Creating Infinite Road For My Drifting Game (last time I swear) - Drifto Devlog 

It's an infinite road, why bother at all? Despawn anything behind you and confidently make 6 left turn in a row.

Broke: self-overlapping roads Woke: avoid self-overlap Bespoke: allow self-overlapping roads and render it in a way that doesn't look stupid

would be cool to use tunnels (also bridges) for fixing overlaps. could also have sections where a wall becomes breakable and you drive thru it, with stuff blocking the original path

If there isnt a looping track and you never go backwards, you could avoid the overlap problem by literally only keeping road pieces that the car is on and the space ahead. Spatially aware players might realize they're moving through an impossible track but most people will never notice, especially with more stuff going on around the player

I made an extremely similar system in my dungeon crawler game, Lowest Labyrinth. There actually is a solution which you missed. Have your generator commit to memory the entire track whenever it finds an invalid path and disallow those states whenever it goes to place a new piece. Then just allow the generator to move back a single piece when it runs out of options. The result is a sort-of Monte Carlo random walk towards a valid final solution. Good luck with your game!

It's kind of delightful how this sort of creates a higher-dimensional space by accident, where it's possible to travel over somewhere a road used to be, but has since been deleted - And most players wouldn't even notice.

Wow I’ve been addicted to this game the last few days and to see it in my recommended is crazy. Love the game man!

Adding tunnel pieces that go under previous tracks would make this problem a whole lot easier and add some variation.

Great video , love to see the evolution of this game

The road knows where it is, because it knows where it isn't.

This game is awesome. So fun to play and the unlockables make me want to keep playing!

I didn’t even know you made the game awesome work, however I never knew the road wasn’t infinite first

Great video, I appreciate that you make racing/driving game

I just tested out your game and it's pretty fun ! thanks for it!

Damn I've been playing the game for a very long time now and never realised you had a RU-vid I'm glad I got recommended it.

wait this is actually so cool i played this game for a while before finding these videos

i just installed this game about 1 week ago and i have been playing it everyday and i love it

I play this game daily on the train to and from work, and randomly got recommended this vid 😁 love the game bro

Sounds like a cool concept, downloading it to try now

i got this game to pass time at school, so cool that ur a dev on it

A very long time ago, I tried to do a similar thing for a procedural racetrack generator in Roblox, constrained to a grid. The tile "behind" the finish was tagged, then it would random-walk forward from the start iteratively until it either found the end point, or Snaked itself (where it would reset with a new seed). It was janky as Content Deleted, but _nominally_ it did create race tracks. Really lousy ones, but technically functional closed loops. Maybe someday I'll give the concept another go...

This looks really cool!

Great stuff!

Just tried your game and its fun and addicting!

I made a similar(ish) little project in school where you steer a boat down an endless river avoiding rocks with some janky terrain generation. I wish I'd seen this video 7 years ago 😅

Good video I enjoyed it 👍

Try a flow field with perlin noise to define 'forwards' (ie. The path of the road) as following the flow field vectors. As you scroll the 2D noise the road is generated and you can even drive backwards - no memory needed. Just the seed if you want to replicate it.

Downloaded this ages ago and have been loving it as a good game I can rely on. Please don’t abandon it 😂

i recently found this game and decided to watch the devlog. it’s definitely one of my favourite games to kill time when i’m waiting. 5 stars

This video is the better campaign of marketing possible, i want a lot play this game, congratulations to dev, to game, to video, to explain

hey mate i’ve been playing your game for months and it’s one of the best mobile games i’ve found. really glad youtube recommended me this, take care

Love the game so far! Super fun I’ve got few things that would make me love it even more: -An “advanced” control method where instead of just a left right slider it could be a square allowing for forward and backward inputs - A time attack mode on set maps - Portrait mode support Either way great game, lots of fun

Two idea: 1. Road deletes behind you, so overlapping wouldn't happen. 2. The road that's being developed is incentivized to head in a direction that's not towards other roads.

You are gonna blow up soon, I'm calling it.

is the next video going to be "how i switched my project from unity to Unreal?"

You can use multiple way tiles like parking lots, crossroads, stadiums, woods, sand places and other playgrounds to have overlaps but in a controlled way. Every road going to or from these has to be 4 tiles straight (so 8+1=9 with the crossed one itself) and has to differ from the other road by at least 30 degrees and max. 90. On the crossing tile can be hay bales or traffic cones blocking the other road. So many will now say: This does stop you from drifting because of the long straight. No. Not necessarily. On these straights can be generated cones, hay bales, cars or even tank barriers you have to drift around. This way the game itself becomes more diverse and less boring on the long run, helps with concentrating and has a natural feel to the level of difficulty. Also the cross tiles could mark the start or end of an rally and you drift avoid the (oldtimer?) participants or a town route to its mall on which is traffic in both ways. Another way around could be jumps which make the player feel like in Dukes of Hazzard, portals like in Stargate, tunnels or dimension passages like in Stranger Things season 4 or fog in which is no wrong drifting until there is a street again and the fog fades away like in Assassin's Creed 2.

Embrace the non-euclideanity and just delete all the old tiles, you're never going to go back to them anyway right?

Another way of improving this depth check could be to check if any section already exist to the left, right and ahead(with some max distance checked) simultaneously. There are edge cases, but the assumption is that if there exist road pieces in all cardinal directions, there's a good chance you're eventually gonna run into another existing road section. The theory is that it's computationally cheaper to raytrace 3 times than to iteratively check all possible combinations of placing any 5 road pieces. Weaknesses could arise from having 45 degree turns, or if you decide that you'll be adding underpasses.

love this game, having a lot of fun playing it, as well as seeing all the work you keep putting into it when many other people would already call this a finished game and move on! I'm getting bored pretty quickly while playing though, so I'd really appreciate if you'd add a bit of variety to the maps, both in terms of scenery, and lighting. also I believe that having a day-night cycle could be interesting, and reward players who manage to keep driving for multiple minutes without crashing.

I'd look into maze generation algorithms and space filling curves. Arbitrary shaped road pieces certainly complicate things but it should work with some adaptations.

The "stepping" solution to track creation sounds similar to cooperative scheduling. You could move that calculation into a different, low priority thread, too - and pick up the result (the appended track) when you need it. The calculation wouldn't need to be interruptible then, and you wouldn't need to estimate the amount of steps per frame. It would introduce more threading/synchronization and changing a running system, though. Nice game visuals, video and explanations, btw!

Wave Function Collapse would suit here perfectly i guess

U could use a flood fill algorythm starting in the area at the end of the selected tile to see if that option would result in a finite or infinite area filled, then if finite, u know that this move would create an area that cannot be escaped in future but if infinite then that piece would be valid. Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe a flood fill algorythm is a very cheap calculation to computer and would result in the most accuracy and speed.

I have this game! I didnt know you made it!

great video

Yo bro I’ve been playing your game for a while now and I love it it’s dope that you release videos about making it. I’m a music producer and I think it would be cool if I had the opportunity to make the soundtrack for your next level.

ive been playing this game for 3 months now I DIDNT KNOW THIS WAS A DEVLOG GAME

in a grid based aproach i would place a tile and than check if there is a path to the beginning. that way you will never runn into a "corner" because the beginning will be deleated when placing the next tile :)

this game seems really cool

Definitely consider spreading those piece placement tests over several frames. I'm not sure if the mobile version already has these changes, when playing my phone definitely stutters every once in a while. Here's my thought, build a small database of the models by their relationship between it's start and end markers. Since you're not caring about the height for overlap I'd do x,y coordinates as a sort of key, I'd just use something like x

Give every segment an angle calulation. (The angle change from its beginning) Add or subtract from a game degree tracker. Never let the game degree tracker get close to 360. If number is 330 Than don’t exceed a positive angle change of 30 This would require identifying the angle for all segments, then having a math problem run in the background that selects appropriate segments. I don’t know squat about coding but I thought it’d be a fun solution.

i made a game like this a while ago except you are part of a military convoy and go down a procedurally generated road in a valley and randomly get ambushed by guerrilla fighters

I got this game before seeing any of these videos. I love the game

OMG I DOWNLOADED THIS RECENTLY AND JUST SAW THIS IN MY RECOMMENDED LMAO, what a coincidence

Oh i was playing this game a lot in school,now i see it here

I know some of my friends play and love your game 👍

you could divide the world into chunks (my favourite), then choose an exit side that is not the side you came from, then generate a random path through the chunk.the fastest way to overlap chunks would be a 4x4 square of chunks where the 1st and 5th path would overlap. so as long as you only ever have at most 4 chunks you should be fine

If new piece overlaps with existing one - they form a loop. You can't place pieces inside that loop, or you'll run out of space for new pieces eventually. So just rule out all possible placements inside that loop. Plus, there are a lot of options on how to do it exactly. That would be, either, a decent optimization, or a complete algorithm by itself, depending on implementation.

holy crap I played the shit out of this game a few months ago I unlocked everything I didn’t know it had a devlog that’s so cool

YOU MADE THE GAME?! I jus found it n started playing lmao

Really interesting!

you can also simply cast a ray at the end in the direction the track is going. well edited!

If the road happens to go in it itself, idk if its possible but building verticality could be another solution but a complication. Like if the road goes into the already rendered road, if the map's settings matches it, the road could go over or under. Like on the forest, road could go over by a bridge, and on the container warehouses something similar or the road could lead to an underpassage.

select random piece, check if collides with another if yes select another random piece that is not the previous one repeat until done, remove roads behind you and have a "tunnel" piece that can go through other pieces if there are no options.

looks like a fun game

Infinite road removing road directly behind. This would work, do some checks to see if the tile you're driving on is able to see the tile behind you. If any are able to just make sure to code in to keep the road tile until you are on the next and then it will remove the previous 2. This will help with infinite roads and immersion if you have super tight hairpins. Good luck developing.

Well this is cool as hell.

I'd like a map like Rally, with a little bit more friction on the dirt, and it changes elevation and has hairpins like Touge. Also, another map that procedurally generates a smooth spline instead of the grid pattern. It'd be more complex but way more satisfying to drift in. And also implement a modifier that makes the spline more straight when you begin to go faster, just so that you don't have to purposely slow down to a halt every few turns because you're going so darn fast.

(last time)...sure

Solid game I loved it

Been playing this game for a month and just found this devlog 🤣🤣

I have a question now. Why don’t u do like an “angle systems thing”. Taken every turn the change in initial angle of the block and the end angle of the block. Finding the negative or positive difference in angle. And just do that it never reaches 360 or -360 ( maybe like a lil more or less depending size of the road and other assets for them not to overlap on another piece of road ). Then randomly generate for n pieces of road u wanna load. Would that work?

would you be able to simplify the code by just checking if a new piece overlaps (or gets too close to) an old piece, and if it does, check which side? like if you are too close to the right side of a previous piece of road, always have it turn left, since if you turn right, it'll always end up boxing itself in?

Slight idea here. Instead despawning track and hoping you won't run into it, I notice there isn't many tunnels any your game. Maybe whenever the game backs itself into a corner, have a tunnel bit where you tunnel under the previous road. Keeps the emmersion, prevents illogical geometry, and could get the player away from cluttered areas to allow for more free generation.

very epic

Now, you're not thinking with portals!

🤔 I feel like this would be a good use for wave function collapse

Have you looked into wave function collapse?

I found this on the AppStore didn’t even realise you made it lol. The one thing I would like though if you made performance a lot more since it isn’t a very visually demanding game yet it basically makes my phone over heat, I use an iPhone X which isn’t that old (in apples eyes it is though)

I suppose you could cull all old road pieces that are out of lone of sight with the player, and if they decide to turn around and go backwards, just start generating new pieces backwards as well.

Since the road is going down hill, would would be able to set the limit to the amount of tiles needed to go beneath the previous laid road? Maybe not completely realistic

Very cute! Have you considered adding intersections that the player could choose between? Since it's a procedurally generated course, the only cost would be a limit on how ahead of time you could generate the track.

Question, is your game moving the car in coordinates or the roads? You could make longer non euclidean roads to go even longer without moving the car if the roads generate and move under your car making the illusion of moving while unloading old parts of the road you cannot see. This will help remove floating point errors too as you are not technically moving!

Nice 👍

hey just check if placing this piece would make a box. then place outside the box you see what you don't wanna do is essencially boxing yourself in. bc that would leave no way out. So check if box is going to be created and if so place next piece outside that box p.s can't you just remove previous piece?

I've noticed some of these cars are from a certain vehicle model pack Where is that great one from from the beginning of the video

Please add purchasable engines into the game (only for sound effects) it would just be cool to be drifting to the sound of a vr or 2jz or even Ls

Cool video. Unsolicited advice: having the front tires smoking in a drift doesn’t make sense because you’re steering into the turn and controlling your direction with the front wheels. If they’re also sliding enough to smoke as much as the rear tires, something has gone terribly wrong. Car guys may find that detail distracting or off-putting. The visuals are great and your explanation of your thought process was cool. Good luck with it.

I just tried the game on Android, and it's nice, but it's just too difficult. I gave up after 10 minutes. I think it should be more forgiving when you hit some obstacles. Also, as others have pointed out, very few players would notice if the track was actually impossible. After 2 turns, you forget were you came from, because you are so focused on the next turn. I tend to think that you solved this problem because it's an interesting programming problem, not because it makes your game better. I'm not blaming you, I have done that too. But I don't want to sound too negative, it's great that you explain what you have done and why, and I like the ideas. I will give Drifto another try tomorrow. :)

I NEED this game!!! Edit I installed it!!! also, PLEASE make a pc version! I beg.

could try using overlap pieces in places where its stuck, like a bridge, intersection, etc

Just save all roads, just like with snake. Any single move is valid if it does not move inwards into a section that has been walled off. That is extremely simple. You hardly even need a for loop for that.

It would be really cool at the end to see the entire track and also have a seed and to let to input one.

How do you play in widescreen? On mobile the game doesn't change to landscape mode at all

Thumbnail makes it look like jelly drift

For years I've wanted this system for a split screen fps. Combine this with the games ability to teleport players back toward each other and you have an infinite map.

I'm pretty sure using pathfinding algorithm with a good heuristic would be sufficient to solve you problem in Polynomial time. Depending on guarantees you have based on tile types there may be even simpler approaches. Removing already used tiles from the map is something you should do anyways, so your solution may be sufficient.

Hey man I love your game, I play it when I’m bored, can you make more maps please and more obstacles. Thxs

With the snake road you can actually use a finite checkerboard, and therefore guarantee you never hit the loaded road (and more turns more drifts)

Could you solve it with sectors and portals like in Duke Nukem 3D? Then you can have overlapping geometry without worrying about what to render or collide with.