F1 Racing Game

mattd8752

Recently me and a few other programmers have been developing an F1 Racing Management Game. I am having a problem with "how" I should do this. I already have my formulas on paper, and I can code them into php with ease, my problem is, how do I show things like a speed on every straightaway, the time it takes them to turn corners, their speed coming out of the corner, their average speed on every straightaway, ect, without boring the user to death or making it look super ugly. Is there a way I should show most of them.

Also, if anyone is interested in helping with this game please email mrfg2006@gmail.com.

Thanks -- Matt

dougal85

I'm curious how you would do this in PHP? or why for that matter? 8-)

mattd8752

Have you ever played one of those games that let you control your country or whatever? You can probably find them on google if you haven't. They are fun for a little while. Our idea is to create a giant database of cars, including every bit of data we can find on them, from their wheel width to their horsepower, it will all affect your race. Also the experience of your driver and your team will decrease your pit stop times, and speed up things like more efficiently turning corners and such. You will win game cash for winning, and use this cash to upgrade your cars. As the game evolves it will use more flash, allowing you to completely fabricate your cars and such. Are you interested in helping with the game?

dougal85

interesting idea, sounds allot easier said than done. Also, seems like your barking up the wrong tree with PHP.

do you realise PHP is a web scripting language. That's a language for making websites... I know it can be used for other stuff (before somebody moans) but you gotta be serious, there are other languages for that. 😛

You sound like you want fancy 3d stuff.

Do you actually know how to program?

Weedpacket

All the grunt work of the simulation would be well within PHP's scope (well, maybe if you're updating every parameter for every car in a race on a second-by-second basis then something else would be better for the numeric processing; I haven't attempted anything like that but suspect that PHP may not quite be up to it in time to respond to a web request - at least, not on this month's baseline hardware systems), but for specialised fields there are always specialised languages (and you'd write programs in that which PHP could then call on). But for the graphics and so forth I'd recommend biting down and developing the Flash interface. Trying to do it in PHP would be seriously painful (and distinctly sub-par) and you'd still have to do it all over again in Flash when you change.

If you're just going for a more pit-crew-style interface (with basic graphics such as telemetry charts and so on) then PHP would be able to generate those without difficulty (there are graphing packages around that might have licensing/capabilities that match your needs if you don't want to write your own). I once wrote an online marketing questionnaire monitoring console that would allow the survey company's clients to look at the results, putting together the summary charts on the fly.

mattd8752

actually, these games are a lot easier than you think. And I know php and want to use it because there are no sys reqments.

dougal85

hmm... send us to an example of one then.

stolzyboy

i think he's talking of making a role-based "type" game... similar to ogame.org, that is based on planets/ships/moons/guns/lasers/etc... they all have their own strenghts/weaknesses/speeds/power/etc... if you understand that model, you'd see that it is fairly easy to see how it could be done for racing instead, i don't think he wants to "see" the race, but "mimic" a race dependent on car factors, race tracks, etc... and just for your knowledge, ogame is php/sql driven 🙂

matt, i think your best bet would be to sign up at ogame.org and see how that works and translate those ideas into your racing game and go from there, since you know PHP, you just really need an idea on the concept

hth,
stolzyboy

mattd8752

Thanks stolzyboy, I didn't know how to say that. Thanks for the link Ill check it out.

dougal85

ahhh i just had one of those moments where a lightbulb went on. Sorry for missunderstanding.

I guess stozlyboy gave the best suggestion for this thread too. gj