tiny explorer

Game Engine Finished Games
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I’ve made this for Ludum Dare 39. The theme was “running out of power”.

Started with UPBGE but couldn’t make the rigid body constraints work for the vehicle, so had to switch to BFBGE mid-project.

In the game you’re a small rover in an alien planet, your mission is to find the site where the Lander is, to get there you have to drive through some power stations to recharge your depleting battery.

Download links for Windows, macOS, and Linux here:

Source blend file is here:

I hope you all like it! :slight_smile:

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Started with UPBGE but couldn’t make the rigid body constraints work for the vehicle

I’m interested to know what issues you had, as I work with these a lot both in BGE and UPBGE and hadn’t noticed anything significantly different.

When playing it I didn’t seem to have particularly much control over the direction of teh rover, ,and it moved incredibly slowly. While the second one is definitely realistic, it didn’t make for the most fun experience. Perhaps my blender version was wrong (2.78).

That said, I really liked the servo sound on turning.

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Thanks for your reply, geoff!

I really have no idea what the problem is. Here’s a video of the game with UPBGE:

I think every demo of the vehicle wrapper and rigid body rigs that I tried with UPBGE during the weekend did not work, but the whole weekend is a nebulous blur for me at this point. The version of UPBGE that I’m using is 0.1.8

I’ve uploaded a couple of simple files with the rig I’m using in the game and a previous version of it in case you want to try them yourself:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/w4jg5iq95dorjtu/rover_physics_test_02.blend?dl=0

I’d pretty much would like to keep using UPBGE but I was running out of time and couldn’t spend more investigating this issue.
I’ll try to ping you on IRC next time I see you around.(I’m rijnswand in there)

2.78 is the version I’ve used for developing the game. That’s basically what most of the feedback I got said. I’ll try to make driving the rover more fun/less frustrating.

Come to think of it, that’s also what the feedback for all my games seems to be though, pretty but not fun. Might want to check on that at some point and correct it. :smiley:

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Hmm. That UPBGE video is odd. I have not come across that, but then again, I don’t use the vehicle wrapper. I’m also surprised that the rover_physics_rig blend goes unstable after a while. I’ve managed to get rover rigs like that working quite well. However, I create the constraints from python when the game starts, so I have a fair bit of control over them.

If you’re interested, here they are:
A 6wd solid axle vehicle. Works well in BGE, some graphics issues in UPBGE. Use pageup/pagedown to change gear and go faster (but remember to downshift when you are going uphill)
BGMC19.blend (2.49 MB)

A 6wd rocker-boogie suspension mars rover. Has issues when changing from straight to turning because my math sucked - and I set the wheel position rather than it’s speed. But is has a rig exactly the same as yours…
Rover2.blend (1.44 MB)

And here’s the one I’m most proud of. It’s the simplest overal rig, but you can duplicate wheels as you like, and the robot will point them in the right direction and spin the at the right speed for it to drive to where you click. Cool eh? This was an unused software prototype for a physical robot that measured a meter or so square. If I build another driving simulator, I’ll probably steal the math from here.
Rover-packed.blend (1.29 MB)

Anyway, maybe some of those were interesting to you. However, none of those are “games” by any stretch of the imagination… Feel free to use any/all models/code/whatever. I’d suggest taking the control system from the third one and the rig of the second one. Hmm, maybe for one of my future projects I’ll revisit this robot/rover stuff.

That’s basically what most of the feedback I got said. I’ll try to make driving the rover more fun/less frustrating.

Come to think of it, that’s also what the feedback for all my games seems to be though, pretty but not fun. Might want to check on that at some point and correct it.

You’re not alone there. I think the most common critique I’ve got is “It was fun for five minutes, then it was boring and repetitive.”… Eh, maybe I’m too much of a nerd to make games.

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Tested in pre019 and the rover wheels is fixed in the new version. If you are on windows, you could try my win64 vs2015 build and test: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6yNvVGWiWysTS04QzBBYkQ3Tkk
I like the graphics looks. The explorer is really slow, so yeah… It need more gameplay elements.

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sdfgeoff
Thanks! I’m gonna try those files of yours, hopefully I’ll understand them. I remember downloading your geodesic chess file and feeling completelly lost xD

Akira_San
Thanks! I’ll compile latest master and see if it works there. Also, thanks for the build, I’ll probably use it to make the release.