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SoCoder -> Blogs Home -> Blogs |
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Jayenkai
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Platdude Spheres.. Again!Attempt #83 |
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Platdude Spheres has been a thought in my head for a long long time. The basic idea is this. You start off as Platdude, and then midway through a level you grab a special Sphere. The sphere changes Platdude's clothing to that of another platforming character. Be it Mario, Sonic or whoever. The level also changes to act more like that character's levels. The last time I attempted it, I got reasonably far, but everything was far too big and chunky, and the overall game just didn't feel right. So I'm starting again. Again! I need to keep the level size small, so that you can see most of your objectives easily. If you try out the earlier version, you'll soon realise how hard it is to figure out what you're meant to do. With a smaller tilesize, I'm hoping that will be easier to work with, since you'll be able to see more of the map at a time. My main three characters in this game have always been Mario, Sonic and Lara Croft. But I have an issue with Lara. That is, that most of her moves are now actually normal Platdude moves. If you play JNKPlat DS, you'll see that he's pretty much been stealing all her best bits, over the years. So I guess Lara's out, now. No point adding a whole character if she's nothing new to add to the game. A character I wanted in, though, was the Hero guy. But Activision's Hero was such a long time ago, and nobody really remembers him. So I never though he was iconic enough to go in. Except that now I've remade it, so I can use that to plop him back in.. And Greenie's the main character. Which is odd, since Greenie's technically meant to be Platdude's arch nemesis. Still, no matter, Platdude's now donned the fat, balding, school teacher's outfit and Greenie is now going to be one of the characters in the new game. So that's 3. Sonic - Fast with Deadly Spinjumps, Mario - High Jumps and [?] blocks, and Greenie - Helecopter and TNT. 4th will probably be "Ninja Platdude" where he jumps around, block at a time, much like in the classic JNKPlat games. But who else is out there? What other costumes can Platdude wear that will be A) Easy to draw, B) Iconic and C) Different Gameplay wise? |
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Comments |
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| Friday, 04 May 2007, 14:37 | |
Blitz3Dman
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Here's some suggestions: Kirby Shouldn't be hard to do. Megaman Digimon, digital monsters, digimon are teh champions! What, why you looking at me like that for? |
| Saturday, 05 May 2007, 00:11 | |
shroom_monk
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*Looks strangly at B3DMan...* 
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| Saturday, 05 May 2007, 01:03 | |
power mousey
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But in another post, I thought you said art and textures are easy... specifically 3d textures and art. :/ I'll leave it to you for the textures,skins and costumes. |
| Monday, 07 May 2007, 05:57 | |
Jayenkai
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(I don't think I've ever claimed that Art and Textures are easy? Possibly that I only ever create "Easy" art and textures, but not that it's easy to do!!) Progress so far. The JNKPlat engine takes a bit of tweaking to get everything working the way it should for multiple characters! So far, I've added basic walking, jumping and falling for Platdude, Mario and Sonic. This is in the JNKPlat "Blocky" movement style. That is, you tap left, he walks left to the next block. Jumping is now more complex than ever! JNKPlat. Platdude's jump is like so. (assuming a jump to the left) One step diagonally up and left. Then if possible one left again. And if possible again then another to the left. You end up with a Knight-like "L" shaped jump. I took that idea and tweaked it for Mario and Sonic. Sonic goes Up, Up, Diagonally Up+Left, Left. Mario goes Diagonally Up+Left three times. It makes his jump look a little awkward, but given the correct puzzle types should look about right. Given the 3 types of jump, I'm considering adding a grid-layout background to the game. Nothing too noticable, but something that's there if you need to plan out your jumping. When walking, Platdude travels at 4 pixels per frame, Mario at 8 and Sonic at 16, so even that feels different based upon who you're playing as. As Platdude you can have complex jumping areas, where the player can move carefully from brick to brick. As Mario you get average movement, but the additional blocks that will appear from his [?] bricks. And as Sonic, you can run along a level at speed, but must be really careful not to plummet to your death, or run into a bunch of spikes! Everything's coming along just fine! I'm bound to bugger it up any moment now! Note : I'm also considering hiding the whole "Other Characters" things until you're quite a way through the game. I think Platdude still has a whole bunch of puzzles left in him, so I'll probably give out the characters in later levels. Just for that extra playability. 
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| Monday, 07 May 2007, 06:03 | |
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Blitz3Dman
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I still think you definately should add Kirby. Samus would be interesting to figure out. Megaman! Don't you want to code him commanding his horde of Digimon? Man, I love that show: Megaman, Digital monsters... I'll think of more Greenie Erm, Duh? Luigi: You can't have Mario without Luigi! Or Toad Peach and Bowser, and Kamek! Wii; what's wrong with playing as an inanimate object? Pikachu Stats would probably end up between Sonic and Mario. |
| Monday, 07 May 2007, 06:34 | |
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Jayenkai
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Samus.. A possibility. Kirby.. I can't think of a way of portraying "Platdude in a Kirby Outfit" other than.. 1) Pink Platdude, but wouldn't look very Kirby-ish 2) Pink Ball, but wouldn't look very Platdude-ish And anyway, Kirby doesn't really do anything other than his own special "Eat the Bad Guys" thing, and then I'd have to add an extra 10 or so outfits! I'm not adding "Other Mario Family" characters, because they mostly all play the same anyway. And Pikachu? I don't think he'd add anything to the gameplay. But.. The idea of an electrical energy outfit.. Kind of moving around like the electrical gremlin from Gremlins 2. Let him fly around in wires and things.. That could be neat..
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| Tuesday, 08 May 2007, 08:38 | |
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Jayenkai
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Additions today. I've now got draggable bricks in, which can only be dragged by Platdude. As Mario they're stationary wall blocks, and as Sonic they're passable scenery. Similarly, Mario's Pipes become a flower in Sonic land, and a half-the-size set of bricks in Platdude world. Although, if I'm honest, I don't know what to do with the pipes! Typical Pipe Transporters would be the obvious choice, but.. I'd need to add an extra layer into the level format for that, and right now it's just a simple ascii layout! Mario world graphics were easy. I remembered about an old "Super Mario Land Remake" I started (during WW.week 59) and just grabbed all my sprites from there. But for Sonic world I'm currently using actual background tiles from Sonic 1's Green Hill. I'll have to change them at some point, before I get too used to them! Platdude can do his "Grab a Thin-Red Platform, and drop down to shimmy along the bottom of it" move, and no-one else can, meaning he can drop down into lower sections more easily. Instead of having a single screen limit of 25x18 (32*32 on an 800x600 res, with a bit at the bottom for scores and the like) I decided to instead scroll the screen a bit. It's now 50x50, although I might tweak that at a later time. It isn't TOO big, and you still get to see quite a lot of the area onscreen, so it's much more managable than the last Spheres was. Oh, yeah, and I added a flickering suit/randomly changing bricks transformation when he changes suits. Although I've yet to add any Suit pickups into the game. Speaking of which, I think I'll give up with the whole "Spheres" thing, and make it into an actual suit. It'd look better, I think. Plenty more things to add! 
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| Wednesday, 09 May 2007, 06:58 | |
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Jayenkai
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I mustn't be in a very musical mood, this month! I spent 3 hours, this morning, trying out various bits and pieces of music, and nothing I make seems to fit the style of this game, so far. The only style of music that does seem to fit is super retro sounding chiptunes, but I don't think that'd do this game justice.. Plus with it being Platdude the chiptune will end up sounding like every other Platdude theme I've done! (Even Hero has the platdude signature bit in it!) I think I might need to come up with something entirely new for this one...
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