Making a Racing Game, and other odds and ends.

[cchapeton]

Hello everyone,

I have a student that wants to make a racing game. It's going to be a two player game that has an over head view. What's the easiest way to track laps for each player? Also, is there an easy way to teach a middle schooler to make the second player a CPU and actually "race" you? Not sure if I am wording that correctly. Any advice you may have would be great!

Also, I have another student that is working on a platformer, easy enough. But she wants to make a platform that pivots up and down when you run across it. (think see-saw) Is there a way to do that in MMF2?

Just in case it helps we are only using MMF2, not developer, and we are not downloading any extensions. I just want to know if it is possible to create what I need with the basic tools. Thanks again guys!

Carlos

[JasonDarby]

Hello Carlos

Yes this is all possible with MMF2.

AI Computer player... the easiest way to do this is have a car, and give it a Path movement. Draw a path around the race track. Depending on if the player crosses the lap first you could increase or decrease the speed of that path.

Easiest way to track laps, I would use an Active object, like a big red block, make it invisible and then check when the car has gone over the active (collision ~ another object). (Of course there are ways the player could cheat, but i find that is good for the students to think about ways that a player can get around their designs).

Pivot... yes that is possible, but i just dont know how to do that straight off the top of my head...

Hope that helps

Jason

[uprize]

As Jason said above, you can use the path movement... but in my opinion this sucks and after a few laps you can tell the exact path the car will make which is not realistic.
If you want racing to be a bit more dynamic you can make invisible nodes throughout the track and give them an ID, link them together somehow (store a list with all adjacent nodes for example) and then dynamically pick nodes from the list at runtime to create a semi realistic path.
You can find basic tutorials for this all over the net.
However this can get a bit messy and complex in MMF so its up to you wether you want simplicity or realism

As for keeping track of laps, again as jason said above invisible actives are the easiest way. Just place them throughout the track and number them in order and make sure the player goes through them in the correct order.

And for your platform, yes you can do that with a bit of tinkering. You can have a rectangle active as your plaform (for example) and rotate it at runtime based on the position of the player. If the player is touching the platform and is on the left of the platform, rotate the platform anti-clockwise (you will need to play around with the position a bit as it will move as you rotate, so you need some maths to calculate the offset to reposition it so it appears as if it hasnt moved at all). The further they are from the center point of the platform, the faster it slopes in that direction. You should do a google search and you will find some explanations which you can easily adapt once you learn the logic behind it.

Hope this is enough to get you started