So just got the collision working, seems pretty good now, next step is to get on / off track detection, race position, lap times, respotting… And then probably need to tighten up at AI a bit more!

Fresh video using a better screen recorder!… It's not showing much but it does highlight a selection of AI flaws.

1) The auto waypointing isn't quite right, there are additional waypoints that are added that need to be subsequently removed, it already does some of this but I've made an update to the waypoint array that now holds what point on the route it is, this will allow me to look forwards and backwards on the route much easier and see if the next or previous part of the route has a waypoint, and do something about whatever is in the current point. It'll make sense when I do it! It's more of the same of what I wrote on the piece of paper ^^^ up there!

2) Even with perfect waypointing, the cars need to “see” the edges of the road and try and stay on it

3) The chaotic nature of the video is mostly around the cars colliding with one another and pushing them all over the place. So should the cars “see” the other cars and make steps to avoid collisions? (probably!)

I love badly drawn racing! Here are some suggestions for this sequel:
-A mini-map (so you could take a glimpse of the map, and also be able to see the player dots)
-Cars that have different stats
-Maybe even try to make it online? (with AIs in case no ones there)
Idk, just ideas. I hope the second one turns out AMAZING!

Mini map is already on the list
Cars with different stats is also on the list, need to play with this once I've got the AI stuff sorted, but essentially it'll be tuning of acceleration vs speed, traction vs speed etc.
Online isn't going to happen!

So after all this messing about with way points I've just thrown all of that code away and just use the route instead, seems to work just as well (if not better) and actually simplifies the whole thing! Update soon!

Oh, and mini map is in now too!

Cool! Out of curiosity, do you have an idea of when it’ll be done?

Honestly no idea! I have a full time job, kids, and very little free time to do this stuff, however, I'll keep posting up progression here as it develops and we'll have a clearer idea of completion.

The majority of the game dynamic is there, I'm currently working on the particle system for the smoke and mud fx. Then just need to do race order, respite, lap completion code and lap timing.

Then it's onto the front end stuff which always takes longer than expected

What if you got other people to draw the cars, like, in a contest…
And to build up hype, release a dev progress project every so often, to keep people on their toes, and a good trailer could be helpful, with a countdown after. The trailer could be something like this: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/936487100/ only yours would have to be a bit more funky…
I really think it's cool that someone is putting so much effort into a SCRATCH game, which is why I think the development should go into something else afterwards. Something to put on game platforms (websites) It could be called Badly Drawn Racers: Scribbles and Smoke. I know this is bit ahead… but………………

Can't say names of websites cuz scratch won't let me…

The issue is I can't commit to a Dev deadline because of real life! Fear not, it will get done!

So here's a little update of the progress made today. We now have the new AI using the route rather than a waypoint system, this could do with a bit of finesse but I think it's objectively better, also less calculations, although, I was pretty pleased with what I'd done, this is simpler. It's always a shame to throw code away but it makes sense to do so in this case.

I've also added a particle system so we've got some new smoke and dirt that kicks ups. I drew the smoke recently and I'm pretty pleased with it, I think a bit of cartoon animated smoke looks far better than the more realistic smoke of the earlier versions.

So still to do as mentioned above are race order, respotting, lap timing etc. Still bits and bobs, but getting there!

Video here!

Not a deadline, just a thing to do every now and then, sometimes you might share 5 in a week, others you won't be active for a month.

Given I don't have much free time to work on the game itself I really don't have time to make trailers!

However, updates for today are that I now have off track and respotting sorted and it works pretty well. I do want to add some more complexity though as the on/off track is entirely around the tile and this isn't great on corners as it detects on road when you're clearly not on the actual track as corners don't use the entire tile. So looking at improving that. My theory is it shouldn't be that hard as it just needs to work out where the centre of the corner circle is and do a bit of Pythagoras on it to decide if you're on or off track… That's the theory at least!

I could make a trailer, or at least a teaser, of which you could quickly tweak if you have to. All I'd need would be a few cool screen shots of action, as well as the track, so I can animate the cars, video (which you already have) and a few sprites of the cars.

And music

New Video!

This is a pretty huge update over the old version. So the detection of ‘on’ or ‘off’ road was entirely based on what tile you're on.

This works great for the straight road tiles, but on the bends, especially the less tight bends, there's a lot of grass and this all originally counted as “track”, however, I've added an extra check if you're on a bend and it performs a radius check so we get a far more accurate representation of the track. This is shown by the red circles that appear when the car is on a corner tile.

The check is “what tile am I on? If I'm on a road piece then I'm on the track”, then there's the additional check of “If I'm on a corner and I'm inside or outside (based on the tile) of a given radius then I'm not on the track.”

Which is nice.

So just to give another update, I'm currently tuning the physics so it plays well, trying to make it so coming off the throttle to power slide it round a corner is a thing, proving to be quite tricky, but I'm keen to make it more than just hold down accelerate and steer round corners, make it a bit more of a challenge to play.

The AI players are currently tough as hell too, I can't beat them! This is a good thing as it's easy to make them dumber!

Things to do are race order, completion of tracks, lap timing, lap number… So a few things really!

I'm going on vacation in a couple of weeks so the likelihood of this being complete before then is pretty small, I'll see what I can do, but we'll have to see how it goes!

OK!!!!!

Sounds like it’s really coming along! I guess the physics mostly work. I’m so excited for this!
Fun(ny) Suggestion: if you can choose the AI difficulty, you could keep the “impossible” mode on for fun
And, now that I think, can you make the mobile controls easier? It’s hard when everywhere you press is the joystick. Maybe a fixed joystick in the bottom center?