Windows vista seems to have some problems with the msvcr100 dll, and asks to reïnstall the application.
however, when I remove it, the game works without complaining.

also, a little suggestion:
When the results screen shows up, the time the player was alive is always shown in three digits.
So... I had a car that was alive for "021" seconds.

Well that's annoying. It doesn't cause any issues on my computer. Perhaps you've got an older redistributable installed (I assume older because I only installed VC++ a few days ago)? Whatever it is, I don't see a way to work around it. Some PCs need it. Mine doesn't, and doesn't care that I include it. And apparently yours doesn't need it, but does care that I include it.

I wish I knew what was going on

Thanks for letting me know.

Jibb

I know, I know... Twitter... so easily abused... but it's a good way to get the latest on stuff you're into without having to trawl through tonnes of information, as long as you're not following people who will tweet about tying their shoelaces.

I've had a Twitter account for a while, but hardly used it. That's about to change. KarBOOM's next update is a while away as it is quite big, but the little bits of progress I make don't warrant new posts here (as there'd be very little for you guys to say), nor on the KarBOOM forums.

So if you want the little bits and pieces to remind you that KarBOOM's still alive and kicking, follow me @JibbSmart. I promise, you won't hear about my shoelaces. And that's not just because I use velcro. It's because on Twitter I'm just a game developer.

Jibb

The cars are final, as are the particle effects. Some of the textures will be kept, and the icons will probably not change much. The rest are placeholders.



Ramps have spinning conveyor belts on them (believe me, it works well in practice; cars just don't get enough speed for a decent jump on their own), and this will be obvious when they're complete. There is still a tonne of work to be done (both visually and functionally).

Not shown are ice (still needs some tweaking and a lot of work visually), pits and bridges (they go hand-in-hand, really).

Here're a few things on the to-do list:

Visuals

• New multitexture shader.
• Barriers, ramps and bridges [not shown] completely redone (modelling, texturing, shaders).
• Improved shadow effects.
• Walls in the pits [not shown].
• Beautiful background.
• Fullscreen mode and more resolution options.

Gameplay

• Improved collision detection on ramps.
• King of the Hill mutator.

Other

• Complete menu redesign, recreate, reprogram.
• Level editor (I'm still just editing raw data by hand at the moment to test level elements).
• Music and some more sound effects.

That's not to mention heaps of online stuff I'm not even thinking about right now, and replay stuff to take advantage of the new level editor. Oh yeah, and player profiles on the website for sharing levels. Oh, and AI. The bots as they are do not know what to do about pits, grass and walls.

There's probably a lot of other stuff I've forgotten.

But yeah, that's where I'm at right now

Jibb

EDIT
BTW: Since grass doesn't really make sense as a hazard, are there any suggestions of what should cause the overheating effect instead? Fire's obvious, but game fire normally looks rubbish, and it'd look especially awful if I wanted quite a large patch of it.

How about quick sand? Obviously it wouldn't cause the cars to explode dramatically, but it would still function as a delayed death zone.

Awesome. Looking forward to the next release.

How are you handling the jumps? What happens if one car lands ontop of another car? Does it slide off?

Why are you redesigning the menu? I never understood that... Your menu is one of the coolest-looking I've ever seen made in 3dgs. So why change the design? It's simple, gets the job done, is easy to understand...

Some kind of electric floor? Might look neat, and you have an excuse for glowing cars. Also, you can add sparks.

Sparks!

Have you thought about "shaking" the camera slightly (have it quickly "wobble", etc.) whenever a car explodes and the camera quickly goes back? This can make a game feel a lot more dynamic. You can also try to ever-so-slighty change camera.roll (+-5 at the MOST) when you move the camera to the relative right/left. Again, this makes the camera feel more "alive".


Since I'm by now required by law to add this to any post in this topic: Please add over-the-top 2D-panel-animations whenever points are added or lost (see: Super Smash Bros. Melee).

Hey guys!
They kinda bounce off. I didn't really have to think about it much because much of the physics stuff was already handled with 3D vectors, so I just had to add in gravity and collision detection with the ground.

Playing in the level shown above, Weak Spot was on, and as I took the jump into the ring I landed on the weak spot of a bot, blew him up, and the shock knocked my car back out of the ring. It was pretty cool
Wow. Thanks. I really appreciate that. With that in mind I'll probably keep changes minimal. I definitely want to change a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff, though. I want to render the panels on entities so I can control their movement more easily and so I don't have to worry about re-arranging the menu for resolution changes. But this also means I'll need to do some manual work to make clicking menu items work, and I'll probably take that opportunity to make gamepad control of menus more like one would expect (instead of just controlling the mouse with the joystick).

Having recently played through Oddworld Stranger's Wrath (great game) on PC, I quite like how it had a simple launcher that lets you choose between gamepad and keyboard, and choose a resolution. It always remembers your last choice, so it's not an inconvenience, and I know a lot of people prefer windowed modes over fullscreen, especially when they're doing two things at once, so I might go for a similar sort of thing in the next update (especially since I plan on introducing full-screen and heaps more resolution options).
I hadn't thought of that. It has potential, but I don't think I'll use it since I can't imagine quicksand contrasting enough with dirt to look nice. One reluctance I have with finding a different hazard surface is that the green grass looks quite nice next to the dirt. But my brothers were both pretty insistent that grass as a hazard just doesn't work.
That'd do the trick. I'll poke around with how I would do it. I can't imagine how I'd make it look good, but at least the very idea leaves a lot of creative wiggle room.
I haven't. But I will. It could certainly add a lot to the feel. It might have to be quite subtle considering how regular explosions can be, but I'll play around with it. Or I'll forget. But I'm writing it down write now on my to-do list, so that shouldn't happen.
Consider it done I was actually just thinking about it this morning. I'll look at SSBM for some inspiration. I won't coy exactly what they do, but I do want the score cards to show evidence that they like getting more points and don't like losing them.

Jibb

spikes/thorns are another option, maybe rotating gears around the perimeter that looks like the car will be crumpled if you hit them.

I like that idea! I reckon I'll work on various mechanical hazards that can be placed around the level. Between those and the electrified floor hazard, I think the conveyor-ramps will seem much more fitting.

Jibb