Platformer Starter Kit (TGB)

I am proud to announce Torque Game Builder's (TGB) Platformer Starter Kit (PSK)! The kit does not require source modifications and is available to any TGB user (version 1.5 and up)!

The PSK should hopefully be released within the next few weeks. It will include the full source, framework documentation, a small demo level and a tutorial on how to construct it.

This kit is based on the Torque X Platformer design, including all of its major features and a few more. Everything you see below is customizable. Thanks to TGB's behavior system you are able to modify nearly any setting for any object in the game, it is that simple.

Platforms

One of the most basic features of any platformer is to have platforms! The PSK sports Solid and One-Way, allowing for flat and sloped surfaces. There are also Moving, Bouncing, Falling and Conveyor platforms! The platform system has been set up with expandability in mind, if you can think of a new type, you can add it!

Ladders and Hazards

Most platform games have some kind of ladder or rope which allows characters to climb up and down, the PSK is no different. Included is an area damage hazard that deals periodic damage to your character when inside the trigger (ideal for lava or electricity fields) and will deal damage upon collision if it is a regular scene object (great for spiked floors or crushing doors).

Collectable Items

Objects are collectable by players and have been set up in a similar fashion to platforms. Adding the pickup behavior to your object will allow that object to be collected, but what sort of object it is, is up to you! The foundation for an inventory system has been set up which records the items that you've collected in your journey.

Spawn Points and Check Points

In order to improve performance, any type of object can be spawned through a spawn point. You wouldn't want the computer to process the information of the 50 enemies in your scene each frame, so you control how many there are in the scene at any given time. Check points not only record the player's respawn position, but they also record how many objects each spawned has spawned.

Sound and Animation Manager

Using TGB's sound system can be quite daunting at times. The PSK has included a sound manager which handles all of the sounds and music being played in the kit. Characters in the game are animated through the system created in the PSK. It uses a Finite State Machine to handle all of the details when changing states and supports animation transitions!

Object Manager

Conditional collisions are always a tricky aspect of any game. The PSK uses the graph group system in place in TGB, but has made it easy to manage through a new labeling system. Group types are labeled and can have parents and children types. Objects can then be told to collide with objects from specific groups. Here is a small example:

- An object is an Apple and a Fruit.
- An object is an Orange and a Fruit.
- An object is a Fruit (not an Apply or an Orange).

- An object set to collide with Apples will collide with Apples and Fruit, but not Oranges.
- An object set to collide with Oranges will collide with Oranges and Fruit, but not Apples.
- An object set to collide with Fruit will collide with Apples, Oranges and Fruit.

It is a pretty basic system, but it is a very handy tool to help with managing your scene. It means that you can have triggers or objects which affect all characters in your game, or just specific character types.

Basic AI Controller

Through the use of behaviors, characters in the world can act like players. Behaviors allow you to treat a characters body and its brain as two separate objects. This means that all you need to do is script the brain and the body will interact with the world. Included in the PSK is a basic enemy who walks side to side, but has the ability to behave like a player!

Parallax Scrollers

Parallax scrollers create a sense of depth to your game. When the camera moves, your background images can scroll at different rates. All you have to do is add the behavior, set the scroll rate and the kit will do the rest.

Final Note

This kit should provide a solid foundation for any user wanting to recreate any of the classic platformer games. Give it a go (when it is released) and I will do my very best to provide users with support in the creation of their games.

Much of this work could not have been done without the support from GG. They have been outstanding and have offered me a great deal of assistance over the past few months. Huge shout out to Derek Bronson and Thomas Buscaglia for their guidance and help.

I don't know of the pricing, but I would like to make it as accessible as possible. The kit is in its final stages and should be released within the next few weeks, however, nothing is guaranteed. I am continuing to polish the code and provide as much detail in the source as I can before release.

Phillip O'Shea
(Lead Designer)