Stunt Marble Racers - now includes network playing

Brainsaw · Post by **Brainsaw** » Wed Mar 03, 2010 6:45 am

Good morning and thans for the replay. I just watched it (here at work ... hope I don't get into problems

), and it's great to see someone else play the game. Yes, the performance was not that good, but, when I do multiplayer games with my brother I normally lose - in the same way you lost.

Btw (already sent this in an answer to your pm): the level you played ("the wall") is one of my favorite, and you can make your life easier by not tearing down the complete wall but just one of the box stackes so you can still pass the wall in the next lap(s). Maybe I'll put a replay of me and my brother online to show this (I don't remember exactly, but I think I have shown that in one of the trailers on youtube).

And yes, I am from Germany (but I'll stick to English for now as this is an international forum

). Where are you from?

Btw2: put a new version online yesterday. No code change, but a new level ("trenchrun") and one level ("tube racing") completely redone. I also modified the training levels to make them available in a network (with up to 4 players).

Sir_Hans · Post by **Sir_Hans** » Wed Mar 03, 2010 1:12 pm

Have you updated "the wall" some weeks ago? I think the second checkpoint is a bit nearer than before and now it's better to roll backward right over the cubes. I did that in the replay but I think you can't see that because my friend was player 1.
It would be good if both players got a replay after finishing the map.

I'm from Germany, too. I just wanted to know that because my english isn't very good so it's easier when I write a pm to you. There we are allowed to write german I think.

Brainsaw · Post by **Brainsaw** » Wed Mar 03, 2010 1:27 pm

Lol .. your english isn't bad ... imho. But you can (of course) write german PMs to me. Did you joint irrlicht3d.de?

I did several updates to "the wall" in the last weeks, I moved the checkpoint back and added a wall in the corner after the wall ... mainly to prevent the players from taking a shortcut over the grass.

replay for all players: I gotta check that. It's not possible to record the replay on any other computer but the server (the physics does only run synced on the server, and every time step is recorded), but maybe I should give an option to download the replay after the race is finished.

I hope to get more replays by anybody trying out the network mode. I want to enhance my private "replay library" this way

Sir_Hans · Post by **Sir_Hans** » Wed Mar 03, 2010 2:32 pm

Yes, but I didn't register. In international forums are often more people who can help

I sent you another replay.

Thanks, some people say it's good but I don't think so xD anyway it's easier to write the mother language (or what it's called in english).

I'll try the new maps in the evening or tomorrow.

Brainsaw · Post by **Brainsaw** » Fri Mar 05, 2010 6:33 am

I uploaded another video to youtube yesterday: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qoZxaeT5vE. It's called "taking the wall", and it shows several ways to use the shortcut in that level which is one of my favorite anyways. It also shows that it often goes wrong, aka "outtakes"

.

Well, in the german irrlicht forum there is not much happening, even less at the moment. People often get redirected here for complicated questions.

@Sir_Hans: here's what dict.leo.org (my facorite dictionary) says to "Mutterprache": first language, mother tongue [ling.], native language, native tongue.

Sir_Hans · Post by **Sir_Hans** » Fri Mar 05, 2010 12:45 pm

I like the first outtake xD
I often play marbles with a friend and when I just kick one column away he kicks another away so I just "roll" where I want^^

PS: I looked ther, too but mother/native tongue sounds a bit strange and the mother tongue is ling and I'm not a linguist^^ Just say mother language and most people know what I wanted to say I think^^

Brainsaw · Post by **Brainsaw** » Sat Mar 06, 2010 7:51 am

You're right, I guess everyone understands. I do most of the time have another browser window with dict.leo.org open when I'm in an english forum as I do often not know the words of what I want to say. But, as long as most people get what I'm trying to say, I don't mind that much

Brainsaw · Post by **Brainsaw** » Thu Mar 11, 2010 8:29 am

No new version, I just modified the Stunt Marble Racers homepage (http://dustbin-online.de/marbles2.php). I developed some "story" and re-organized the whole thing. What do you think of the new version (just the new content, the wacky colors haven't changed)?

Brainsaw · Post by **Brainsaw** » Mon Mar 15, 2010 6:46 am

Good morning,

I finally managed to get the network-tournament up and running this weekend, and I uploaded a new version yesterday. When you start a network game now it's a tournament where you can arrange several tracks as you like, and you'll get a final result and stuff. Can still be downloaded from http://dustbin-online.de/marbles2.php. There are, however, still a few issues with this:

- after the tournament is finished you go back to the "tournament" dialog, not the "net tournament"
- sound might be broken. Maybe it's just because I started 4 instances on my computer, I'll have to try it with my notebook this week or next weekend

Apart from that it works as it should. I hope to hear some test results, and maybe see some more replays.

Here's my remaining roadmap for the project:

- get the bugs out of the network game (see above)
- improve the replay mode
- add some more tracks (my plan says that there will be 26 of them)
- improve graphics (still hoping for the new shadow system in Irrlicht 1.

Brainsaw · Post by **Brainsaw** » Wed Mar 17, 2010 6:44 am

And once again: an update with some bugfixes:

some fixes for the network game:

- result now shows all players. Before this fix players might not be shown in the final result screen, depending on the result
- game is ended after the current lap even if player1 is not the winner. The problem was that all players had to finish all laps until player 1 had reached the finish line. Now the others only have to finish their current laps, just like in "real life racing"
- sound on server now correct. At least it does no longer act like the splitscreen sound

other fixes:

- enhanced skid sound. Skid sound does now play whenever a marble skids, before it was only when a marble was breaking. Still have to do some modifications there, I want to integrate that into my IrrOdeKlang scene node. I also need to fix an issue when a marble is on another moving object
- fixed some typos in manuals

Brainsaw · Post by **Brainsaw** » Fri Mar 19, 2010 11:31 am

This time it's a little update. There were some things missing in the network code. New stuff:

- no new connection possible once a tournament is started
- correct handling of disconnection during tournament

Next things to come: I will modify the network code. Now the de-serialization is done in the placed where the network code is handled, I am going to add message classes to encapsulate serialization and deserialization. I am also going to pass all these messages through IrrODE's message bus to have it in a central place.

Brainsaw · Post by **Brainsaw** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 5:55 am

I put a new version online yesterday. I have re-worked a lot of the network and replay code:

the network mode does now send IrrOdeEvents over the network. With the modification I included in IrrOde the network and replay modes are now integrated in a better way:

- the events (de)serialize themselfes
- all communication is done using the IrrOde event message bus
- sound on the client was improved

When testing on my notebook (vista) I had some crashes during game setup which are (I think) a timing issue. However on my "normal computer" (XP) I could run 4 instances of the game without any problems, so I decided to put the new version online. I hope to get some feedback.

With the new BodyMoved events the necessary network bandwidth to play the game is a little higher than before, but I think it's still reasonable

Oh, due to the new messaging stuff old replays can no longer be used, so if you have replays and still want to use them you shouldn't throw away your old version of the game.

I still hope to get some feedback on the changes as well as some replays (network or splitscreen replays would be best

).

Brainsaw · Post by **Brainsaw** » Sun Apr 04, 2010 9:47 am

I am currently uploading a new version of the game to my homepage. It includes one new feature: a ghost player. It is now possible to record the fastest lap of a game (in single player mode) and play against this recording later on.

I am also thinking about a possibility to share ghosts with other players. Maybe I could include a function to upload them to my homepage or something like this, but I'm not sure what would be the best way to do this.

Brainsaw · Post by **Brainsaw** » Wed Apr 07, 2010 5:47 am

And another update: I have added some "eye-candy" this weekend. I took a look into the render-to-texture tutorial and was surprised (and happy) how easy that is, so I included large video screens to (almost) all levels that show the race that is currently running. I also added a new tab to the "options" dialog where you can change some settings of this video screen (switch on/off, texture size, framerate). This new tab also includes a global switch to turn the ghost recording on and off.

Brainsaw · Post by **Brainsaw** » Mon Jun 21, 2010 5:35 am

OK, it's been quite a while since I did an upload of this nice little game (I know ... the graphics still sucks), so here is a little update without new functionality: moved the project to the Code::Blocks 10.05 IDE and to the latest IrrOde wrapper which fixes some bugs.