Really enjoyable content. I also like this tutorials on pseudo-3d raycasting: <a href="http://lodev.org/cgtutor/raycasting.html" rel="nofollow">http://lodev.org/cgtutor/raycasting.html</a><p>A few years ago I used this tutorials to hack together a little raycaster is JS: <a href="http://jsfiddle.net/htyvrjaa/" rel="nofollow">http://jsfiddle.net/htyvrjaa/</a>
Awesome!<p>I remember when I first saw SEGA's Virtua Racer in the arcades back in the early/mid 1990s. It was the first impressive true polygon-based racing game I played:<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3PcHBFsjxg" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3PcHBFsjxg</a><p>The other polygon-based racing game that was impressive, but it hard pretty horrible controls and not as beautiful, was Hard Drivin':<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6JC-HCNcio" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6JC-HCNcio</a><p>The cool thing about Hard Drivin' is you could go anywhere and do anything, where as with Virtua Racing you had to follow the track.
If you like this article you might be interested in this article about the mode7 on the GBA: <a href="http://www.coranac.com/tonc/text/mode7.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.coranac.com/tonc/text/mode7.htm</a><p>Personally I love this kind of old-school programming article. It reminds me when I was developing homebrew games for the GBA!
This kind of thing is why I got interested in programming in the first place.<p>Pseudo-3D racing games in particular... as a kid, it was boggling to me how these simple 2D machines could produce a pretty convincing pseudo-3D racetrack! The Atari 2600 could hardly handle drawing the ghosts in Pac-Man; how could it draw a decent "3D" roadway?<p>Bizarrely, I lost interest in that kind of programming once machines got so powerful that drawing this kind of thing became easy...
I did my own little Faux 3d recently. Though I prefer to call it 2.5d instead of Pseudo 3d.<p>It's much much much much more simpler (since it's top down)<p><a href="https://gist.github.com/seivan/b8f50a8505675b61be22" rel="nofollow">https://gist.github.com/seivan/b8f50a8505675b61be22</a><p>It depends on layers centered on top of each other. Requires special art work.<p>Here's some videos:<p><a href="http://bilder.d.pr/k5Vj" rel="nofollow">http://bilder.d.pr/k5Vj</a>
<a href="http://bilder.d.pr/mZ5S" rel="nofollow">http://bilder.d.pr/mZ5S</a>
Ah, this brings back memories. Arcade racing games were my favorite as a kid. High poly models and realistic lighting in the living room will never be as exciting as speakers right behind your head, real steering wheel and pedals bolted to something heavy, and your friends talking shit from the multiplayer linked machines. Plus the background chaos sounds of all the other games in the arcade, token machines, people yelling...<p>Chase HQ, Cruis'n USA, Suzuka 8 Hours, and Daytona USA were my favorites. Daytona USA was true 3D and lacked the pseudo 3D charm, but carried on their arcade spirit. Its 8 player form was about as good as it gets for a little kid in the arcade with friends. Putting down money for each game made it more meaningful. Kind of sad that kids today will never experience that thrill.
For people who do not know this related tut; <a href="http://codeincomplete.com/posts/2012/6/23/javascript_racer_v1_straight/" rel="nofollow">http://codeincomplete.com/posts/2012/6/23/javascript_racer_v...</a>
The most interesting thing to me was the bit about dedicated road hardware(!). That just sounds so awesome. I imagine someone inveting that or implementing it.<p>I used to have a ZX Spectrum clone and still remember liking Chase HQ racing game. This was late '80s, on a 3MHz, 48K machine and they had road barriers and tumbleweeds that you'd bump and they'd bounce off. It was a stupid detail but it really stuck with me as it being a fancy feature.<p>Here is someone playing it:<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjrbcLm78I8" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjrbcLm78I8</a>
This page was a gold mine for me a couple years back. If it was a tape I would've worn it out with how many times I re-read it. Had lots of fun experimenting with different features. I've got a javascript version of one of them online:
<a href="http://www.elusivegames.com/games/rocketracers/rr.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.elusivegames.com/games/rocketracers/rr.htm</a>