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Derailed's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Overall progress | #1 | 4.857 | 4.857 |
| Overall | #4 | 4.571 | 4.571 |
| Devlog consistency | #5 | 4.286 | 4.286 |
| Devlog clarity | #7 | 4.571 | 4.571 |
Ranked from 7 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
Really fun game ! I got a little bit addicted and now i think i may have the world record :p 26883 hehehehe
I really like the sparks because they give you info on what is a dangerous speed but if you were too greedy you won't be able to rely on them to save you hehe please keep that !
NICE! Mine is 28073, so you're close :D
I plan to implement global leaderboard, so it will be easy to compare against other players.
Thanks for playing and taking time to comment.
Great game! As a dev, I'm curious how train stability is calculated and what triggers a derailment. I'm guessing it involves a centrifugal force check in the physics loop, but I'd love to know more.
Overall, this is excellent engineering.
Thanks! I'm super happy to hear that you like derail mechanics as I put a lot of effort into it.
Maybe it should be separate devlog, but in short it's not that complicated:
1. every frame curve of a track for each train car is calculated using math and angles. Having car position and two points from a track in front of the car I can calculate angle of a curve.
2. Next, Angle is multiplied by speed (with some additional fine-tuning).
3. If 'risky' threshold is met, sparks start shooting and I keep track how much above threshold car is.
4. If second threshold is met, then car is derailed.
There is a little more nuance to it (car number from locomotive matters etc), but not much. The hardest part was to find right formula to multiply angle by speed, and then to balance thresholds so it's not too easy, but also not too unforgiving for the player. I think it can still use some tweaking, but it's not a priority for me now to tune it more.
Thanks a lot for the in-depth explanation. It was really inspiring to read. I can also see why you chose to sample two points ahead instead of one ahead and one behind. That forward-looking approach subtly encourages players to anticipate what is coming, which feels very nice in gameplay.
As someone who has played both the previous and current versions, I will say the gameplay is much better and easier to react to when derailing moments occur. The gameplay loop is great, and I even played a few times. I think the UI and font could use major TLC and an upgrade, maybe. The text could be bolder and more distinct. Here is a quick asset pack you could implement. Voxel Vehicles by Kytric
On to the actual dev logs for this game jam: I think each one had a clear intro and segments that broke down exactly what you worked on. Also, the before-and-after photos helped people grasp the visual changes. Which, honestly, is always a plus because no matter how you fluff up the text, a pic speaks a thousand words. Overall, great progress and great communication.
Thanks for comment and feedback!
Few people already mentioned UI needs rework and I'm going to focus on it more in upcoming weeks.
Thanks for link to asset pack, it looks awesome, not sure if it's useable for me - it's 3D, but I added it to collection and will review it, because it's really nice looking pack.
So far it's pretty fun.
I think some work on the UI could be helpful. It's a little difficult to gauge my speed when going into the turns.
Thanks for comment and feedback!
I plan to rework how players controls the speed from discrete system (2 gears) to more continous approach.
I'll also look into UI in general, thanks again.
This is a neat little game. I managed 19,874 on my second run, and stopped at several of the yellow station spots. The controls are simple and easy to understand, though it does take a bit of practice to figure out how to best use them with just being able to select the 2 gears, idle, and break. The sound when close to derailing is a nice touch.
After I got the timeout popup, the train continued moving and I could still control it.
The music is decent, but does feel a bit repetitive after a while.
You are certainly making good progress and heading in the right direction.
Thanks for playing and comment, I really appreciate it.
It was kind of my idea, that's game easy to play, but hard to master kind of thing. I'm also thinking about changing controls to have more flexbility in setting speed instead of having just 2 gears. Power would be set progressively so player can adjust it with more precision.
Thanks! Adding to the list of small improvements to be made!
Thanks! I'll add more tracks. I plan to compose something myself.
I played the original version back at the beginning of the jam and played the updated version a couple times throughout, and the progress is impressive! It's gone from feeling like a classic flash game to feeling like a phone game. The polish adds a lot, and that song is doing some heavy lifting with keeping the game feeling energetic. The endless run is definitely the way to go, absolutely. My current high score is 24869.2.
If you're planning on continuing this later, I'd say all it needs at this point is a bit more visual flair. Maybe add some scenery to generate near the track so it's not just train tracks in an endless sea of green. An updated UI would be good as well, maybe have the speed change size as you speed up and start flashing as a warning when you're going dangerously fast. I could seriously see this as a phone app with a bit more polish.
Thanks for taking a time to play and leave feedback!
Totaly agree! I have a plan to rework background completely (currently it's just a shader), but it's constantly getting deprioritized in my head :P I'll it to the roadmap and publish on game page so I'll be more comitted to it.
Great idea, didn't think of that. Will research how others games apply similar behaviour and will add it, should be relatively easy.