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Skid Marks - Race & Track Editor! (1Player With 5 CPU cars)

Archive: 22 posts

Skid Marks - Race & Track Editor (http://lbp.me/v/ytp9pj) (Yes, I made a racing game called Skid Marks. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but then I expect the last 5 Police Academy movies did as well.)

FEATURES

A complete Track editor
CPU controlled opponents
Custom scoring system
Cool neon aesthetic
Some less cool migraine-inducing lighting effects

GAMEPLAY

The game starts in a small hub with the default race track showing on the tv;

http://i7.lbp.me/img/ft/087541ec85d043f4b7eee7ebd058376b9aed9d18.jpg

At this point you can either go through the tube on the right to race immediately, or hit the button on the left to start the track designer (and watch the optional 'help' movie if so desired);

http://i5.lbp.me/img/ft/785ee7f9935a65eed1c134f7dc2968c660cdb97d.jpg

http://i5.lbp.me/img/ft/5d51e20e3a56a805ab7b15ec3efd9e2c78a83420.jpg

Essentially the track designer has one square assigned to each track section, and you build the track by placing specific stickers on these squares. Using this, you can build pretty much any track you feel like at the time, as long as your track starts and ends at the grid (although track parts can't cross over eachother. Yet.) Please note that once a track part is placed, it can not be removed or overwritten, and make sure you use the stickers the same way up as they appear in the Switch Trigger menu - rotating them doesn't change the orientation of the corresponding track section!

Once you're ready to race, simply dive through the signposted tube on the right, and you're off to the land of retro-neon racing to tear up the track against the CPU Controlled opponents!

http://i6.lbp.me/img/ft/f86cf6d0774488ad231fdcb4d61347243823ba6a.jpg

The race itself is doing a few interesting things.
Obviously, as mentioned, you race against CPU controlled cars (no multi-player just yet, sorry), and these are smart enough to get round whatever player-designed tracks are thrown at them.
There's a custom scoring system. The standard LBP2 race score/countdown gates would be no good for this game - the problem being that they use a set starting score, but the races in the level can vary in length depending on what tracks the player makes. So I built my own tech. This keeps track of how long the player-made track is in any given race, and adjusts the starting score accordingly, and it's actually skewed in favour of rewarding more elaborate track designs.
A lap counter that's smart enough to know if you've done a full circuit. And, er, count to 4.
It's actually fun to play. But then I would say that, wouldn't I...?

I hope you have a great time playing it! All feedback good and bad is welcomed, and I'll be keeping an eye on comments to make improvements. I'm happy to answer any questions if there's anything anyone is curious about.

Have Fun!

NOTES
The level is relatively untested and currently the car favours a bit of drift (which I like), but that can be changed if feedback indicates other preferences.

The level actually started off life as part of a toolkit for quickly prototyping pac-man mazes. This also had an intelligent tiling system where any given section of maze looked at it's surroundings to decide what kind of 'block it should be - I'm working on adapting this to Skid Marks.

Laying the text for the tutorial video was such a pain in the bottomly regions that I actually built a typewriter in a different level, to make it easier for me!

http://id.lbp.me/img/ft/29ddf88d64479cbb14e2107a0ceb8510cdf9dd9d.jpg

I can guarantee F4F for the first 5 responses (probably more than that, but I don't want to overstate and cause any disappointment just yet)

http://lbp.me/v/ytp9pj
http://lbp.me/v/http://lbp

2011-03-14 17:33:00

Author:
matneee

Posts: 66

Wow, that's some real outside-the box thinking with the track editor. I loved the retro graphics, and honestly it's hard to find fault with this at all. All I can suggest is multiplayer support for a future version?

Jolly good stuff!

F4F (https://lbpcentral.lbp-hub.com/index.php?t=52831-Sackometry-Wars-Evolution)

2011-03-15 15:01:00

Author:
Bovrillor

Posts: 309

I'm really very pleased with the Level Editor (as judging by the scoreboards people are using it), and fairly happy with the AI Cars. I've kind of grown fond of when one of them completely whigs out and hurtles off in entirely the wrong direction, before realising and correcting itself

. To be honest, this was really an experiment in making in-game level designers for the player to use, and also in how difficult it would be to make AI that can handle whatever the player dreams up. But as it came together I thought I may as well polish it up and put it out there. There are a few fundamental things I'd do different if starting over, which would make the whole shebang more versatile, but we'll see. Multiplayer is actually pretty simple to implement, but harder to polish. It'll certainly be in Skid Marks 2 though, along with position ranking, probably a selection of different-handling cars, and some frankly weird stuff even I'm not convinced makes any sense.

Any views on the In-Game help, btw? I wasn't sure if it explained things well enough. Or was, er, patronising...

I had a quick look at your level btw - I've not forgotten I owe you some comments, it's just been a long day and I'm tired. I'll get round to it tommorrow.

2011-03-16 00:08:00

Author:
matneee

Posts: 66

Tried your level a few times and i was extremely impressed: the whole concept alone raises it above 99% of the levels out so far. The level creation is truly awesome and works nicely even though i believe that maybe having a way to recognize unfinished tracks and autocomplete them with the standard loop could help, but i guess there are countless combinations to analyze so i understand the difficulty. Regarding the racing i feel that the handling of the car was a bit weak but the cars AI were amazing. The only problem is that i made a complicated track and two cars started racing in the wrong direction while another got stuck doing loops in two curves of the track, the effect however was surprisingly fun

.

Excellent work you deserves a lot of praise

2011-03-16 10:02:00

Author:
Vergil

Posts: 155

I absolutely love this. I'm working on a race level myself, but I wouldn't even dare attempt a track-editor.

It's hard to critisize your level, given everything is relatively easy to pick up and use.
The only thing that really echoes in my mind was the tiny Prize Bubbles in the lobby. I reckon wiring up a timer to the prizes themselves, rather than bunching them all together would've looked a little nicer, but this is a really tiny point.

Regarding the vehicles,
I quite liked the handling. I think removing the drifty-ness from the cars might make it a little too simple to control. I would say that the drift makes it much less straightforward to follow a perfect racing line. And there aren't many other gameplay mechanics at play here, so that little drift is nessecary to keep it interesting.
I might not have worded what I'm getting at very well, but I think you'll get it.
Your AI is very nice. I didn't encounter any issues myself. Perhaps if they followed a better racing-line it'd be a little more challenging, but I wouldn't sweat if it's not possible to implement - AI racers are a pain in the butt, I've been there too.

The track editor itself is great. I look forward to whatever you're planning on adding in SM2. Would be neat to see various special pieces, like a jump, or boost pads, or crossroads or maybe even a means of splitting the road into 2 directions, with AI randomly selecting one path to take.
Last one of course, would be a real brainteaser.

2011-03-16 13:02:00

Author:
Ostler5000

Posts: 1017

I look forward to whatever you're planning on adding in SM2. Would be neat to see various special pieces, like a jump, or boost pads, or crossroads or maybe even a means of splitting the road into 2 directions, with AI randomly selecting one path to take.
Last one of course, would be a real brainteaser.

Crossroads are definitely going to be there, maybe power-ups, although that depends on how much I can tighten up the overall driving experience. I'd like to make it good enough to be interesting without 'gimicks', but we'll see. A few people have commented on the handling being a bit poor and while I quite like it, it ain't my opinion that counts here

The track splitting probably isn't that difficult actually - oddly enough, what I've found so far is that getting the AI to come out of corners without trying to commit suicide is the hard part. Really was not expecting that...

2011-03-16 14:53:00

Author:
matneee

Posts: 66

.. while another got stuck doing loops in two curves of the track, the effect however was surprisingly fun

.

Excellent work you deserves a lot of praise

LOL

That's a new one one me. Ah, my poor babies...

Oh, regarding the bit in the previous post about the prize-bubbles. You're completely right, they're ugly as hell and were slapped there as a quick patch for something. I'll fix it when I have a moment to spare - thanks for pointing it out.

EDIT

The hideous Prize-Bubble thing has been fixed
Something came up this evening so I couldn't do the reviews I owe people. Sorry - I promise them before the weekend.

2011-03-16 17:16:00

Author:
matneee

Posts: 66

Just played it.... very cool! Not only is the track editor effective, but the racing works really well. The retro-style grapghics give it a nice stylistic look.

Couple thoughts:

This racer really needs to be kicked to the next level. Maybe.... some more stickers that allow you to add track sections with additional features, such as separators in the road.

Maybe add a "nitro" button that gives you a burst... but it needs to charge. You could give the computer cars the same abilities.

This is a GREAT idea and a nice racer, but if you push the idea over the edge you will seriously have people talking. I gave it a happy face and a heart.

(no F4F necessary)

2011-03-17 02:58:00

Author:
CCubbage

Posts: 4430

Ooh, praise indeed from the creator of Vectroids

I thought you might like the look - tbh the style was shamelessly stolen heavily inspired by Vectroids (which I think I hearted, as it happens - good level.) I'm no artist (as I think THIS (https://lbpcentral.lbp-hub.com/index.php?t=52477-ASotW-(Alternative-Superhero-s-of-the-World)&p=805883&viewfull=1#post805883) proves beyond doubt), and the minimalistic vector-look can hide a multitude of graphic design sins.

Anyway, yes you're right, the 'race' part of it needs work. Truth be told, that part of the game received the least attention. Skid Marks was never something I intended to release - it was really just a test-bed for the level editor tools and making autonomous AI that can cope with changeable playing areas. Up until a week ago, Skid Marks was basically 4 cardboard blocks droning around cardboard racetracks, and the editor was a bit of polystyrene with a grid drawn on it. And before that it was a set of tools for pac-man games.

But I quite liked how it worked, so I dropped in a few other pieces of tech I'd been working on (the custom score system was designed for a 'World of Goo' experiment, the lap system culled from a Golf level, etc), sought 'inspiration for the vector look, then plopped a player-controllable car and "help" system into the mix, along with a little endgame rule.

This is probably why the racing is the least good part of the whole thing - I didn't design it from the ground up to be a racing game - as far as I'm concerned, in many ways this is merely a protracted tech demo.

The next one will build the tech around the player, rather than the player skating on the tech, with any luck. And be a lot more optimised - everything in there is currently modular which is great for re-using in other levels, but not very efficient. Even with the game only spawning what it needs and destroying everything that's not going to be used again as it goes along, it's only JUST this side of useable.

****, I wrote more than I thought I would there

But yeah - I'll design the next one as a racer from scratch, as the current tech is a little tricky to modify now. Although I'm currently working on something based around light and harmonic sound (that may yet prove to be an unplayable mess), so it'll be a short while before that arrives...

2011-03-17 12:48:00

Author:
matneee

Posts: 66

Looks amazing. queued it, ill leave a review in the game
F4Fhttps://lbpcentral.lbp-hub.com/index.php?t=53106-MindSmasher&p=807138#post807138

2011-03-17 18:59:00

Author:
matt54123

Posts: 38

*Sigh*

So. I broke my level yesterday when trying to fix it. I am an eejit...

Turns out that after I shifted the sticker bubbles so they're automatically gifted to the player rather than cluttering up the place and generally looking like a cup of sick, for some inexplicable reason the default track was vanishing as the race started, even when you didn't use the level editor. Which isn't supposed to happen. Lots.

Anyway, I went through every connection, every bloody circuit and sequencer trying to figure out what was going on, but to no avail. And, to be honest, the race start module and the track icon stuff are completely unconnected - the default track sections should only be removed when the player jumps on the Track Editor button. So I had no idea what was going on.

It only occurred to me 45 mins later that seeing as I basically destroy every bit of the level when it's not going to be used again, there might be a stray piece doing something unexpected. Turns out that in fixing the ugly aspect of the prizes, the think that I'd then put them on was getting erased just before the race starts, and the bubbles were falling straight down onto - you've guessed it - the Track Editor Switch. Which, er, triggers the default track to be erased...

Some times I'm so clever I even impress myself.

EDIT - Oh, and my thanks to Zupaton for pointing out the missing track in the first place - I might not have noticed otherwise.

2011-03-18 00:44:00

Author:
matneee

Posts: 66

So... I've started returning F4Fs at last. Sorry for the delay - I am a very naughty boy and shall go to the bad place when I die.

Ostler - let me know if (and which) level you'd like me to peek at. If I've missed anyone, feel free to direct a deserved torrent of abuse in my direction.

2011-03-18 21:05:00

Author:
matneee

Posts: 66

Ostler - let me know if (and which) level you'd like me to peek at.

Ooh, I'd love it if you could take a look at RemboBots. It's the only LBP2 level I have public just now.
Normally, I just leave comments here and there as I please, without expecting anything in return, but TBH, the only people I've actually gotten a word out of are a few randoms with small comments, and some friends I practically have to hold a Paintinator to, to get them to say anything.

EDIT - Actually, I'll make an exception for damaz - he's pretty cool.

2011-03-18 21:13:00

Author:
Ostler5000

Posts: 1017

OK, I shall pop by over the weekend and cast me beady eye over it

Incidentally, I'm just one play short of my "50 play" trophy here. Might not seem much to many people here but, well, just sayin' y'know...

2011-03-18 22:49:00

Author:
matneee

Posts: 66

Wow this looks like a cool level! I queue it and will play it soon ok
Can you review my level Cryo lab test, the link is in my sig ok XD

2011-03-18 23:20:00

Author:
Arnald23

Posts: 1843

Consider it done. Well, done [i]soon[/], at any rate.

2011-03-19 09:37:00

Author:
matneee

Posts: 66

Hey, I had a look at your level and left you an in-game review. I was really impressed. For convenience, a copy of it is here.

Wow, I'm so impressed by this level. The track creator is what wins me over the most. And there are other things in the level I wish I knew how to do in Create mode. As for issues I had, I found I could not 'erase' or replace a piece of track I put down previously, would be great to be able to. The other thing is, I found I could inflate my score by making a really short track and filling the rest with nonsense pieces. But I wouldn't be surprised if this became Mm picked.

2011-03-19 11:01:00

Author:
Elhaz

Posts: 11

Yeah, the 'not being able to erase track parts' thing is a fairly fundamental design flaw stemming from the track editors roots - as mentioned earlier it was part of a toolkit for quickly making pac-man mazes, and that was used in the LBP edit section where there was no real need to have a delete function.

It's actually pretty simple to do - I just set it up so the player can lay a a track and use the sticker remove tool to their heart's content, then when they're finished they push a button to generate the track (or that gets done invisibly as they jump down the tube, for that matter). But it'd be an enormous pain in the **** to incorporate that into the current editor, so it'll be in the next itteration of the tech.

Although that probably won't be unit after either my "World of Goo" rip-off homage, or this weird abstract thing based on light/colour/sound called GlowChime (which I love the concept of but have yet to stumble across the mechanic that makes it all 'click' as a game).

2011-03-19 14:29:00

Author:
matneee

Posts: 66

A quick update - The whole of Skid Marks is now available to download and edit in it's entirety.

It's had a good response from it's modest amount of players, and many people have mentioned the Track Editor in particular, so I thought I'd share it. I figure that as I never intended to publish the level in the first place I have nothing to lose here, and maybe some others out there will improve on the systems and set the bar a little higher when I get round to the sequel.

Well, I say 'sequel' - if I'm honest I consider this level not much more than a proof of concept demo

Details can be found HERE (https://lbpcentral.lbp-hub.com/index.php?t=53368-Skid-Marks-My-Dirty-Laundry-Edition&p=809752#post809752), and I'm happy to answer what questions I have there (or by PM etc)

2011-03-20 17:13:00

Author:
matneee

Posts: 66

2011-03-20 17:14:00

Author:
matneee

Posts: 66

This was probably the coolest looking top down racer I've seen and its not even that detailed! (minus the cool animations which are what I think did it for me)

Less is more I suppose. many top down racers are so filled with props and such that you can hardly tell which way to go sometimes, and this is for sure the first creator type thing ive seen for any level at all, racer or not.

Well done!

2011-03-31 14:31:00

Author:
LeastCreative

Posts: 49

Thanks. Once I started nailing the pieces of the game together, I was quite surprised that I couldn't find other levels doing the whole "In-Game Level Editor" thing, considering that's the basic ethos of LBP itself. I'd love to see others doing it though. Oh, and the minimalist art style - purely down to me utter lack of skills as an artist tbh. Although in general I'm a fan of the neon vector look having grown up in the era of steam-powered arcade cabinets in the early 1980's. And the animations? Well, they mostly came when I was doodling in the creator when I really should have been figuring out the scalable scoring system logic. So my complete inability to maintain any kind of focus wins again

2011-04-05 10:23:00

Author:
matneee

Posts: 66

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