A cross country video games has been invented. Play it here for free.

Just played for a bit. Some thoughts on how to improve:

1. The current approach to collision detection is ruining the game. The controls aren't dynamic enough to make it skill based and instead it rewards lame/avoidant strategies. A mechanic where characters (including NPC)s are slowed as opposed to directionally rotated when in the proximity of others would reduce frustration/randomness and allow for more strategy.

2. The binary approach to stamina reduction (either static when drafting or losing when out in front) is strategically limiting. Introduce some other mechanic to either get energy back or slow energy loss outside of 1k splits so the player isn't so dependent on NPCs. It should be possible to dominate a race end to end without NPC involvement.

3. You need a sound designer. At a minimum, the "breaths" need to be dynamic -- quiet at the start and then growing louder in volume as more stamina is lost. And crossfade between the breaths and silence when the player gets back into drafting range -- right now it goes from breath to silence and sounds glitchy.

Can you add a Kenyan or Ethiopian in the mix where the character never goes lactic? Would be more realistic.

petition to add Bekele as either the final boss or S-tier playable character

Played again with more intention. These were thoughts as I learned the ins and outs:

"Uh oh, AI player behind me is sprinting wildly. I need to get out of his way otherwise he will run through me and throw me off course."

"Uh ohh, AI player in front of me slowed down all of a sudden, now I am off course because I ran into the back of him."

"I am behind 6 people after the start. Fine. This other player in 7th is running right through the whole group (literally running through the players.) Why can't I do that without being jettisoned off the course?"

Decided this first version was unplayable at the more difficult ranks. Replace getting run up from behind and then hit off course with blocking the other player. Replace running up from behind into someone else and getting sent off course with the red energy loss (lose the draft effect). Make AI follow the same physics as the players.

There is also a glitch at the start. If I hit "HGHG..." right as it transitions for loading to the starting line, my character moves forward a step or two before stopping again for the starting gun.

It needs to be frustrating, but on par with a green or red shell hit in mario kart. I agree it's too easy for a newcomer to get thrown off course, but as someone who's played a lot even a bad spin out is very easy to recover from if you are comfortable with the controls. That said, it would be better if it simply slowed you down when you hit another npc instead of spinning you out. As for people running up behind you, I thought I accounted for that with the camera being so far back but maybe not. I'll definitely take a second look at the track, I thought I made it so that you would slow down if you got knocked inside of the football field. But it definitely shouldn't affect you even if you're running close to the edge. Feel free to hit me up on twitter @XCvideogame I'd be curious to hear what you can contribute.

Been looking for an xc game for a while, so I appreciate you making this. I understand it is probably difficult to put in. But if there was a team aspect to the game with scoring for your team and progressing throughout the season to state, I would play this all the time and pay a lot of money for it.

Thanks

There is a huge bug in the game.

When I am in the lead and coming to the finish line, it's not allowing me to grab my crotch with one hand and yell "Gobble Gobble Mother F*****s!!"

I'm thinking a lot of the issue might be because each runner's collision shape is a vertical cylinder. I might try to make something that's flatter at the back so running into someone or getting spiked doesn't make you spin out. I'm aware of the problem but not yet sure how to solve it.

I tried to make it possible to regain stamina by running out in front of NPCs but couldn't find a good balance. It either became way too easy to retain all your stamina or it was so hard to notice that you wouldn't find the attempt worthwhile.

The breaths are a placeholder at the moment (and a throwback to snes yoshi's island/baby mario). They were found a sound byte site and I was pretty happy that they weren't overly pornographic in nature. I'm hoping to add a lot of crowd noise that will make less prominent as they were meant to be a helpful aide but not a focus of the game.

Thanks, I appreciate the progression of thought. I'm fairly sure I'll be able to make it so the npc runners can't go all swayze and run through each other. I'm aware of the glitch you're talking about but haven't been able to figure out why it's happening. I'm hoping I can, but as far as glitches go I don't feel like it offers a big advantage in any way. Thanks for your feedback!

This is great. What would be really useful for LR is a Coe v. Ovett game so that letsrun posters can have them race over and over until that debate is settled.

This game looks as modern as this website

XCvideogame wrote:

I tried to make it possible to regain stamina by running out in front of NPCs but couldn't find a good balance. It either became way too easy to retain all your stamina or it was so hard to notice that you wouldn't find the attempt worthwhile.

What about implementing a reward for consistent tempo, e.g. if a player hits keys consistently at X bpm for X time then they can stop their bar from depleting? This would introduce a risk/reward element (player can try to "kick" at a fast tempo, but they'll lose some bar in the attempt and it will be hard to maintain going around corners).

I found the game confusing and frustrating. I couldn't figure out at first how to make him go faster and then eventually figured out the middle 2 keys were for running and side ones for stearing, but it was hard to make him do both at once and I didn't feel like I had much control over the runner's speed. My guy immediately got behind from the beginning and it seemed impossible to catch up. I'd like better ability to manage my runner's speed and better ease of control of the character. I would recomend including more clear instructions from the beginning how to play the game. I wasn't really sure what to do at first. I also didn't really understand how the energy bar at the top worked. With some improvements to give better player control and explanation for new players what to do, this could be fun. It could be fun if you could train and improve your athlete's fitness and also cool if you could change the player's name and and uniform and then choose individual race versus season mode down the road. Maybe have teammates too with team races. In it's current state I found the game too frustrating and hard to want to play more or pay for this, but I might like it more with some improvements.

Note to ROJO and BROJO- your pop up adds keep blocking the "post reply" button making it really difficult to post on there. I had to close out several times and retry the post in order to get a second without the add blocking the post button. Highly frustrating. Please relocate the ads so they don't block buttons on the page!

Milethon wrote:

More like 1988.

More like 1978

I was just watching this. Does the music sound familiar?

https://youtu.be/a9vaxG99_UU

Greg wrote:

I was just watching this. Does the music sound familiar?

https://youtu.be/a9vaxG99_UU

It's the same music as the xc video game. It starts 30s in.