2d-platformer

[2d-platformer]

My Game

This is a short, video of what my game actually looks like

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Building my game,

Once I build my game, I tested it, and there were two changes I made before submitting it. Firstly, the camera. It needed moving slightly as you couldn't really see the level. Unfortunately I don't actually know how to change this. Secondly, there was not enough ways to die, you could quite easily just run through and beat it in less than 7 seconds. So I have add a couple of spikes to fix this issues.

There were a few more places I put them as well. In the end, I absolutely figured out that I need to make more ways to die, like an enemy of some kind, I need that sense of death in my game.

And with that build done this first project is finished,

To build it you need to package it under platforms (make sure that it is shipping).

I also, last minute, to add an icon,

Its simple and its the player so in my opinion thats all you need for a game icon.

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Level design in Celeste,

What they talk about in this video is how they constructed there game, and mainly level design. At the start of the video he talks about how he makes them, and shows a graph.

This graph describes how he splits his game, in to areas and then different levels in the area. This has changed my views on how I should make levels, like if I ever make a bigger game, I would 100% build it like this. Start with an idea of a game, instead of going into the levels immediately, section areas for the levels.

Something else that I found interesting was how they used real mountain climbing course so get information on how they should design there levels, having a reference from something like this absolutely helps.

The last thing that I found interesting was how they used mountain climbing as a reference. They wanted the player to make there own way of making there levels, just like mountain climbers, most players were different from the next.

With there mechanics this is possible, people could jump and climb or they could just dash up. It gives the player a choice on how they make it up this mountain and I find it very unique.

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Eadweard Muybridge

Eadweard Muybridge was known for his work in photographic studies of motion and very early work in motion picture projection.

He was able to develop some motion images and for 1887 this was an advancement in technology at the time.

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Stephen E. Wilhite

Stephen E. Wilhite was one of the main American computer scientists who worked at CompuServe (An American Online service) and was the engineering lead for the team that developed the gif in 1987.

And which the gif became the standard 8-bit images until 1996 when PNG was created.

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Changed the jump animation, again~

Now this is better, I finally got somewhere with the jump animation. With the old one, it was some what a place holder and it didn't really work. It just looked like someone jumping up, in mid air? It just didn't work. So I tried again, and made this. I tried to go for something what only had one sprite as games like Super Mario bros only used one sprite. So I did too. And it finally works, to some extent. I like how its only one sprite and then, developed an animated through just this one sprite. Its like there floating. And that's what you need for a jump animation.

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Bugs~

The first bug that need to be fixed was the teleport animation, when the player touches the teleporter to play the animation, the player goes in the floor.

This happens because the teleporter animation for the player is a bigger than the other animations. Meaning, while the sprite for the character is 16 by 32, the teleporter animation is like 2-3 times the size. So to fix it, I have made it smaller and it now fits with the other cavasses I have for the character.

As I can see that it works, it looks really well with the teleporter animation and just how I wanted it to.

One extra thing I added was, when the level starts, the teleport animation plays in reverse to show the character coming down. I did this to add a little more detail to there start other than the character just appearing.

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The Win screen,

I have decided to make it similar to the starting screen, so this

to

Its not to much different but that's how I wanted it to be. Also I decided to add the players 'cog' amount on there so that the player knows if they have got them all or not. And if they don't they can go back and find them all.

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Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door

Paper Mario seen as a RPG and a platform, with the original being released in 2004 and the remake being released this year and in my opinion I think that this game line is pretty good.

The HUD in this game is very good in my opinion, it tells you everything you need to know; Hp, coins, stars, your friend/teammates Hp, everything you need to know.

This main difference that makes me like this HUD over the dead cells HUD I talked about before and didn't like is that, it fit in with the game. The whole design just fits, it follows the games theme and its a turn based game so in my opinion they can add a bit more detail to stuff like that and it not being to distracting.

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Examples of Blog Posts

All of these link take you to a few peoples blog posts, that they have made describing what they have made recently and a while ago. For example, on WANEELLA's link, you can find pixel art that he has made or maybe Saint's link, they talk about games they are making/made and a lot of other stuff including educational tips for pixel art.

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The Hidden Cogs,

Well I wasn't going to be kind when hiding these, The first one is in the wall.

floor. No more needs to be said.

And the obvious one,

I made an obvious one so people actually know that there are other ones to get. I love this idea, as my game wouldn't really have anything else to it. So thanks me.

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The Vent,

One thing I wanted to add to this level was a vent, I mean most factory's have ventilation systems so see now have,

The overgrown vent thing (yay). The point of this, is so my game has something else to it, a goal of some kind. Other than just collecting a couple of things and leaving, you can find another thing, if you press something, a button for me. Also one thing I learnt was that the platforms didn't work, They did really fit in (And work) but I got around this by using a jump pad instead.

I lost the file for the platforms unfortunately so I can't show you them.

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To do List~

I need:

Add a vent and small wooden platforms for the underground area.

Made it go dark and allow the player to go though it when the player presses the button.

Put the parts around the map of the third cog, really hidden.

Make a Win screen

Fix the teleporter player animation (I know why this happens)

Make the jump animation only play once.

Made the teleport animation play on event play and only do once.

Make a saw (animated), going back and forth using the enemies character blueprint. (If I have time)

Make a lose screen. (If I have time)

The player will not have projectiles.

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Projectiles

With Projectiles, I don't actually know if I need them but I still made it so I know how to do it in the future. Well time to made another actor.

Just remember to add projectile movement and a cube or something so you can see it. The Projectile movement is just an easy way to make stuff move (Gravity still exists though (Turn that off)).

What this does is that when shot it destroys its self after 3 seconds and it destroys its self when it hits something.

Well I still need to be able to shoot the projectile ,

This is it, when q is pressed it spawns in the actor and it just shoots and moves forward. One little thing I would like to add though is for projectiles and stuff similar, instead of using a cube or something for reference, use a component called the 'arrow'. This is automatically turned off for the players view and you can see the arrow and what way its going. Its just easier.

(To make the projectile glow, do this)

And now I have the ability to shot projectiles.

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Enemies

I will start with the enemy. Firstly, we need a character pawn, I mean it is an enemy and we kind of want it to move.

Now what this does it that it moves, put simply,

This cube every tick moves to a speed we can set. So for this enemy it moves 0.2 on the x axis every tick.

What the float does is when a condition is hit, for in this instance it will hit something that the player can't see, it multiplies by -1 to change the direction of the cube and moves it the opposite way. What we need next though, is somewhere to put these variable and something the enemy can hit to trigger the variable. So I made another blueprint, an actor. For the actor I made it a sphere, and made it bright pink, so its easier to see (not by the player tho).

As I said before I need variables for the float to be set off, so take a guess what to do here. I now have two little variables called 'jump' and 'ChangeDirection'. I went back the enemy and started making the conditions.

The first condition I made was the jump, and its pretty simple.

When the enemy touches the sphere, it jumps, if I make it a jump sphere, so I can turn it on and off when I put the actor in game. However if they do or not jump they,

Turn around, before it just made it move backwards but with this it still moves backwards but rotates with it. The condition with this branch is when I tick a box this will or not activate, and what it does when ticked is it sets the 'moveright' variable on, and when it hits again it turns back off, this is possible because of the NOT node (I think) What it does is that it makes the variable be able to turn of and on again as if this wasn't here it would turn on but not off as its already been set on. Then it changes the actors rotation depending on if the variable as been hit or not, that is what the select does anyway. And that is pretty much it for the enemies. An easier way/ just using branches instead, could have been a way to do this but its kind of just annoying to have branches very where, I already have enough of those.

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CrisTales

CrisTales is a turn-based RPG with it being 2D art done frame by frame and making over 20 hours of gameplay. Immediately, I can see that the art work for this game is beautiful and extremely well done.

Now the HUD for this game isn't to much but its definitely there, In this HUD you can see the player/characters HP, MP and CP (depending on the character) and the turn rotations (who goes next). This HUD, in my opinion is pretty good, it has everything is needs and its not overloading you as the player with the information, it also suits the game very well. And with that the HUD is quite effective for those reasons, small, simple and fits right in.

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My Starting Screen,

Love this, start screen. It fits in just nicely with the game. It didn't take to long to make either with it being quite basic. My plan is to also make the win screen similar to this, just with a different colour, maybe a golden type of colour.