WorldRacer NGCD 32kb - Page 1

This weekend I joined the Flashback Symposion #2 32k-Game competition... very challenging but it was fun working with these limits, here's the result... I squeezed everything into 32kb, only 4 bytes left!

- 4 player splitscreen
- 4096x4096px mapsize
- different road conditions (asphalt, mud, sand, snow/ice and water) with different types of roads which affect the car's driving physics
- attract-loop
- up to 4 cpu opponents (for attrakt screen)
- 4 player support (requires NeoTap)
- free slots are always replaced by a CPU opponent
- hiscore saves
- some sfx

UPDATE:
I was able to add some features and improvements while still keeping the size under 32kb.

- adjustable difficulty, 'NORMAL' is selected by default
- dynamic camera, enabled as default. (not common in this genre but feels more natural and makes the game easier)
- brake and reverse lights
- flashing headlights

check latest post on Patreon, there you will find the most common downloads as well as an update on my next project!

Wow that's really nice actually how much space do you "lose" on the NCD? (that's not actually part of the game; i.e. how small could the smallest game be, basically)

The packed game data is 31814 bytes, Header + Unpacker + some other things = 950 bytes... it could be further optimized/reduced in size, but I wanted to keep it as compatible as possible.

Very nice! I like that you got a map in there too. Using one map for all 4 players is very clever. Amazing to fit all the game into 32k too

What was the hardest part of the game to implement - apart from the 32kb size?


BTW the download link doesn't seem to be working

fixed!

The hardest part was the map/graphics data... I use many tiles multiple times with different palettes. To make this possible, I had to create my own tool.
In the end, I invested more time in creating some tools (including a special Z80 driver) than in the NeoGeo code itself.
The trickiest part was implementing the split screen and displaying the individual cars on all screens depending on their position!

Yeah, how do you manage to clip the cars sprites within a window?

blastar (./3) :
The packed game data is 31814 bytes, Header + Unpacker + some other things = 950 bytes... it could be further optimized/reduced in size, but I wanted to keep it as compatible as possible.

That's really tiny 😳 but then you need to burn it as a CD-ROM right? Or you are counting on an existing loader? (such as a linker)

I clip the cars in the same way as the map. ;-)

no special loader... the PRG-file (loaded by IPL) contains everything.

In a few weeks I will release the identical ROM version (without any adjustments, changes or improvements), this should be easier to use.

Hmm does that mean you need to draw some black sprite over the borders?

The hardware does not support split screen, to implement this feature a few (simple) tricks were necessary, I don't want to explain everything but clipping right/left works completely differently than clipping top/bottom.

blastar (./5) :
The hardest part was the map/graphics data... I use many tiles multiple times with different palettes. To make this possible, I had to create my own tool.
In the end, I invested more time in creating some tools (including a special Z80 driver) than in the NeoGeo code itself.
The trickiest part was implementing the split screen and displaying the individual cars on all screens depending on their position!

Very interesting and yes I can imagine that working out the car positions would be hard! It sounds like your next game game could benefit from your new tools there

blastar (./9) :
The hardware does not support split screen, to implement this feature a few (simple) tricks were necessary, I don't want to explain everything but clipping right/left works completely differently than clipping top/bottom.

On other consoles, they often require large black borders between player screens to facilitate changes to hardware registers and VRAM etc. I heard this is the case on Mario Kart on the SNES. Apparently the thick border between 1-player and 2-player screens is *required* to make changes to the OAM (Object Attribute Memory). So the Neo Geo could be more flexible in this way - even if tricks are needed to get it to work.

I guess for vertical splitting it's sprite multiplexing, and for Horizontal you need to cut the sprites in stripes of 16 pixels and compute which part of the sprite is outside to cut them off. And then draw a black border to hide the ones which are in the borders. But looking from here, his horizontal border is only 8 pixels, which negates my assumption.

Brunni (./2):
... i.e. how small could the smallest game be, basically)

check out NGEM2K, I released this puzzlegame in 2004 (more than 20 years ago) with just 2048 bytes

Cosmic Riko (./10):
It sounds like your next game game could benefit from your new tools there

No, the tools for the 32kb game are too specialized for future games, but I'm benefiting from the experience with (simple) car physics and may revive this project... but as a 2-player game with a horizontal split screen to match the original screen ratio! ;-)

Brunni (./11):
But looking from here, his horizontal border is only 8 pixels, which negates my assumption.

horizontal border is just 6 pixels but your thoughts are heading in the right direction! ;-)

blastar (./13) :

Cosmic Riko (./10):
It sounds like your next game game could benefit from your new tools there

No, the tools for the 32kb game are too specialized for future games, but I'm benefiting from the experience with (simple) car physics and may revive this project... but as a 2-player game with a horizontal split screen to match the original screen ratio! ;-)

Coincidentally I was actually thinking about that game demo recently - thinking it would have been good to have a full game version! 2 player would be amazing. You should still keep the full-screen for one player though. Bigger = better 👍

another interesting idea, with the link port of the Backbit cartridge, 4 MVS with a total of 16 players would be possible... With a few optimizations that would certainly still fit into the 32 KB...

UPDATE:
I was able to add some features and improvements while still keeping the size under 32kb.

- adjustable difficulty, 'NORMAL' is selected by default
- dynamic camera, enabled as default. (not common in this genre but feels more natural and makes the game easier)
- brake and reverse lights
- flashing headlights

check latest post on Patreon, there you will find the most common downloads as well as an update on my next project!