Made in~12 hours, for Trijam #372

Instructions/Controls

Left mouse button: Click the arrows to change lights from red to green

You have 90 seconds to direct as many cars and pedestrians as possible safely through the intersection! You score points for each one that makes it (1 for pedestrians, 3 for cars), while losing points and time from your clock for each accident

Development

I wanted to create a hectic traffic simulator, while also dipping my toe back into 3D for the second time. My hopes that I'd be finished within 3 hours quickly evaporated, and while I'm happy with the end result, there are some ideas I wish I'd had the time/patience to add in.

First and foremost, I wanted there to be 3 lanes of traffic, rather than 2 (a left, straight and right lane respectively) and for pedestrians to be able to cross both ways. Ultimately I didn't have the know-how to quickly edit Kenney's model to accomodate a 3rd lane, and the way I designed the paths meant it would get too unwieldy to manage.

The other main missing feature, which I hope would take it from the jumble of systems it currently is towards being an actual game, was a road rage/impatience system. I wanted to give players a reason to be switching quickly between traffic lights, and had the idea that the more cars/pedestrians occupied a lane, a bar would fill up. Once filled, the light would force-switch to green for 3 seconds, being unable to be turned red until that time ran out. Ultimately I couldn't get the UI to work to my satisfaction (a big learning problem for me with 3D, making the UI align nicely), so I had to give up on it.

That aside, I was very happy with the theme and my attempt at it - next time though, I do hope to stay within the 3 hours

Credits

Kenney (kenney.nl) - All 3D graphics and UI elements