If you ever wanted to build your own 2D top-down view train driving game, here’s … well, the things you need to consider plus a rudimentary source code example. Because a train following tracks is not as simple as it might seem, unless you restrict curves and switches to 90° angles and allow only very short cars and locomotives.
Here’s a video of my example project. Any stuttering is due to the screen recording software taking a toll on my system combined with the video playback framerate not rendering 60 fps (I assume it’s the standard 24 or 30 fps for Youtube videos). The video shows a sequence of three runs with a medium curve radius, a large curve radius and a ridiculously small curve radius. The yellow line indicates the track being followed by the axles, the purple line indicates the car chassis position (center point between axles). Continue reading »
