#gdevelop experimentation

I tried to play the Advanced Pixel Platformer Template made by Arnik.

It has 4 save records for players: Slot 1 to 4.

There are 2 template levels of the game to choose from players.

Template Level 1 does not have enemies, player jumping on the wall can make jump higher.

I can use wall to jump 2 or an unlimited number of jumps, this allow me to jump higher to overcome obstacles.

Elevator Pitch

Name and Brief Description: GDevelop Experimentation — a simple platformer prototype where the player controls a character using arrow keys to walk and jump.

Genre: Platform jumping game.

Primary Mechanics / Gameplay Controls:

Up Arrow (↑) — Move up

Left Arrow (←) — Move left

Right Arrow (→) — Move right

Down Arrow (↓) — Move down

Spacebar — Jump

Setting / Style:

The player disappears if they touch a dead area or slime.

Touching a coin causes the player to stop moving and displays a "You Win" message.

Slime enemies move left and right across the platform.

Left and right arrow icons are hidden once the game starts to avoid clutter.

GDevelop Experimentation

Other than the slime's collision masks, it's all going well. Therefore, I made another experiment, a shooting game.

【Week 2】 ▹GDevelop Experimentation◃

During this week's workshop, I started experimenting in GDevelop which is the game developing program I will be using to create my game prototypes for this semester.

I'm really glad to have been introduction to this program as I've never heard of it before. Although it may have its limitations compared to other engines, it is a great introduction for beginners to create games as you don't need to have as much programming knowledge to design a game. I've played around with Unity in the past and compared to that, GDevelop is considerably easier to navigate.

The tutor helped guide us on elements of the program, showing us how to add sprites and tiles, create player and enemy movement, and a simple combat system.

The workshop was straightforward and I was able to get the hang of the program fairly well.

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The only issue we found during the session was that the enemy slime didn't collide with the left / right sprites placed in-game. The enemy would move off screen in the same direction without triggering the collision event with the sprites (the enemy is supposed to switch directions once colliding).

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I checked my codes in case I had assigned the wrong events but they were written correctly and the sprites were placed in the path of the enemy so it would have to collide.

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Luckily after some investigation, the tutor was able to find a solution! For some reason, the original collision mask for the slime wasn't working as its intended to be and thus didn't trigger the collision event. So to fix this, all we needed to do was recreate the collision mask! That's it!

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Simply analyze the elements of the Metroidvania-like game, you can find that the elements of the Metroidvania-like game contain many elements similar to platform jumping, so I determined my game development direction.

I see that the suffix name of Gdevelop's project file is .json. I knew that this should be a software written based on JavaScript code, which further confirmed the argument of "engine performance limitation" that I said earlier in the elevator pitch.

The way in this engine procedurally implements game effects is similar to Unreal Engine's Blueprint system. Even people with absolutely no programming background can make games that are functionally simple but complete.

https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.27/zh-CN/ProgrammingAndScripting/Blueprints/QuickStart/

And in the process of using this engine, I think it has taught me a lot of basic programming logic. This is indeed a very friendly game engine for novices.

(Yes, I'm a noob, too xd)

Jesse Schell said in the book that inspiration generally comes from your own experience, and my experience with Elder Ring taught me what's fascinating about this mechanic.

通过老头环的体验让我知道了这个机制下面的魅力之处，而且对于这种类型来说也是可行的。所以xxxxxxxxx

Stumbled upon interesting effects during engine testing

After I implemented the mechanism of "invisible bricks"

I continued to experiment with the lighting effects in the engine, and I stumbled upon an interesting phenomenon. Through the lighting effects of this light, the "invisible squares" were vaguely revealed.

The actual effect of lighting in the game

Derived ideas/mechanisms

I think it is possible to add an item similar to "lantern" in the game. After the protagonist picks up the lantern, through the lighting effect mentioned above (the radius of the light should not be too large, otherwise the meaning of exploring invisible blocks will be lost)

The "invisible block" will be faintly illuminated, allowing players to explore where the invisible road leads.

Reference

Platformer Elevator Pitch

In week 2, we discussed the necessary information for an elevator pitch: Title, pitch, images, control diagram, uniqueness. We also began brainstorming our ideas for a level. My initial ideas are to have the game progress through different levels that have different weather systems or species to collect like monsters and/or aliens. I will begin at these ideas and progress further once learning what is feasible for us in GDevelop.

GDevelop Experimentation

Our first tutorial on GDevelop had us create a simple scene with a player sprite, enemy sprite, and platforms. The process of creating scenes in GDevelop resembles other softwares and the processes of creating objects, assigning properties, conditions and actions are easy to learn. From exploring GDevelop in this tutorial, it seems the levels we design will be quite simple in nature. I believe this will allow room for focusing on the theme rather than trying to implement in depth gameplay.

The scene I created from following the tutorial:

Adding the jumping animation and ability to defeat the enemy:

Textbook Readings - Chapters 1 & 2

"In some ways, designing a game is like being the host of a party" chap 1, pg 4.

"That’s the art of game design… its giving birth and parenting" chap 1 pg 5.

The main skills needed: communication, teamwork, process, inspiration, becoming a better player, creativity

Setting player experience goals at brainstorm > help streamline creative process

Exercise 1.3: Your Life as a Game

Uni life sim - having to get to classes, interact with teachers/students, customisable

Pets - collecting animals/creatures to fill house/room

Exploring family heritage - have to interact with other people/family members to find out their stories and their relation

Exercise 1.5: Your Childhood

What's the time Mr. Wolf? - Suspense and impending loss/win

Hopscotch - Having to stay closely within boundaries to complete the game, handicap to get more difficult

Tic-tac-toe - strategy, almost 50/50 chance of winning

Welcome back to another post of my progression with GDevelop over the course of my learning. During week 2 we were tasked to follow a tutorial on how to build a basic platformer from scratch (similar to what is provided by GDevelop) to help learn the basics of developing with the software. The tutorial stepped through how to make a playable sprite that can walk and jump, creating enemies, changing animations, and basic combat akin to Mario Platformers.

After completing the tutorial had been completed I wanted to make a some adjustments to the game and try implement some systems for my potential game development assignment. One was making the character change directions based on the way they were moving and the other was creating a simple inventory system that could be used for an upcoming game concept. Changing the characters direction was easy, I took what I had learnt from the enemy section about flipping their animation and did that while also creating new events to register button inputs.

Next was the inventory system, where I wanted to make a Interface in the top left hand corner that you could switch through when acquiring certain items in-game. To try figure out how to do such a system I went into the basic platformer game template by GDevelop and studied their Interface. By creating a GUI layer, I was able to stick the layer to the top of the screen so the inventory sprites would follow. Next I would create three individual sprites for each slot with different animations based on whether they were selected and what item they are holding. Using the buttons, num1, num2, num3, I was able to swap through each slot. Finally, I used collision with a sprite to activate acquisition for the item.

This was the first time I try this software and it went great actually. We learned some basic functions inside of Gdevelop to help us prototype our game ideas in our last workshop. And in the end, we had a basic platformer game with collectible coins and an enemy that we could defeat by jumping on it. I only have knowledge about the game engine was the unity and I was thinking that it’s going to be the same software as Unity. But the Gdevelop was so much different from other engines. It is a fun and very powerful tool, with everything you could want in one place. Also, it can be a great start for beginners. In my experience, I have made a very simple platformer game that has players can move, jump, kill enemies, collect coins and the enemy can move in two certain distances in under 30 minutes.