Wedge [DevLog]/Hype Train

[djpooppants]

 

 

WEDGE                                                                                      

Wedge is a fast paced VR racer slated to be released in April of 2016. 

 

PLANNED FEATURES_______________________________

 

• 10 pre-authored tracks, each taking 5 minutes of play time to complete for an average skill player

• 40 high-quality prefab tubes for procedural generation

• personal best time ghosting
• daily or weekly procedural track seed
• online leaderboard
• Option to import audio tracks
• Music Visualizer that drives the movement of obstacles and colors of materials

 

STATUS                                                                                     

• 0/10 authored tracks
• 22 prefab tubes
• ghosting design not started
• no seeding system
• no leader board system
• no audio track import feature
• Visualizer fully implemented
• VR device support fully implemented

 

 

SCREENSHOTS                                                                        

 

 

[Chris]

Rad. When you say VR, do you mean that's the visual aesthetic of the game, or do you mean it's being developed specifically or exclusively for VR devices?

[djpooppants]

Good question. It is being developed for VR devices, but there will also be a non-VR version. I've edited the post to clarify.

[djpooppants]

Additions over the past week

 

                                                                                                                                                                                      

 

BOOST!

 

 

 

 

 

Well shit.. it was working before I started writing this post.

 

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

 

 

Worm Thing!

 

 

I actually haven't implemented this little guy anywhere yet, but there is a lot of potential here.

 

The code is pretty simple. The first cube moves forward on a sine wave:

using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;

public class worm : MonoBehaviour {

    public float MoveSpeed = 5.0f;
    public float frequency = 20.0f;  // Speed of sine movement
    public float magnitude = 0.5f;   // Size of sine movement
    private Vector3 axis;
    private Vector3 pos;

    void Start()
    {
        pos = transform.position;
        axis = -transform.right;
    }

    void Update()
    {
        pos += transform.up * Time.deltaTime * MoveSpeed;
        transform.position = pos + axis * Mathf.Sin(Time.time * frequency) * magnitude;
    }
}

Subsequent cubes use a different script that tells them to follow the cube ahead of itself:

 

using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;

public class follow : MonoBehaviour {

    public Transform targ;
    public float speed;

void Update ()
    {
        transform.position = Vector3.Lerp(transform.position, targ.transform.position, speed);
        transform.LookAt(targ);
    }
}

 

There is no limit to the length of the "worm," but the worm effect quickly drops off as you add cubes. Long tails will just drag behind in a flat line.

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

 

Lots of new tube styles!

 

 

[djpooppants]

How Procedural Generation Currently Works

                                                                                                                      

 

 

 

There's really not much to it. Each tube is loaded in to an array. Tubes are selected with a random number generator and instantiated. Every 3rd piece is rotated so that the track does not intersect with itself. Each tube has a marked in point which is saved and then reloaded as the start point for the next tube.

 

This system is surprisingly robust for generating testable gameplay. The fundamental design of wedge makes it such that obstacles can be chained in any combination. This enables the procedural generation to be very simple while still allowing for wide variations in level structure.

 

One thing I don't like about this approach is that is allows for almost no control over level pacing or frequency of tube repetition. The next step for this component of the project is to add a system for weighting the probability of selection for each tube.