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More platform progress, and a request for help...

More platform progress, and a request for help...
Name:Jon Frisby
Date Posted:Dec 18, 2006
Rating:4.0 out of 5
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My platform code has progressed quite a bit. I've got config datablocks to facilitate using the custom classes. I've got a couple different ways to end levels (one of which is specifically for cutscenes). I've got several different camera options:

1) No camera movement at all. Great for your basic Mario Bros (not Super Mario Bros) clone.

2) mountCamera. Mounts the camera to the player, as in the mini platform tutorial.

3) followX/followY. Follow the player but only along one axis. Additionally, you can bound the range of the axis -- follow the playr but never exceed say, -200..200. Very handy for your Super Mario Brothers or Ice Climber style of games.


I need to add collectable objects, parallax scrolling, some basic NPCs, triggered actions, lives, scoring but I have a nice clean framework in which to build all of that. There's a lot to do to make a complete platformer, but I've now pretty much decided that I ought to generalize this.

I have gotten permission to put together a tutorial based on this code (thus the willingness to spend time generalizing and fleshing it out) -- it'll probably be a series of tutorials that build on one another:
-Basic platformer. (Movement and animation.)
-Adding camera controls.
-Parallax scrolling.
-Changing levels and cut scenes.
-Death and rebirth. (Sorry, had to get an Evangelion reference in somewhere)
-Items.
-Baddies.

Here's the thing though: I need some art assets for this. The art assets in the mini platform tutorial aren't enough for the functionality I've built (let alone what I plan on adding), and the art assets I have are not mine to throw around.

What I need is some simple art assets, preferably in a unified style so that the tutorial will produce some nifty screenshots. :)

1) Player animations: Standing-facing-left, standing-facing-right, running-left, running-right, jumping-facing-left, jumping-facing-right, jumping-while-running-left, jumping-while-running-right.
2) A couple different tiles.
3) A collectible object animation (say, a spinning coin?).
4) Some horizontal parallax-ready backgrounds (I.E. two or three backgrounds to overlay of varying widths).
5) Some vertical parallax-ready backgrounds (varying heights).

I can recolor the player character to make a baddie, and recolor the item/backgrounds as needed too but that's about the limit of my graphical abilities.

Anybody willing to donate a little graphics time to help make something of my donated coding time? :D

-JF

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Matt Troup   (Dec 18, 2006 at 09:01 GMT)
Sounds great.

There are so many ways to implement movement/cameras/colision/jumping that a "shopping cart" system would be quite a feat (I would just script little diddies and copy/paste that code to whatever game I needed it on). TDN is currently divided by game "genre", but I tend to think of games in terms of control - anyone else do the same?

Just off the top of my head - ladder climbing would probably be another character movement to add - you may or may not actually need that animation in order to provide a clear example.

Teck Lee Tan   (Dec 18, 2006 at 09:23 GMT)
Sounds like a worthy cause. :) You've got mail. :D

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