Racing LEDS". Would you, please, tell me if it sounds alright?
Every time I read this thread I'm looking through the tiny window and can't play this game. Cant play, and can't read the code very well.
Maybe it already does make the cars start slow, from a random relatively low speed, and over time newer cars go faster until that's why you lose, the cars are going real fast.
And individual cars could speed up as the go along.
One more idea - figure out a way to make moving the car take points away, points which perhaps accumulate at a regular rate, but if you do too much moving the car out of the way, you run out of the ability to do, and risk getting hit. This would encourage advanced planning.
You'd need some kind of gas guage.
You could also allow a certain number of collisions - maybe the car could change through few different configurations of the LEDs that comprise it, like it shows it getting damaged until three strikes and you are out.
Added: there is no winning - I'd like to be able to reach the end and drive right off the track and get a reward.
Thank you very much for your reply and advice. It's very nice of you to contribute to this project with your ideas too. It's only a starting demo and now I have been doing a splash screen and melody for the game. I will update this forum version in the post #1 as soon as I finish it. It's not the end of the game. I just have been trying to get your ideas here to make it a better version of it.
I've written some games sketches, and I know how annoying all the suggestions from the audience can get.
Nevertheless I can't help but offer one more… when you get the car to the end of the track, it could wrap around and start going from the other end so you could have it take N laps to finish and win.
We see that in Asteroids, for example, where the space ships and stuff can be half leaving one side top or bottom and the other half entering the other side bottom or top.
In the code, it's just the modulo operator, or if the dimension is a power of two, just masking to N bits.
Now sitting on my thumbs, but I will play the versions you keep posting.
It's not annoying, really. I just hasn't summarized your suggestions yet because I was engaged in making a splash screen and music for the demo, but I keep it mind. You can see the updated version of this demo by Wokwi link from the post #1 now. To start the demo you can push select joystick button as xfpd suggected in the post #5.
I have implemented your idea about starting the game like so. Now I need some time to think what may be wrong, what to improve and how to proceed next. Thank you both for your help and advice very much.
Yes, there are some bugs with the collision detection I have invented. That's what I should do next before to proceed - to fix them. And thank you again for your being invloved into the process of creating this game. If there is some more on this demo, please, let me know. I'll try to take into account everything at this early stage of its development.
I have fixed the bug for collision detection in the demo version of this game (Wokwi link in the post #1). Would you, please, check if it is what you have noticed to be wrong while playing it?
P.S. And I have improved collision detection in a whole, - now it's more precise and fast because there is no any additional dependency on the speed of the player and other obstacles, though the car is still a bounding box which I can get rid of. I mean it should not collide where leds are not lit, but, maybe, it's just unnecessary.
Yes. I think that now I should summarize upon alto777's ideas and implement it further, though I am still not sure about structure of my classes. I just wanted them to be properly nested like HAS-A and IS-A relationships according to OOP basic principles. By the way, I added a sound of car movement to the demo, but it's not a big deal in comparison to some other possible improvements.
Hello. Thank you very much for one more idea for this project. Did you mean to use bluetooth module which may be controlled by the mobile phone instead of current joystick? WiFi is supposed to be used by several devices and bluetooth only by one. Or did you mean a multiplayer game with WiFi?