(Historic Post: July 19th 2007)

A long time it has been since the beginning of this project, and I foresee a long time into the
development of the project.  I am starting to have some issues with the frame rate.  It is incredibly slow, and shouldn’t be.  I am in the process of re-organizing some of the code which is going to be another long boring tedious process that is going to drop my morale, actually it already has and I haven’t started yet.  Though when it is done the project should run at a better rate of speed.  I haven’t done much work on the actual project since the last time I wrote, because of procrastination, but hopefully soon I will get things working.  My main goal is to have the game in a playable state by mid August.

A playable state means you can choose tracks, the race setup menu is fully functional and the racing is functional – Laps are counted, Lap times are tracked, Checking Positions Work, and everything except for the weapons…  Currently those are still on hold.  But Quick-Race and Multiplayer races should be able to be played before the game is deemed playable.  I need to get new screenshots up as well since I walls and trees added to a track make the track more interesting.

Once the game is in a playable state, I am going to start working on the physics systems, which basically means working on the collisions.  So that when your car hits a tree it will go flying into the spinning frenzy…  And the other collisions that need to work to make the game more interesting…

(Historic Post: July 7th 2007)

Well this time it hasn’t been so long since the update.  But I have a special surprise that all will love: The artificial drivers go around the track!  Woohoo!  Before you get too excited, they are really slow,
and no competition to a human player, but the point is they drive around and around…  (There are some small bugs in the track that can cause them to have issues, but on the standard circular track they are good).  And the bug is known for the reason they can get stuck on the other tracks, in the process of fixing it…  So I will update again later when other things have changed…

(Historic Post: July 4th 2007)

Well I have been doing ALOT of work on RacerX and somethings have been added, well, are in the process of being added.  Since the game is a combat-racer I decided to make a voice-chatting system since people won’t want to stop racing to type a message.  I can currently record the sounds.  I can also play sounds, which was a first for the project and this includes streaming sounds.  (For the technically inclined this simply means I am using minimal memory to play the sound).  To complete the voice-chatting system I need to send the recorded data to the other players, and make the system be able to deal with lag and other hiccups as the data is received…  The only reason I put this on hold is due to my inability to test this on a network as it will have new challenges, and they need to be tested…

I have also been working on the artificial intelligence lately, as I have stated I was going to.  Currently I have no noticeable progress but the track has nodes for the AI to follow.  These nodes basically store information for each of the computer drivers to know where the road is, so they know where to drive.  Hopefully by the end of the week I will have the cars driving around the track (slowly, and colliding through each other since there is no collision right now).  So that is my current plan;
get the AI moving!

A few other additions that I need to add would consist of saving and loading the walls and trees that you can add in the LevelEditor, working on the finishing the voice-chatting system, and making the multiplayer lobby allow the players to setup their cars, (as well as letting the host change tracks).  Some more information can be displayed to the HeadsUpDisplay as I now have the battery gauge working…  That added a boost of excitement, even if it isn’t quite functional yet… hmm.  Also some more support is required – keep my attention on the game!  Maybe I will actually complete this one, which would be a great accomplishment since no-one is helping me on it…