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Race [16kb cartridge] [2014] |
AKA :
Race
Released At :
RGCD C64 16KB Cartridge Game Development Competition 2014
Achievements :
C64 Game Competition at RGCD C64 16KB Cartridge Game Development Competition 2014 : #16
Credits :
Download :
Look for downloads on external sites:
Pokefinder.org
Production Info
Submitted by Sokrates on 4 December 2014
RACE - The story
================
"Race" is a story about the return to the good old C64. Back in the 80th I loved to play games on the C64 and did some first steps in programming susing BASIC, SIMONS' BASIC and ASSEMBLER. My dream was to program a game by myself but due to the missing skills I never got far. Well, in the meantime I learned how to program computers, and at some point in my life I reminded me of this old dream. So here is my first game for the C64: Race!
Race is a fun/party racing game for 1-8 player(s). It has two modes: championship mode and battle mode. The championship mode is about to reach the finish line as fast as possible avoiding penalty points caused by collisions with obstacles. The goal of the battle mode is even simpler: be the last car driving!
After Schlimeisch Mania from RAY and PCH it will be the second game supporting the Inception adapter. There will be two versions of Race: a version for the RGCD 2014 competition and an enhanced version with music and more race tracks.
There were a lot of inspirations and supporters for Race. The game type was inspired by Rally Speedway from John Anderson (which itself was inspired by the Mattel Intellivision Auto Racing game) and a single-button game called Cave, which I played first on a Palm PDA.
I was thrilled about how David Crane did the level design of "Pitfall!" (Check out the book "Racing the Beam" or his talk at the GDC 2011 in YouTube). Each screen is encoded into 1(!) byte: path object, pit type, tree pattern and underground. That's why "Pitfall!" has 256 screens. In this tradition the race tracks are generated according to a given byte-seed value for the random generator - although it's technically more similar to what David Braben and Ian Bell did later in Elite. The 16K version for RGCD has only one extra-long track (25 screens), but the enhanced version has 256 tracks for each scenario (city, desert, country). I'm not sure whether this is a good idea, but I like it and it can be used on partys to choose a random track where probably no one had practiced before.
In games like Wizard of Wor or Bruce Lee the second player can decide to support the first player or to compete against him. I haven't seen this idea a lot in games. So I decided not only to implement a single player highscore, but also a team highscore. Each player can now decide to support the team or to focus on best single player.
A lot of effort went into the car physics. A car has several parameters influencing its driving behavior (e.g. maximal velocity, drag, power, turn speed). Special attention is paid on vehicle collisions: a car is not only reflected, but also its direction is turned according to the collision point. So when a car collides up left with another car the reaction depends on where the other car comes from. If it comes from above, the car is turned to the left, if the other car comes from left it is turned to the right. If the collision is quite centric, the car is not turned at all. When colliding with obstacles (like houses) the car is not only reflected, but also some extra speed is added (like with active bumpers in a pinball). I hope that will support the party thought of the game.
The best thing to the game happened when I asked Jak T Rip from Protovison for some technical support on the 4-Player adapter. He did a lot of testing for the game and came up with a dozen of really good ideas how to improve it. This was extremely helpful and beside that he is a really nice guy! So thank you very, vary much, Jak T Rip! He has also initiated the contact to SIDwave/rambones, who will do the music for the enhanced version. A big, big "thank you" to SIDwave for his fantastic music and for the courage to work with a new guy unknown in the scene! In addition, Jak T Rip introduced me to JSL. He agreed to provide a title image for RACE+, thanks! Thanks also to enthusi who gave me a framework for the 16K cartridges! Also all the information and tools in the internet were really helpful. It's so much easier nowadays to write software for the C64 than it was in the past.
Let's hope we will see more new stuff from new people for a bright retro future! Please support them! And I hope you will enjoy Race at home or even better at a retro computing party :-)
Sokrates |
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![Race [16kb cartridge]](/gfx/releases/135000/135126.gif)
