Re: [tuxracer-devel] Course precisions

[Jasmin P. <jf...@mu...>]

[Sorry for the delay in responding, I've had to devote 100% of my time
over the last few days to finishing a term project...]

On Wed, 12 Apr 2000, Steve Baker wrote:

> Jules Bean wrote:
>
> > Points for *long* periods of being airborn - perhaps for each period
> > of being airborn for longer than 0.5 seconds.
> 
> Well don't we have to have 'damage' scored on Tux for hard landings,
> hitting trees and stuff - and perhaps for scooting over rocks at high
> speed? (That's hard on your feathers you know!)  That makes for somewhat
> contradictory requirements...I think a better way to reward long 'air
> time' is using tricks (see my comments below).

There's a first cut at a damage system in 0.12, but you won't see the
health display unless you include "health" in the debug variable in
~/.tuxracer.  It still needs work.  Paddling saps Tux's health, he takes
damage when he hits a tree, and damage is also incurred based on the
magnitude of the force exerted on him by the terrain.  

> > 100? points for never using the paddle key
> 
> I don't think you need to do that - if you have to resort to paddling,
> you've already lost so much time that you'll get a bad time score.
> No need for a double penalty.

Well, paddling at the start of a race gives you a nice speed boost.  But
I like the idea that paddling saps your health.  Comments?

> > Other bonuses might have to wait until we have 'special trick' keys.
> 
> Yep!  The (excellent) 1080 snowboard game on Nintendo 64 has that -
> and it's nice because they reward small numbers of points for doing
> basic tricks - but MUCH more points for doing them in combinations in
> quick succession while in the air.  I guess that's incentive for
> getting long 'air time' - you can fit in more tricks in one 'combo'.
> 
> Doing the same trick twice in a row doesn't constitute a combo in
> 1080...and if you fall off the board on landing, your score for
> that set of tricks is zeroed.
> 
> We might also want to consider 'bonuses' on the track:
> 
>  * Goodies you can hit to get a temporary boost of speed.
>  * Things that repair your 'damage'.
>  * Things that score bonus points.
>  * Perhaps things like teleporters that take you to some other
>    place on the track (better *or* worse).

The first two are already on the list.  The latter two seem like they
might be good additions too.

> This may be controversial - but I would like to propose that
> we aim for a common 'style' for such things between Tux Racer
> and my Quest for Herring game. (And "Tux-Kart" which may be my
> next effort).  It would help the world of Tux-based games to
> establish a set of common themes like that.

Sure, I'm open to something like that.  

> For example, I have 'spinning herrings' in different colours
> (Silver for a points bonus, Gold for a major prize, Red for
> a random-ish special effect, Green for bad things you'd want
> to avoid.  I use small spinning Tux icons for 'extra lives')

I like the idea of herring for health (I would use silver for small
health boost, gold for big health boost), but for speed boosts I favour
some kind of symbol on the terrin itself -- chevrons have been used in
so many racing games that they're instantly recognizable (which I think
is a good thing).  

Bonus points should be represented by something other than herring,
IMHO, though off the top of my head I can't think of anything good
(bowtie?  CD?  3-D /. ?)  

I would make the teleporters look like portals of some sort -- say a
(translucent?) polygon with an animated perlin-type texture, or something
similar.

> > Personally, I'm not too bothered about needing to 'finish' one track
> > before going on to the next, although perhaps this should be at the
> > course designer's option --- so some tracks are grouped into
> > sequences, and some aren't.
> 
> I think it's important to give players a REASON to beat the game.
> We aren't offering cash prizes - but the ability to 'get onto the
> next level' is a powerful force to get people to keep playing until
> they beat the 'par' time.  If all the courses are instantly accessible,
> people will visit each one quickly and have seen all that the game
> has to offer before they've even mastered one level.
> 
> You'd want to make it EASY to 'open up' the first few levels - but
> make things increasingly hard right up to the end.

Right, that makes sense to me.  (I can't remeber what 1080 does...
doesn't it have a few open at the start, and then they're opened up one
at a time?)

Jasmin

-- 
Jasmin Patry               Master's Student, Dept. of Computer Science
jf...@cg...         http://www.cgl.uwaterloo.ca/~jfpatry/