Best X11 Game: Daniel Vik 926 Genter Street La Jolla, Ca 92037 USA http://www.vik.cc/ Judges' Comments: To build: # you may have to edit the Makefile to set X11_LIBDIR correctly make vik1 Try: # requires an X11 server ./vik1 ./vik1 a ./vik1 d2 ./vik1 ad3 Danial Vik has presented a tour de force feature rich X11-based racing game that fit within the contest size limits. Take a glace at the feature list he provided below. Amazing! Happy touring on the road and in the code! Selected Author's Comments: Features ======== This program is a complete car race game with a lot of nice features: * Drive on a road in a 3-d landscape with hills and curves * Mountains in the horizon * A sun in the sky when driving during the day. * Dark sky and reduced visibility when driving at night. * Snow when driving in the winter. * Slippery road when driving in the winter. * When driving off the road, the car slows down to a halt * Three different race tracks that takes about one minute to complete. * Speed meter. * Computer driven opponent cars. * Collision detection when driving into other cars. * Lap time measurement. * The best lap time is stored as reference. Build and Run ============= Compile the source code and link x libraries if necessary. The program takes three options which have to be typed in a specific order as described below. Usage: vik1 ['a']['d'][#] a - Advanced racing in a winter landscape d - Racing in at night in the dark # - Race track selection 1-3 are valid numbers Here are a few examples: Command line: Description: $ ./vik1 Run track 1 at daytime in the summer $ ./vik1 a Run track 1 at daytime in the winter $ ./vik1 d Run track 1 at night in the summer $ ./vik1 3 Run track 3 at daytime in the summer $ ./vik1 d3 Run track 3 at night in the summer $ ./vik1 ad2 Run track 2 at night in the winter Note that the order in which the argument characters are entered is important. It is for example not possible to type ./vik1 da. (Well it is possible, but the result will not be as expected.) The space key accelerates the car. Releasing the space key slowly reduces the speed. The left and right arrow keys are used to steer the car. Obfuscation =========== The main obfuscation is the fact that the program is extremely compact. There are a few things I didn't want to do, e.g. define #define to a single letter to save some space, or to remove casts to save some space. The program uses a lot of variables. In fact, all letters a-z are used and most letters A-Z. The constants are chosen very carefully and thy have multiple purposes, e.g. a constant can be both the length of the track and a color. Most of the code is kept inside five for loops without body. Each for loop does many things. One for loop draws all cars by restarting a couple of times. Another draws the road, mountains, and the sun. Main is called recursively. The return value and output depends on the arguments. main can return the current time, draw lines and of course be the entrypoint of the application. The program frequently uses the ? operator mainly to save space but it makes the program more obscure. Compiler warnings ================= There are no compiler warnings when compiling with -ansi but there are quite many warnings from lclint. Mainly because the program is very optimized for code size. Limitations =========== The program only compiles and runs on X based systems. The program requires a display with 24 bit color depth. It also assumes that the byte order of the colors are as on my Linux PC. That is, The colors are represented by a 32 bit value where the bytes (from high to low) are { 0, RED, GREEN, BLUE }.