One note is that you should put the controls in the caption as well, because I found it hard to figure out what did what. Also I feel like you should change the controls to the arrow keys, since Im assuming you wont use the mouse?
the WASD keys are more commonly used when also tracking the mouse.
I think you captured the mario style gameplay well, but I didn't find wall jumping all that useful. I could stick to the wall, but I couldn't jump off.
As for swinging, very impressive. If you could post a tidbit of the maths behind that, that'd be cool.
All in all, great start. Keep up the great work.
In the process of designing a quirky little game engine called gulp. Check out it's progress below: @ my blog.
The running feels really good. The gravity shift looks cool, i would love to see how it looks with some real ground graphics.
Running and jumping need some work, the first jump works but sometimes when you land and try a second jump it dose not seem to work.
I think the wall jumps need some work, sometimes he wont even jump (Maybe the same thing as jumping two times in a row) and I tried jumping wall to wall and that did not seem to work either.
Swinging looks / feels good!
Good luck, ill bookmark your blog for futher updates
Xenelement - you're not the only one to think the wall jumping is off - I think the problem is that some people hit space bar just before he's reached that wall. What I'll do is have him wall jump if the jump key has been pressed shortly before Dreg reaching the wall.
I also want to tweak the pole jumping - I don't like how it goes crazy if you tap jump while Dreg isn't swinging.
But in the mean time I've been working on collision lines that function over several gravity zones, which was surprisingly difficult for me to sort out, but I finally have it. You can see a not-very-exciting demo of Dreg being able to run along a floor and be effected by gravity shifts at the same time...
I like it. The wall jumping is better now, and I like being able to walk and have it change, but the hero seems to rotate faster than the screen.
I think the problem people are having with wall jumping is because they play Mario, where you had to jump the second time slightly BEFORE the wall. Actually, I like how this plays BETTER than Mario! Great Job!
In the process of designing a quirky little game engine called gulp. Check out it's progress below: @ my blog.
by the way, you asked for some code about the swinging. I'm afraid to say it's pretty hacky after all the tweaking and changes to it. For instance, it seems to decelerate in two places, which strikes me as stupid, but I'm afraid to edit it because I'm happy with the way it is. I've tried to comment it as best I could, but I doubt it'll be very useful.
the variables are swingSpeed, which is the amount by which rotation will be changed each frame.
_direction is the way Dreg is facing (-1 for left, 1 for right)
swingAccel is something I don't think should be there anymore. I think that now it just decelerates swingSpeed... I dunno.
player is the person controlling Dreg. player.move is his lateral movement command...
PHP Code:
//first - if he's near 0 degrees and isn't moving very fast, just stop him.
if (Math.abs(rotation) <= 4 && Math.abs(swingSpeed) <= 4 && player.move == 0)
{
rotation = 0;
swingSpeed = 0;
}
else
{
//player.move represents the player's instructions: -1 for left, 1 for right, and 0 for no input
if (player.move != 0)
{
//this is to give Dreg a boost if he has stopped swinging - so if rotation is low, and so is swing speed
//then give him a boost of 10 degrees/frame
if(Math.abs(rotation) <= 5 && Math.abs(swingSpeed) <= 5)
{
swingSpeed -= player.move * 10;
}
else
{
//this if statement is weird - what it does is only make the player input have an effect when he's swinging in the
//relevant direction, and is going downwards
if (!((rotation * _direction >= 0 && swingSpeed * _direction >= 0) || (rotation * _direction <= 0 && swingSpeed * _direction <= 0)))
{
if (swingSpeed * player.move < 0 && Math.abs(rotation) <= 170) swingSpeed -= player.move * 2.4;
}
//otherwise, on the up-swing, decelerate
else swingSpeed *= 0.9;
}
}
//this applies the deceleration to the swinging
swingSpeed += rotation <= 0 ? swingAccel : -swingAccel;
//applies the swingSpeed to the rotation
rotation += swingSpeed;
//this is to compensate for the fact that Flash always returns rotation as between -180 and 180. I want it between 0 and 360
var angle:int = rotation * _direction > 0 ? 360 - rotation * _direction : rotation * -_direction;
/**
* This is the most interesting part - I animated Dreg bending his body backwards and forwards.
* The animation is over 90 frames, so 1/4 of the full 360 frames. The animation loops, of course.
* So the idea is to make the frame that Dreg is on to be relative to his rotation... Did that make
* sense?
*/
gotoAndStop(Math.floor(swinging + angle/4));
Check out my blog showing the development of my flash game, the Dregs of War
Man, that's really good! I like the feel of the swinging, and I actually didn't notice whatever decelleration problem you had. The gravity is fun to mess with, and I love wall jumping now. The character is very fluid, and doesn't have any more seizures when jumping and not swinging.
The only complaint that I have now is going to be a hard fix, It's the thing that all terrain games have to deal with. One foot of the character is on the ground, the other floats. Dang, dreg has good balance if he can stand there like that for 10 minutes.
I can't wait to see this game, and if you need any help with something, I'd be happy to, although in terms of the action script, what your doing is way over my head, so I won't be much help with that.
In the process of designing a quirky little game engine called gulp. Check out it's progress below: @ my blog.
I've been lurking this thread and I really like the game mechanics so far. I'm curious to what the goal of the player is going to be. Is it just platforming or are you planning on adding some enemies?
I did find with the latest version that it's easier to jump through a wall. I managed to be able to recreate it in a particular spot which I made a screenshot of. I got there by walljumping upwards from the beginning and then walking to the left and letting myself drop into the wall. When the character stops swinging and you press space to jump, you will fall through the wall. I thought you might want such a testscenario for debugging.
Hey TOdorus, thanks a lot! It's precisely that kind of thing which shows me how beneficial sharing this game with everybody has been. Thanks again to everybody else - all your comments about control etc. have been useful - a lot of my non-gaming colleagues have been finding it much easier to play as well.
Xenelement, thanks again for the encouragement. As for the foot problem, you'll see, the floor will have some depth to it, not just a line, so that problem won't be so clear.
As for gameplay, if you read the very first post in my blog TOdorus you'll see that I'm planning to have combat as well. That'll be coming pretty soon I think.
As for the collision problem, I'll get working on that right now. I already have a pretty good idea how to fix it.
Check out my blog showing the development of my flash game, the Dregs of War
I also noticed another context in which he could fall through walls. Yeah, if any of you find that happening, it would be cool if you tell me. When Todorus says "it's easier to jump through a wall" that gets worried. Are there lots of places where Dreg falls through walls?
Also, what do you guys think of the slow camera? Is it confusing? Should I make it quick again?
Check out my blog showing the development of my flash game, the Dregs of War
As for gameplay, if you read the very first post in my blog TOdorus you'll see that I'm planning to have combat as well. That'll be coming pretty soon I think.
I did just that a few minutes after I posted, so shame on me. That is going to be some insane AI work you got ahead of you. I was really impressed with the lighting in the 3D animation, excellent work!
Originally Posted by Awoogamuffin
When Todorus says "it's easier to jump through a wall" that gets worried. Are there lots of places where Dreg falls through walls?
I noticed there were some places/times which raised a red flag by me.Those situations where you seem te be falling through a bit of wall before the collision detects it. It may well be that the collision detection did it's job and it's just the shape of the collision object bieng a bit off, but my instinct tells me to distrust it.
When you use the same route (upward from the beginning) and jump to the left into another gravity sprite. The collision detection seems to ignore the bit sticking out if you make a jump very close to it. Might be that it's just the shape of the collision sprite and that there's no way to actually make Dreg fall through the wall, but I can't tell as a player. Hence a red flag pulling up in my mind.
Originally Posted by Awoogamuffin
Also, what do you guys think of the slow camera? Is it confusing? Should I make it quick again?
This is a bit personal but I like the slight disorientation. I do think it will become annoying real fast (the disorientation not the slow camera), so hints on gravity fields are probably a good idea. I'm sure you've got that planned though.
I've tightened up the collision detection, but just this minute I found one place where you can happily wander right through a wall. Can you find it?
But obviously the most significant change has been the background. It's now multicoloured and vaguely disturbing. Don't worry, I'll keep working on it, but I do feel that it already has a certain style to it. Please tell me what you think!
Wow, thanks XenElement, that just made me feel all nice and warm inside.
I've just realised I can upload images on here. Maybe this image of what the level looks like could make some of you browsers out there curious enough to actually try out the game:
Check out my blog showing the development of my flash game, the Dregs of War
So that's what the world looks like when you're high on LSD. Very impressive work Awoogamuffin!
People are probably going to boo me for bringing this up, but I had some trouble distinguishing gameplay elements from background. Especially the black girders were sometimes hard to find. Maybe use of color (dare I say it) some more standardized things to grab onto?
Wow. When you said you were working your butt off, you weren't kidding! I cant wait to see where else Dreg goes! Count me in as a fan of this game! I think this is the first of its kind!
[EDIT] I agree with TOdorus, I actually had some trouble seeing the things you could do acrobatics on.
Last edited by XenElement; 08-05-2009 at 08:28 PM.
In the process of designing a quirky little game engine called gulp. Check out it's progress below: @ my blog.
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Originally Posted by Awoogamuffin
