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Time again to share how the game is coming along, and what I've been doing to make it feel more realistic, fluid and, above all, fun. For starters, I'm finishing a new circuit: the legendary Spa-Francorchamps, one of the most challenging in the world, and it already has enough detail to make it feel quite authentic. But that's not all: I've also been improving the physics, the AI, the graphics and the player controls configuration. I hope the details are interesting.
Modelling Spa-Francorchamps
Creating this new circuit has taken quite a lot of effort. I gave myself one or two weeks to do it, and what you can see in the video below is the result of a full month's work. In fact, there are still a few things I'd like to improve, such as adding some tree areas and changing some grandstands. Other than that, the circuit does a pretty good job of imitating the curves and elevation changes of the Belgian layout, always keeping in mind the type of game we're talking about.
Car physics improvements
After publishing the demo in January and reading some feedback, I set myself the goal of making the car behave in a somewhat more realistic way, and I think what you can see right now is considerably better. Now, when you slide towards the outside of corners due to loss of grip, the car bounces slightly, something that didn't happen before. It's a small detail, but it makes the movement feel more natural and realistic.
I also modified the collisions once again. I needed to improve them especially between the human player and the AI-controlled cars. They're no longer going to collide in a strange or unpredictable way. On top of that, the player is now affected by the impact, suffering an action-reaction effect that sends the car to the other side and causes a brief loss of control.
Configuration screens
Until now, you had to edit a text file (an .ini file, actually) to change the screen resolution, fullscreen mode and a few other things. It was a bit cumbersome, so it was about time to have the usual configuration screens. There's actually more than that. You can now set the player name, keyboard keys, and gamepad buttons and axes. Oh, and it's also possible to remap the two buttons of a classic Amiga joystick.
Animations and revised rendering algorithm
The wheel spinning effect is another important element related to movement and greater realism in the cars. Each wheel now has 4 sprites that alternate every frame to give a sense of rotation. This is something I think really brings the car to life. In fact, I'm quite happy with how it turned out.
I also improved the drawing order of the AI cars. Before, one would sometimes be drawn on top of another. Now the correct positions are respected and there are no (or shouldn't be any) strange overlaps. I've also removed some resolutions and kept the ones I find most useful, such as 1280x720 and 640x360, so the game looks good on both PCs and Amiga.
Smarter AI
The AI cars follow the racing line better, brake more effectively and are a bit smarter overall, so they're now harder to beat and therefore more fun to race against. All of this while keeping in mind that each car has an AI with different characteristics in terms of aggressiveness, response time and technique, making it behave differently and be more or less easy to get ahead of.
A Linux demo version is coming
I've also been working on the build and packaging of the game. I'm getting it ready so that anyone can run it easily on any system. There's now a script to generate an AppImage, which is a way of packaging the game so it runs on different Linux distributions without needing to install any dependencies.
Bug fixes and stability
And since this is a devlog, it's also time to talk about fixing some important bugs. In the Amiga version, for example, I fixed issues with pointer comparisons. I've also updated the game version, removed obsolete files and added new reference assets to keep everything in its right place.
I also had to review with Valgrind the release of the graphical interface (GUI) resources, to make sure that surfaces and fonts were being freed correctly. I usually do a Valgrind review whenever I add a significant amount of new functionality, to avoid leaving "forgotten" memory pointers, as this has a big impact on the Amiga and can cause the game to hang.
What's next?
Spa-Francorchamps is almost ready, but the downside is that creating a circuit with an acceptable level of detail takes me roughly a month. I wanted to have around 20 circuits, most of them real ones, so the maths leaves me with over a year and a half just to build circuits. That's something I need to think about and find some improvement or alternative. As for the game itself, I'm experimenting with analogue controls, but I won't say anything more about that for now.
Want to follow the development? I invite you to follow me on itch.io, YouTube and Bluesky. There you'll find the latest updates, test videos and much more.