Doom Buggy 4k

Contests 4K Game Competition - 2006
#1

Hi,

I would like to introduce my first ever entry in the Java 4k 2006 competition “Doom Buggy 4K”. I would be really interested to know what you all think of it.

http://javaunlimited.net/games/view.php?id=85

The aim on the game is pretty simple. You are in a buggy in a desert and the aim is to make your way through all the “waypoints” on the map [in order] in the allocated time limit. The next waypoint you have to find is lit in green (as opposed to yellow).

Control the buggy using the arrow keys or W,A,S,D (note, there is no reverse)

W/Up (forward)
S/Down (break)
A/Left (left)
D/Right (right)

The waypoints are placed around the map at the same location on each level; so once you find one… remember where it is. The catch is that you have to go through the waypoints in order. The current green waypoint will then disappear and the next waypoint will turn from yellow to green (thus the importance on remember where they are).

In the higher levels, the terrain gets more complex and the waypoints get further apart form one another, and it gets pretty hard. The “minimap” is useful for working out what direction you are heading and where waypoints are. Running off the tops of the high mountains gives you a good view to where the waypoints might be, however, you can not steer while your flying through the air, so you may end up using up valuable time.

Technical Details : The terrain height field is dynamically generated using a plasma cloud algorithm and then lit and coloured using a simple Phong shader.

Please enjoy!

#2

Holy Shit!!!

This looks pretty damn impressive.

Well done Peter.

#3

Ah, there you are! I was starting to wonder if I’d have to post it for you. :slight_smile:

Good work, BTW. The voxel engine does an incredible job of rendering the landscape. You really get the feel that you’re driving a buggy around Mars. I’m curious, do you have much space left? I’d love to see the buggy image “bounce” as it hits the ground. If you don’t have enough space, you might consider nixing the WASD controls and using only the arrow keys. That might buy you enough.

#4

I don’t have much space left (4094bytes), but I’m thinking of doing another run over the code to get some more bytes. However, the buggy does bounce (but you have to fall a long way to really notice it). Maybe I should make the bounce move obvious :slight_smile:

Out of interest, are there any developers out there from Australia?

Cheers,
PF

#5

I am from South Australia.

I dont have the time lately to make games :frowning: I think these 4k competitions are good as it allows me to create a game and not really sacrifice work time :slight_smile:

#6

really impressive, good work

btw, where do i have to go to learn to do this kind of things

#7

Very impressive game technically speaking, it’s not that fun though. I couldn’t find more than the first waypoint.

#8

I have to agree. It took me 4 tries to find the first waypoint before the time ran out. If you had an arrow on the HUD to tell what direction to head to find the next waypoint that would help a great deal. In fact it would be more useful than the bird’s eye view that you have now.

#9

This game is beautiful. Excellent job!

There are so many awesome games this year. It’s really amazing.

#10

Nice voxel engine. I don’t know what the ‘plasma’ algorithm is. Maybe an internet search will provide. It’s interesting to compare your approach (when I’ve figured it out) to the one I used in Speed4k. Mine emits a 2D ray for each screen column & generates a height profile, which is then painted onto the column with zero overdraw. Other objects are then drawn on top using z-buffering.

Sadly I couldn’t get round all the waypoints in the time either, although I should be able to shave a few seconds off with practice. Does the machine speed have any effect on the difficulty?

/Edit: Works on OS X 10.4 :slight_smile:

/Edit: At last I managed to complete level 1 with 3 seconds to spare :slight_smile: I found it pays to aim slightly to the left (or right) of each waypoint, and then turn in to it, so as to set up a track for the next waypoint without slowing down.

/Edit: I drove over the hills for fun. Is it possible to increase the heightmap resolution at all, or would this take too much memory?

Alan

#11

Very nice graphics. I found all the waypoints, but even at maximum speed, I ran out of time before I got to the last one. I did not stop or run into anything at all.

My specs:
AMD Athlon 64 3000+
512MB
Radeon 9600 PRO

#12

Excellent graphics. great work!

a good tutorial on voxel engine:
http://www.flipcode.com/voxtut/

#13

thanks!, great tut.

added to bookmarks… my todo list it’s growing out of control ::slight_smile: