Extremely long ramble on how the racers in turbo time’s code work since I’ve been slowly losing trying to figure out how to actually code it
So let’s focus on the two starting racers, the Turbotwins
Starting with their code first, let’s code is relatively simple and easy to dodge on its own, the code is nicknamed "bubbly" because their designed to bounce around on the track in kind of a flower like pattern, it’ll randomly generate a number to pick how far to go out every now and then, so depending on the number can either be them just going in a very small zigzag or bouncing back and fourth from the corners like the dvd logo, the only time this behavior would outright be stable and not completely random is when it changes to their "pass by" code, the "pass by" code is a code that only activates when nearby turbo for let it’s where they’ll try to ride the inner ring of the track to get past turbo if unable to they’ll just try to go around him this continues until turbo is out of reach to which they’ll go back to their regular code
Jets code is nicknamed "sturdy" because unlike their sibling they focus mainly on staying on the center of the track not out right attempting to pass turbo, they were supposed to have a "pass by" code but it got scrapped it before releasing the game since the creators felt like it made things too difficult since jet’s a "beginner" type character, however on the more glitched out levels (following pac-man logic here once you get to a certain amount of levels the game starts breaking) the scrapped code does resurface, jets pass by is suddenly and very sharply speeding up for 2 seconds and turning when at the corner of the track which is usually where turbo would end up since riding the center got you to first place quicker, this code can be deadly if any of the other racers happens to accidentally block turbo in place so he can’t slow down, speed up or turn some other way to dodge jet (another reason it was scrapped)
Moving onto destruction/disruption duo-
Fuse: (originally named strike)
This guy is apart of the "hard mode" which is unlocked after completing five levels (or by putting in a secret developer code with the wheel), essentially Jets scrapped code actually got updated and reused for this fella in a way that wasn’t outright lethal, I’ve been trying to think of a name for his code and all I’ve gotten is just "bumper cars" or "impulsive"
in short fuse can ram into cars but instead of the car crashing, the car will get pushed in a random direction depending on where the sprites collided if it’s dead center it could function as a nice speed boost if played right! Their over all pattern is determined by the position of others and the number of laps on lap 1 they’ll stay towards the center but the moment anyone is next to them they’ll immediately try to ram into them to try to knock them into the grass usually by default this will end up being jet since they tend to stay in the center, second lap they’ll develop a jitter causing their car to go back and fourth as they move if they run into someone like this it will spring them forwards, usually though this will result in them just getting flung out into the grass, last lap aka lap 3 they just go towards the nearest car and tries to push them out of bounds
Vix’s code it really quite interesting, its nick name is "foxtrot" they’ll linger behind the rest of the cars, stalking the crowd before speeding up towards the nearest car to force them to change methods in order not to crash, this causes changes in how the character behaves, likely this would be decided by a value that counts up depending on how many times Vix has caused them to change methods that’ll decrease when it hasn’t happened in a while for example after being "tricked"
Let’s bounce rate would decrease whenever Vix is nearby they may even slow down a bit
turbo would be forced to the edge where the grass is, while the wheel the play uses to steer would slightly lock in place making turns harder, later on it would possibly beginning to try to turn itself in order to assist the player when turbo gets more comfortable in his game (because he’d be damned if whoever’s playing doesn’t have a good time or win on his watch)
fuse would likely speed up when ever Vix is nearby to try to out pace them,
And jet surprising would start to move between lanes either going up or down one instead of staying dead center
As for the main character himself
(This one’s just ever so slightly more so about how his code influenced his personality since his main code would be controlled by the player!)
He’s a interesting one all together, Turbo was programmed with minimal traits to his name, sure there was hints to his personality in the machine manuals, box art, and in where ever the game would reached like magazines and such but none of that was really coded in because there was no need to, so most of his code is decided all by the ones playing and a few cutscenes which implies that he’s a little unstable due to anger issues (the losing cutscene in working on) and has a rather big ego (the winning cutscene), but turbo does have some code outside of player input, to put it simply he was coded to make things fun for players, to make them happy with the game to hopefully bring in more attention, his whole world revolves around them because that’s all he’s got in his code, while the others have other things to turn to by the end of their days, their family, their team or even some hobbies, turbo doesn’t have all of that, he just has his partner in crime, the players…and hey, a partner never leaves the other behind right?
Besides no matter how it has to happen, he’ll find a way to maintain his audience, regardless of how dangerous it is to him.
After all, you’ve gotta stick to the programming, right?
