Objective
Get as far as you can on the endless river-rapid course.
Alternative: make it more about “bumper cars”. Try to ram into other players with your front and damage them.
Map
Top-down view of river. You’re a typical “river rapid” boat.
Boats automatically follow the stream = average water direction underneath them.
I need to be smart about the streams, to help players always get back on track or do something. I don’t want players falling still because they are just rotated completely the wrong way.
Input/Action
Tap to propel yourself into the direction you’re currently facing. That’s it. A One Button Game.
Multiplayer
Well, just multiple boats, bumping into each other. And you want to stay alive (not become a shipwreck) + cross the finish first.
Implementation
- The main track is just a sequence of points.
- When placing the next point, use a random rotation and distance (within limits). Now calculate the points in-between as if it were a smooth (Bezier?) curve.
- Offset them randomly (to orthogonal dirs), place points there.
- Do ensure the offsets are somewhat even, left to right.
- And there isn’t too big a difference between subsequent offsets
- Draw lines between the offset points: these are the edges of the stream
- Then just extrude the points to get a rectangle we can turn into a body.
The map should be really flowy and bobbly. Also to prevent a player from just cruising through and getting too far ahead.
Regularly, there should be gates to keep up the player in first place. Solve a puzzle that is simple, yet takes time to open the gate.
If you fall behind too much, you’re simply out of the game? (Mobile screens are small, don’t feel like anything else would work.)