This update includes an AI Kart which drives through a fixed set of waypoints. At each end it parks for a bit and takes a break. It also avoids you if you happen to venture into the road.

The overworld is slowly starting to come alive. In addition to livening up the overworld, the AI Kart will be used for minigames. With a robust system for looping through waypoints, different minigames can have any number of AI Karts going through any pattern of waypoints which provides a lot of gameplay options.

This video demonstrates the AI Kart:

https://youtube.com/shorts/t2q_9JV_i1c

TL;DR: There's no game update released this week. I've made a pivot to only include minigames that use your character which means it will be a little while before the next update.


The character select screen. I initially implemented it in a convoluted way where each character had their own camera so I could animate camera properties independently. The result was extremely laggy. I added a frames per second counter in the corner of the screen that goes from green to yellow to red as the fps decreases. This way I will quickly notice if fps is poor. With this in place I remade the screen using a simple image for each character and an animation for each state: unselected, hover, and selected. And it works pretty well. Simple is best.

The next thing I added is NPCs and dialog. Currently the only thing the NPC does is stand still and explain the controls. In the future, the NPC can provide other info or walk around so the overworld feels a bit more lively.

I want minigames to use your character. This means that for each minigame I need to decide if it will be updated to use your character or removed. This is a great opportunity to do some editing: update the best minigames and remove the rest.

To start I've made a new go kart inspired by this Lego set.


Since I've decided to put all minigames on the shelf and bring back one at a time using your character it will take some to build up the number of minigames. I'm thinking of the large number of minigames I have made as prototypes which inform the more polished minigames I'm making now. So all those minigames in the garbage can are actually little nuggets of gold. Also I can reuse the minigame code which handle scene loading, score, and callbacks. After go kart minigames, maybe minigolf minigames will be next.

My intention is to keep working on a minigame until it is highly polished and only then to move on to the next one. Quality over quantity!