New Platformer game

[MikeMD]

New platformer called Pumpkin Boy.

If anybody feels like giving it a run and come back with any issues ( hopefully they have all been eliminated )

The usual arrow movement, but you can also hold down shift and use arrow keys to look up/down left/right. SPACE bar or X to shoot spray at enemies
Also you can go left or right from the very start.

Boss on level 3 and final level. If anybody gets to it curious to know how easy/hard it was to defeat it.

[fil_razorback]

Nice game, I quite like the art and I didnt find any bug.
The boss sent me straight away to Game Over because it took me a while to figure out how to dodge his shots.
The only concern I have is that spray shots dont incapacitate ennemies as much as I hope they would.

[MikeMD]

Thanks for checking it out. It seems impossible to get any replies here unless it's a thread about 3D or arguments about Unity

I'm assuming you only played the first boss appearance on level 3?

[ImprisonedPride]

It seems impossible to get any replies here unless it's a thread about 3D?

No no no... you have to mask it with a post about an awesome new RPG!

On a more personal note, I haven't had the time I once did being at new university and all plus trying to get some game programming done (yep, I still do that sort of thing ) Hopefully I get to check it out in the next few days. I had the chance to give it about a 2 minute go before I was pulled away and I liked what I saw so far.

[MikeMD]

I'm going to develop an RPG version of Pumpkin Boy for the iPhone and iPad and then a multiplayer 3D version using Unity.

[Son of Bryce]

I couldn't get past the giant flower on Stage 3, I get hurt no matter what. I couldn't figure out a way to kill it without dying.

I like that it has an auto-save. The music's good and I like the fire effects.

I didn't understand that I needed a key to finish the stage, maybe there should be something on the screen that signifies you not having a key since it's so important. Like maybe a faded out key or something.

[rumblesushi]

Slick work. Nice effects too, and it's pretty easy to pick up and play.

I think the parallax scrolling could be improved, the two vegetation layers look too similar, similar size etc. You could also blur the back layer slightly to distinguish it. Also I think there should be a bigger difference in scroll speed between the 2 layers.

Also, you could definitely get it running quicker. It uses about 50/60% of a Core 2 Duo when moving, and I'm guessing around 30fps?

I'm not sure how you're rendering it, but there should be some room for optimisation for sure.

[MikeMD]

I couldn't get past the giant flower on Stage 3, I get hurt no matter what. I couldn't figure out a way to kill it without dying.

You don't need to do it, but if you stand on the edge of the platform you can't hit each other, so you can move in jump to avoid fire, shoot him and quickly jump back to the edge.
But he can be beaten with good timing jumps and shooting at him.

Valid points about the key and parallax scrolling, key is mentioned in the instructions, but we know people don't read those, so I may add a grayed out key up there . Don't know if I'll bother with it in this episode. It looked nice, and I didn't want to go over 4MB by adding more stuff, so I reused same graphics.

Also, you could definitely get it running quicker. It uses about 50/60% of a Core 2 Duo when moving, and I'm guessing around 30fps?

35 fps. There is definitely enough headroom there, but I like the speed as it is. It does have stuff built in for upgrades ( if I add flying, springy shoes and things like that ), so it may speed up depending on what you pick up ( in other episodes, I think I'm moving on to another game after one more update of this ).

[MikeMD]

Hmmmm, must be sleep deprivation, I can't edit my reply above and it sounds like I was drunk when typing that.

I meant I didn't know whether I'd bother changing the parallax scrolling in this episode, but probably will add a grayed out key ( it's already there anyway just invisible ).

And the boss can be beaten with well timed jumps to avoid fire and shooting at him between his fire breaths. Both of you have limited range, so standing at the very edge of the platform neither one can hit the other. You can use this to move in, fire at him and do a quick jump back landing at the edge of the platform and out of his range.

[Lanerinsaner]

Hey i'm making a Platformer with flash CS4 and was wondering how you make it where if the health bar goes down it goes to the game over frame....Do know how i could do that? here is the codes:

Healthbar (Instance name: HP) Code:
onClipEvent(enterFrame){
this._xscale = _root.hp;
if(_root.hp < 0){
_root.hp = 0;
}
}

Frame code:
Stop()
_root.hp = 100;

[Incrue]

nice game

[MikeMD]

Thanks, and on that note I think I'm done with tweaking this one ( for now anyway ).

[rumblesushi]

You don't need to do it, but if you stand on the edge of the platform you can't hit each other, so you can move in jump to avoid fire, shoot him and quickly jump back to the edge.
But he can be beaten with good timing jumps and shooting at him.

Valid points about the key and parallax scrolling, key is mentioned in the instructions, but we know people don't read those, so I may add a grayed out key up there . Don't know if I'll bother with it in this episode. It looked nice, and I didn't want to go over 4MB by adding more stuff, so I reused same graphics.



35 fps. There is definitely enough headroom there, but I like the speed as it is. It does have stuff built in for upgrades ( if I add flying, springy shoes and things like that ), so it may speed up depending on what you pick up ( in other episodes, I think I'm moving on to another game after one more update of this ).

Hey Mike, I wasn't insinuating the character should move faster, I didn't imagine him blazing around the screen like Sonic, I more meant the engine could be optimised to run faster, use less CPU, ie to cater to people with slower computers etc, to make sure they got as high a framerate as possible

[MikeMD]

I realized that, but I sort of answered it as a single speed issue.

It runs perfectly on my test 3 year old laptop and to me that's enough. It has pretty big backgrounds, detailed graphics, a few layers, animations, constant fire animations, moving objects, so I don't think you can optimize much more. It already runs at 35 fps that I wanted. What slows down flash the most is displaying and moving objects on screen, and this one has quite a bit, so the fact that it runs at designated speed even on 3 year old laptops is good enough for me. I'm sure I could find something to optimize, but since there is no problem with speed I'm not going to look for it. And I'm not cutting down on graphics, if anything I'll add more.

[rumblesushi]

Hey Mike, I'm not saying there is anything WRONG with it per se, only that there is undoubtedly room for optimisation. If not this game, then the next using an upgraded version of the engine etc.

And yep, being a software renderer, it's the rendering that uses the most juice in Flash. But with that in mind, the leaner the code, the more cycles are left to render graphics. And of course, there are different ways of rendering the graphics, some are much faster than others.

Like you said, if anything you'd like to add more. And I have no doubt that with some tweaking to your engine, you could add more graphics/objects without using any more juice

By the way in regards to Mode7 in the other thread, maybe you'd seen some shoddy Mode7 examples from the AS2 days etc, but in AS3 you can build a Mode7 engine that runs lightning fast and looks absolutely perfect.

Basically rendering per scanline using bitmapFill, each scanline with a different matrix transformation. No scaled movieclips etc, as you might have seen before.

And say your viewport is 450 pixels high, on average the horizon is only going to be around 225 pixels. That's 225 draw calls in 1 pixel strips, as long as your pipeline is fast - with fast transformations per scanline, you can get the core Mode7 engine running at 60fps with about 5 or 6% CPU usage on a Core 2 Duo.

And because it's rendering in 1 pixel scanlines, rather than a MovieClip scaled over a few pixels, it doesn't have the blockiness you speak of. In fact it looks perfect, with no texture distortion or anything.

I thought you might be interested, as Mode7 is a very good option for pseudo 3D racing games.

The only limitation is the floor has to be flat obviously, no hills/slopes like proper 3D - but with good use of 2D objects transformed in 3D, I think you could still make a very good level with Mode7, particularly for a racing game of course.

[aolujumu]

A very nice game foreal