To-Do List
From ETRacer
This is the list of suggested features and changes in no particular order, anyone can change this (only remove things that have been finished and released). View also the list of code changes that should be done.
Contents |
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Game Play
- Add a character selector to the track selection menu
- Add ForceFeedBack
- Allow multiple profiles
- Better collision detection for Tux
- Be less forgiving on jumps. Tux should be able to bail. Tux is (sadly) not immortal and with perfect balance.
- Levels that don't end abruptly at the bottom and the side
- New cups:
- Herring Run
- Slalom
- Grand-Prix
- Crazy Canucks (skies downslope: no fear, no brakes, no edges)
- More control options? I'm thinking that Tux could do more than simply turn and flap. (Edit: Tux can also jump!) (Edit2: Maybe a mode for getting points for tricks!)
- Adding some sound effects to Give Tux some more character:
- When hitting a tree hard: "Ouch!"
- Making a hard landing after a jump: "Oof!"
- Starting a level: "Cowabunga!"
- When speed > 200 km/h: "Wow! That's fast!" (And other sounds or text messages) or maybe "Wieee!"
- etc.
- Split times on the course for use with herring-free speed courses. Also plot the difference to your best run and you can tell which sections you need to improve.
- Replay recording/playback/racing?
- Probably need to decouple physics and rendering for this if they aren't already. Decoupling would bode well for multiplayer too.
just some ideas:
- Add a ghost tux for a time trial mode which is updated online for ranking.
- Add more dynamics to the game. ie not just stationary herring being the only goal. Maybe something which goes down the hill also and you must catch it, or possibly enemies like polar bears or seals which might chase after you.
- Add speed boosting items which increases Tux` speed when he catches them (e.g. rocket sleigh)
- Add a point boosting system or powerups which help tux to win races or defeat enemies etc, one of the main reasons games like final fantasy WOW and NFSU are so popular is the growing and building of the character.
- Can change Tux position (on the back or on the belly, the head towards the front or towards behind ...). Maybe we could command that with the sames keys as we rotate tux on air.
- Introduce a new material : the water. It would be really cool. For the game (behind springboards ...) and for the landscape (lakes, rivers ...). Tux will penetrate a bit inside but he will be able to swim. It could also when it's really fast go on top of the watter, bouncing and losing speed... if the speed is enough low he would go inside...
- Hotdogging: Tux can spin on ice. Tux can spin, roll, and flip while airborne. Time penalties if you don't "land" Tux (belly down, head in direction of travel).
- Steer tux with the mouse
- Steer tux with a Wiimote (see http://www.wiili.org/index.php/Wiimote)
- A new game mode, where tux has many herrings in a basket on his back and an enemy (polar bear) cases him in order to steal his herrings.
- Game mode: multiplayer combat, perhaps reminiscent of mario kart 64(tm) "battle" mode
- Game Mode: AI players, comtrolled entirely by the computer, who the player races to get the most points.
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Interface
- Improve menus. (Some mockups here and here)
- Easier way to navigate through the course list in practice mode
- The ability to switch between km/h and mph
- Mini map which shows alternate routes
- Browse menus using the keyboard
- Translations for course descriptions, preferably in a SINGLE file.
- In-game menu needs to have an option to restart the race. Additionally, English text for the quit option should read "Quit Race" not "Quit."
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Multiplayer
- Adding UI access to the multiplayer
- "Server Browser" (a list) for all multiplayer games being hosted, rather than having to know what IP address you want to connect to
- Obvious improvements to multiplayer gameplay... (I have no idea how the current apparently "rudimentary" multiplayer mode works)
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Graphics/Models
- New tree models
- Higher resolution "world scenery"
- Replacement animation system
- Replacement Tux model and other characters
- Animating Tux's scarf, flippers and feet to vibrate as the wind rushes by. The tip of Tux's scarf could be pulled in all directions due to acceleration.
- Add OpenRacer environment maps in our environment list.
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Course Design
- Update ppracer GIMP-dev package to include the terrain and objects that are new to ppracer. (I (StevenB) have already done this. I'll try to package it and put it online in the near future.)
- Clean up the tuxracer-extras package, and add it to the ppracer family (maybe call it planetpenguin-racer-extras?). It has a lot of decent courses, but it's quit being maintained.
- Better level format? As nice as the current simple format is, it doesn't really have much scope for interesting terrain, e.g. caves.
- Part of why TuxRacer has been so great is because anyone can create a level with the GIMP
- I think the current course implementation is simply a heightmap. Perhaps a dual heightmap system (bottom one for the ground, top for cave ceiling)?
- A linear gradient in the rgb is shown as a series of steps i.s.o. a flat surface. (Sometimes I try to make a steep slope more level, to have a big drop later!) I think this is because there are only 255 gray values allowed.
- Add some of the new objects to the other tracks
- Make each different herring selectable
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Other
- More music
- Snow falling from the sky (added in 0.5)
- Other characters
- Splitscreen (Horizontal & Vertical)
- Additional languages? I really have no idea what state this is in, but we should find out and keep it in mind.
- A place where the community can collect their custom courses and rate them. Tuxracer Belly Rub seems to be broken.
- Don't forget to add some of the good ones to the main package
- A pay-to-play mode where you have to insert credits to start, like in StepMania.
- Do we want to turn a great opensource game into a pay-to-play one? - Hamish
- Frame limiting toggle for benchmarking purposes. Currently we're SDL_Delay()ing for 1ms in at the end of winsys.cpp::winsys_process_events() which yields to the OS (good for multitasking) but creates an artificial FPS limit of ~125FPS no matter how powerful your OpenGL implementation.
- Add an automatic course installer in the principal menu. Simply choose the course to install (in a standard format like tarball, zip, 7z, tgz, tar) and the course would be added in the courses list in the game.
- Download the game as a .package file - the Linux installer (which is similar to the Windows .exe file) in addition to the other distro-specific methods.
- Moddability: certainly people will want to create more than just maps / courses? Allow the ability to create custom characters, items, etc.
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Code Cleanup
- Document all code, both inside the code itself, and online - currently it's really hard to remember where certain things, this slows down development.
- Clean out code files, delete obsolete ones. Some code still remains for features not used anymore (eg. TFM font loading)
