The ongoing history of NO2 Racing

Hello Everyone!

I have a new game free demo I'm developing. Just a small game. But I need some help with a specific problem I'm having (please see Limitations and Help Wanted below).

Having spent some of last year experimenting with some different aspects of TGEA, I took a leave of absence from my work at the beginning of this year, reconnected with an old partner or two, and started some serious development of a small racing game. In February I redirected my early efforts somewhat to offer a more multi-player experience and really started pushing forward on this project, NO2 racing.



NO2 racing is an overhead car racing game in a style reminiscent of classic coin-op arcade games from the '80s and '90s. It is to be exclusively focused on fun and simple racing, it is to avoid having much "realism", and I'm hoping to include full multiplayer, AI, and series and statistics systems, as well as more advanced modes and larger tracks at a later date.

4 cars will race (human/AI interchangeable) in an easily hosted racing series structure. Players will race, pick up the occasional bonus item (possibly real power-ups later in the game's development), win or lose, buy upgrades for their car with their winnings, and continue. Obviously the future could hold many advancements on this theme and none of them are out of the question at this time, especially a global statistics system and what-have-you.

For starters we are planning a free demo in May (if we can get past our problems) and then to move on to see how the game could expand to be commercial in some small, and growing, fashion. We'd like to become good independent game developers like all our heroes (like you :) ).

Screenshots
We have created a web site (www.no2racing.com) in both English and French (I'm French Canadian). On it is some extended information, a forum board, and some screenshots of the current build status. I hope you will comment here or on our forums.

A screenshot of one example track:


Limitations and Help Wanted
Obviously I'd like this section of this post to disappear soon, but there are some issues that I'm having problems solving. On TGEA 1.0.3, I have been able to make some good collision mechanics and generally have given the game a smooth racing experience in multiplayer, but now in TGEA 1.7 I'm having problems implementing something similar. I'm not an experienced C++ coder. My strong points are more related to Constructor and using TorqueScript. I'm relatively good with Photoshop and 3dsmax too, but learning C++ enough to understand how to enhance the netcode, lag, prediction, and collision systems to deal with multiplayer racing is quite hard. I'd prefer to put my time into what I already know.

So:

I'd like to request some help to solve these multiplayer collision issues I'm facing. I'm not even sure they're that complicated in the code, and I think someone with some prior knowledge would immediately have a solution, and maybe one of you could just tell me what your experience indicates might be the problem. Have any of you had collision issues with lag in multiplayer?

We don't need "realistic" collision really but merely something arcadish and good that will produce some fun, even cartoonish interaction between the vehicles. Ideally, I'd like to have a Torque-experienced coder that would like to join the project but I understand that is a tall order without having money to give.

Still, I have some resources and can allocate them...

For sure, if someone could help us get through these issues, we would be pleased to share the profits from the future sales in a full proper "commercial" project based on the NO2 racing series.

Anyway, that would be the perfect thing for us (working with an experimented coder) but I won't rely on it.

I'm more realistically looking for solutions to get around and past these problems, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who's working on a multiplayer racing game. Maybe one of you can suggest some fixes... Maybe one of you could help out a little. I'm just trying to make a free demo and nothing further is solidly planned after. Just want to make a fun little game here for my/our portfolio and see where it goes.

Please let me know here or elsewhere. I suppose I'll also post help wanteds in appropriate places... but I thought I'd write a few details here. If you think you might be able to help and you need some more info to know if you can, please ask. I really want to get over this hump.

I and my partner(s) are very excited to bring the world NO2 racing as soon as humanly possible. And then maybe to advance it into even more fun things (adding off-road, adding other modes, adding global player tracking statisics, and on and on).

Thanks for reading. I'll have more for you here and on our site soon.

Marc-Andre "Mud-H" Vachon and the NO2 racing/NordikLab team