We're live!

This is the initial test - not even a playable prototype, just some things slapped together that demonstrate some of our design working.

Pay no attention to any graphics - they're just some assets I dug up to get something on screen.  One thing to note tho, is the car is 2D which is what we're going for.  The rest of the 3D environment can be swapped out for 2D graphics once we have them. As per usual I've forgotten once again to provide a way to quit the game, so you'll have to Alt-F4 it.

While the graphics are all place holders, the car controller is however up for criticism. I've never played Road Fighter, I've only watched the video, so I've tried to emulate most of what I saw in the video with the car controls.  It would seem the original Road Fighter just ramps up the speed very rapidly when pressing the gas, and the car jumps up to 400 rather quickly - which is cool, so I decided we wanna keep that!  But to add a little extra modern-ness to the controls. the car actually has a *bit* or resistance when starting from a stop. It's subtle, but it's there - like I said I wanted to keep it very close to what I saw in Road Fighter.   Also there's what I'm humorously calling in my code: the "Tease Zone". This zone is at  near maximum speed, and the car acceleration drops off drastically!  The current test has the car hitting the Tease Zone at 90% of it's speed (which can be changed), so for example the cars maximum speed is currently 400kph, so when it hits 360 (90%) it enters the Tease Zone.  This zone is meant to challenge the player into committing full acceleration to get to that full top speed. If the player lets off, his speed will very likely drop below the Tease, and he'll have to start over - so in essence, this promotes an element of risk taking to stay on that gas and keep climbing to top speed.  And, Ofc, players who are able to stay on the gas longer will save precious seconds, sending them higher up the leader board.  So I hope this metric will add some separation in players performance, and offering a bit more challenge than just zooming up to 400 and staying there.   This tease zone can be customized and the resistance in the zone can be changed too, so there's opportunities to offer upgrades to the car and/or buying better cars with better performance.  
So, as you drive the car, see if you can notice the resistance on start and see how you like the Tease Zone (It's a little extreme right now so that you can "feel" it)    
Also, as per the original Road Fighter, sideways movement is in.  I haven't refined this sideways movement yet, as I think I'll need to build some AI traffic into the game so that we can test out how it feels - but I think its a good first "guess" at the movement.

BONUS, just as you can count on me to forget a way to quit the game, you can count on me for a few bonuses/surprises!  I do have one - the engine sound!   It's not fully refined yet, it's just been slapped in at default values, but it's working!  It seems to sound ok-ish and if you listen closely, you can hear the wind building up as the car goes faster (its subtle). And one last little cool bonus is the underpass partway down the test track has been outfitted with a "ReverbZone", so when you drive in, you'll hear the change in engine sound - which is a nice little touch! (I wasn't really thinking about having an underpass in the final version because it obscures the vision of the player, but this reverb sound makes it quite immersive, so we'll see where we go with it.)



What's up next?
Well, a way to quit the game and likely a FPS counter so we can keep track of performance issues.  But the focus of the next build will be adding colliders to the track pieces so you can't go out of bounds, and then starting a first test of an AI that can follow the path of the track using these edge colliders for guidance.  There's a good chance this isn't too difficult, so I might get it done sooner that later!