So, I made the first level where the car starts at a certain speed and you have to figure out how to dodge a “pedestrian” (which is just a darth vader cardboard cutout at this point). I had to figure a few things out to make this possible, one being how to stop time before the player clicks the start program button otherwise the car just speeds off before anything has happened. I’m considering doing this a different way, where the car actually speeds up in a startup mode on a stretch of track, and then the controls kick in once the car has reached a certain speed. My real goal here is to hack the trolley problem to show that there are always options, so having this startup time might be important, but for now this is the way it works. The current level is impossible to win though, because no matter what you do, you make contact with the pedestrian. What I need to do is gauge the level of injury to the pedestrian as well as the driver.
Another thing I need to do is create an actual parsed/interpreted programming language for the levels, but now that I think about it, I should just defer to code modules in a helper class instead of going through the trouble of creating a parser. My goal is to have the final, polished version of the game released by the end of the year, so I need to save time wherever possible. I’m finding that the levels get more and more complex, so having a generic handler won’t work for all situations. I consider myself a YAGI enthusiast, so I probably won’t do this unless it’s absolutely necessary.
Also, I don’t like the too wordy name, “Self Driving Car Programmer”. I do like “Car Coder,” so this will be the release name unless you or I think of something better. I don’t have the new level up yet because I’m trying to figure out an easier way to build and deploy the code to the server.