The platform engine prototype is complete. Now the hero can interact with his environment. Go ahead and make him jump all over the test level I created.
:-)
I'm a freelance game developer working for all sorts of companies big and small, as well as spending time pushing out my own indie titles.
James Dalby
@mongoid
Age 44, Male
Game Developer
UC Irvine
Irvine, CA
Joined on 1/3/02
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MaestroRage
Hey James! Looking good my good sir, progress is coming along quicky and effectively!
A few things I noticed, you probably already know them but I found them interesting one the less.
1: Can you explain why when you hold down the right button the character moves right, but if you press left WHILE holding down the right button he will move left, where if you reverse this order, he will continue moving left? It seems like the left key has some kind of superiority over the right.
2: If you hold down up when the mage hits a platform he can stand on, he will immediately jump again. Was this intentional? It could prove useful for the lazy man, making him do multiple jumping like that ;D
3: Who needs to climb ladders when you've got GRAVITY :D!!! I know ladders are useful for climbing up, do you intend to make a climb down, or will jumping suffice?
Overall though it just gets better and better.
mongoid (Updated )
Fantastic questions all around...
1. Ah, you've noticed a drawback to using conditional statements for keyboard inputs. One key will take precedence over another, but since I doubt that will become an issue in actually game play, I tend to let those bugs fly. It happens out in the real world quite often actually.
2. Yes, that's one of the glitches I need to smooth over. This engine is still a work in progress, and I'm constantly sanding over the rough edges. I've simply decided to post a demo of the engine every time I pass a developmental landmark so that when the game is released, those interested can see a literal progression of the game from doodles on paper to finished flash game.
3. Ladders are important! Haha! But their functionality hasn't been implemented yet. My other level designs include a definite need for ladders, maybe even as a small level puzzle. We'll see, I'm still working out the dynamics of that.
I'm so glad you're enjoying the project as much as I am. The first major hurdle is complete. The core platform engine is done. I know this latest demo didn't look like much, but what I really achieved was the following.
- Add keyboard control to the main character.
- Add a game camera that follows a game element, in this case, the main character. It can be easily switched to follow a boss, or a projectile, or an important clue.
- Confine the camera to the game's level boundaries.
- Move the background to sync with the game camera.
- Convert the backgrounds from vector to bitmapData.
- Move the two background layers in parallax with the main stage to give the illusion of depth.
- Load a separate platform level.
- Make the Hero interact with it, allowing him to stop falling if he encounters a floor, and stop walking when he encounters a wall.
LOL! Like I said. This doesn't LOOK like much, but a lot of code was implemented to make it all work. In ActionScript 3.0 no less, to which I've finally graduated to intermediate n00b. :-P
Actually, You've inspired me to add this comment response to the blog itself. :-)