Alright, let’s dive into my “thunder racing” project. It was a fun one, kinda hacky, but hey, it worked!
It all started with this crazy idea I had: building a super simple racing game from scratch. I’m talking bare bones, no fancy engine, just pure JavaScript and some HTML canvas magic. I wanted to see if I could capture the thrill of speed with minimal code.
First, I sketched out the basics. I imagined a top-down view, a simple track, and a car that could accelerate and steer. I fired up my code editor and started with the HTML. Just a canvas element, nothing more. Then, linked it to a JavaScript file where all the action would happen.
Next, I tackled the rendering. The track was just a series of rectangles, alternating colors to simulate lines on the road. The car? A triangle. Crude, I know, but effective. I used JavaScript to draw these shapes onto the canvas. At this stage, it was just a static image, no movement yet.
Then came the fun part: making it move! I set up some event listeners to capture keyboard input. When the up arrow was pressed, the car accelerated. Left and right arrows controlled steering. I used basic trigonometry to calculate the car’s new position based on its speed and direction. It was pretty clunky at first, the car jittered and spun out of control, but after some tweaking, it started to feel… right.
After that, I needed a way to keep the car on the track. I implemented a simple collision detection system. Basically, I checked if the car’s coordinates were within the bounds of the track. If it went off-road, I reduced its speed. It wasn’t perfect, but it added a layer of challenge.
To make it a bit more challenging I added some very basic AI opponents. They followed pre-defined paths. It was janky, but added something to race against.
Finally, I added a timer and a simple scoring system. The faster you completed a lap, the better your score. Nothing fancy, just enough to give the game a sense of progression.
- Set up HTML canvas
- Drew track and car
- Implemented movement controls
- Added collision detection
- Implemented rudimentary AI opponents
- Added timer and scoring
The whole project took me a weekend. It was messy, the code was probably atrocious, but I had a blast building it. And hey, I even got a playable game out of it. “Thunder Racing” wasn’t going to win any awards, but it was proof that you can create something cool with just a little bit of code and a whole lot of enthusiasm.
It was a blast, I might revisit it sometime and tidy it up, or even just build another racing game with what I learned.