Platformer Blog

Now that we have iterated our game, we have pretty much come to the end of our group project. There is still a lot that all of us wanted to achieve with this game, but it turned out to be a little more than we were prepared for.

Initially, we had intended to create a skilltree that the player could spend points on to learn new abilities. Honestly, we were struggling with the workload for what we already had, and adding the need to learn how to create a new GUI for our game was a little bit too much for us.

If I was to attempt this project again, I would spend less time on finicky details, such as enemy movement acceleration, and instead try out these new avenues that I struggle with (skill tree GUI). I also believe it would be interesting to add in multiple attack animation, rather than just the one, that chain off each other like a combo attack.

With the feedback that we have gotten, we were able to make a few slight improvements to the game. Most of the improvements were made by redesigning some of the sprites and adding extra animations. Have a look at the difference between the old version of the knight and the new version of the knight.

My group and I have officially done some playtesting. Earlier, I was able to playtest with my brother and mother, but we ended up getting a few more playtesters. Here are pictures of a few of our notes:

Ok so I started a group project with some classmates of mine. We decided to create a little platformer called 'Night Knight' about a knight that hides in the shadow of night. It is a little bit of a puzzle game at the same time because every level, the player must search for a key and door to move on.

My group has already started working on the barebones of this project. They have working platforms, a beautiful backdrop, and a character that moves, swings a sword, and shoots darts. Currently, the sword and darts are useless.

After I got my hands on the project file, I was able to have a go at giving the project my own touch. I created 3 types of enemies; melee, ranged, and the boss enemy. The melee does melee attacks and is very fast, running at the player when the player reaches a certain distance away. The ranged enemy just shoots darts. The boss enemy is a larger, slower version of the melee enemy and is much tankier.

I also had a look at the attack animations noticed some errors.

the sword animation did actual create a collision box, but the collision box was created at the same place compared to the player, even if the player changed the direction it was facing.

I fixed this but messing around with the spawn coordinates and made sure that the collision box was destroyed so that no unnecessary bugs would arise.

2. the dart animation spawned darts behind the player.

I fixed this the same way I fixed the sword attack; messing around with spawn coordinates.

Out of the three projects that I have started, the racing game is probably the one that I spent the least amount of time on. Honestly, after playing around with the asteroid game, I was more interested in that 'feeling' rather than the feeling I could get from a racing game.

OK!

Alrighty I have started on the racing game. I have created a road with cars on it. *insert mindblown emoji*

Unlike the platformer game, I am actually very happy where this one has led. Sure, this is still a post-mortem so I am not planning on continuing work on this project.

The entire design of this game is very simple; dodge. There is no motive other than that, and the only goal is to last as long as possible. Where the game is at now, I think the gameplay is perfectly simple and yet satisfying and I am absolutely in love with how the triangle rotates when it 'flaps'.

Alrighty, I am concluding work on the platformer game - not because it is complete but because I have very little interest left in it. I have not done anything on it in quite a while. My base idea for it was to become a really high energy running game where the speed would get progressively faster.

In reflection, I believe I tackled the project pretty poorly - I was just developing really small sections of the project at a time and saving a lot for later. Other than that one weird-looking death sprite, I didn't do any graphic art or animation at all within the project, just using assets I was given by my university. I do wish I attempted adding my own spin on things and choosing my own artstyle.

In terms of the gameplay, it is very simple and is no different from many other failed games in this genre. I never even started implementing the mouse mechanism where I could cut rope to create bridges. This was a pretty substantial idea I had, but honestly I didn't really know how to begin adding it. In the future, I reckon I should do entire parts of the project at a time, rather than little bits here and there. I feel like if I had enough interest to actually sit down and think about the mechanic, I could create a step-by-step process for adding in this unique mouse gameplay.

If I was to resume work on this project, I would probably scrap everything and begin from a new blank slate.

GG.

P.S. here is a one sheet and poster thing for my project that I had to create for my assessment. I ended up submitting the wrong files, though, so I copped a lot of marks. D:

Okie dokie. I have done I reckon a rather substantial big of progress for this game. I have added in numerous features, such as refining the motor controls, implementing asteroids, and asteroid collision.

The asteroids spawn in every 0.3 seconds, each moving in a seperate direction with a constant speed. If the player collides with an asteroid, they are launched in a random direction at a very quick speed. After this, asteroid stop spawning and the player can no longer control their character. They lose.

One thing to note, I have also added in a need for the spacebar to be pressed before the game starts.

Just a tiny tiny tiny progress update on the asteroid game. It really only took five minutes, but I now have sideways movement. Furthermore, moving sideways adds continuous rotation to the sprite.

Below is a video that showcases this as well as a better example of my 'gravity acceleration' system.

I know I only just started on the other game, but as part of my course, I am supposed to work on three separate simple game genres. This one is an asteroid game.

This asteroid game isn't like other asteroid games. It incorporates similar physics and movement style to the game 'FlappyBird'. I plan to make a game where you try to avoid asteroids for as long as possible, flappybird-ing away as best as you can.

Already, I have had a go at creating this desired movement style.

Below, are my values for changing my speed. It is important to note I only ever make changes to the acceleration of my sprite, rather than its inherent speed. It constantly increases its downward acceleration by 50 units per loop.

Ok so now my slime actually does something when it touches you.

I know the sprite looks super goofy (I made it myself). I really rushed it because I do not want this to be my final character design.

Anyway, this process is super simple:

if player collision with slime, remove player controls and set player animation to "dead"

I also tried playtesting with my brother and mum. My brother who is quite experienced with gaming, attempted three times before he was able to reach the end. My mum on the other hand - whose gaming experience is limited to the monopoly board game - was told the controls in advance (to give her an advantage) and took about five attempts to realise she was playing the alien, and not the slime.

Today I spent some time messing around with GDevelop to see if I could get something working. Last post, I decided on the style of game I was creating and today I had a crack at doing just that.

Super duper simple platformer right here. The gameplay is very simple and easy to grasp - run and jump. While I do not have instructions for controls and such, I believe they are pretty intuitive (left and right arrow keys, and space bar). The double jump was implemented quite simply as well:

if player jumping AND playing touching grass, allow player to jump again.

The movement of the big slime was probably what I had the most trouble with. How I solved this, there are invisible markers throughout its path at every point where the slime changes direction. Whenever it collides with one of these markers, I change the value of a variable. Depending on the value of that variable, the slime will move quicker and in a specific direction. Once the slime reaches the final invisible marker, its movement is halted, and it is flipped along its horizontal axis.