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Light racer, a competitive tron like videogame for night market gamers


Development of a tron like videogame for night markets in Taiwan

Industry: Entertainement
Services: Web programming
Country: Taiwan
Tags: Videogame, custom programming, multi-player, arcade gaming, javascript
Light racer offers a brand new gaming experience in Taiwanese night markets. This is a multiplayer game that features 2 to 4 snakes each control by a player. If the player hits the canvas borders or another snake body, he loses. The last snake on the canvas is the winner.

Each game features 3 rounds. At the end of the 3 rounds a winner is identified wins points. He can then exchange his point with goodies offered by the booth employee.

Challenges

  • We never worked on a videogame project before. Although we are experienced on the programming languages used for the project, developing online videogame requires some specific expertise.
  • A game is composed of 3 rounds and 4 players. In each round, if 2 snakes die at the same time, they must receive the same number of points. And the total number of points delivered must always be the same throughout a game.
  • To record every move of the 4 snakes in real time while keeping a smooth game play.
  • To provide game settings modification options for the booth employee to make the game play easier or harder.

Solutions

  • Because we were interested in the project and motivated to work on new things, we accepted to work at a lower rate than we usually do letting the client know about the situation.
  • We made a script that simulates different situations so that we could validate the scores when 2, 3 or 4 players are engaged in the game as well as the score calculation in case several snakes die at the same time.
  • Recording 4 positions several times per second can be demanding for a server. Therefore we worked on lightening the recording process as much as possible.
  • The booth employee has simple controls to adjust the snake movement speed, the snake maximum length, the number of rounds in a game as well as the number of games.

Benefits

  • The game works flawlessly and the game play is perfect for a fun night market videogame experience.
  • The accuracy of the point’s calculation was crucial because an error would lead to a booth that can’t make money until we fix the issue. No point calculation error was reported by Hello Bast so far.
  • No lagging issue was reported by the client while in use on night markets. Same as previous point, a game that lags too much would lead to a substantial loss of money.
  • Depending on the night markets and of the players, the game’s settings are adjusted regularly to ensure the game remains challenging and fun while generating profit for the company.