For Foxes Sake WIP

[BlinkOk]

I myself would seriously consider designing a level or two for the final game

awesome!

[kevin]

   Hmmm had a quick look at this.  The program as it stands, isn't really setup to be editor firendly.    It'd possible to remove the hard coded limitations and externalize the levels from the game code, with only a conceptually shift.   

  Example: Entity Loading Example #2

  Ideally, a games 'Load_Game_World"  function would  be given a level file name,  where it's load the entity spawn points, the blocks/maps,  world constants,  animations etc etc  all from that definition.   So designers can create new levels without having to modify the source code all the time.

[BlinkOk]

this is my take on it;


original image


all the images on the left would be loaded from a text file that points to the images and describes their function.
the user would "draw" platforms by clicking on the appropriate platform and simply clicking and dragging in the window to draw the top of the platform.
the editor would fill in the lower parts (if necessary) automatically.
you could place characters where you want them to spawn and then drop animations on them to define various properties of their movements.

the editor would then create a tile sheet for the level (slicing any larger images as necessary), a tile map and a spawn and motion map
(personally i would try to put it all in the tile map)

[kevin]

  yeah, as has been previously suggested the easiest option for the 'level designer' is to have everything in the one editor, the more automated the better really.   The mapping + entity dropping are pretty trivial, but I think the conceptual stumbling block for mick is that he's got hard coded actions all through the program.   

  For stuff like the block modifications upon some collision, or toggle switch, the list of things (tiles in this case) are passed to the Action handler, which runs through and does whatever the task.   Actions could be things like writing tiles to the map, triggering other states, level skips, object creation etc etc.

[BlinkOk]

yes. definitely requires a rewrite.

[micky4fun]

Hi all

as has been previously suggested the easiest option for the 'level designer' is to have everything in the one editor

yep i can see that is they way to go , but programming an editor to do this is proberly beyond my scope , but what blinkOk as drawn up looks excellent

so i might just have to carry on as i am with this project , lucky enough i did manage to do just a simple level editor for this as without out it the game would have not got this far
anyway i see what happens will tinker around with my editor when i have done enough levels for this game , think i will try and get 8/12 levels out of it , will take a little time but
have nigh on everything needed now to do this i think

so i have been doing the ice level , may do things a little different , as the bear is quite large , you have to hit hin twice or hit he's head only to kill him
as with penquins when hit you then maybe slide on there poo as its on the ice , also fox now slide a little before stopping as he's on ice , make the moving platforms that little harder

heres the first part of level

mick :)

ps what button at top do i need to insert video , i used insert hyperlink?

[kevin]

but programming an editor to do this is proberly beyond my scope

  I doubt it,  It doesn't have to look pretty or even be particular smart! - All it needs to do it let the designer place characters on the map and tweak the attributes.     

  If the spawn data was externalized, you could probably add dropper tool/mode in a matter of an afternoon.   A few hours invested up front, will no doubt shave weeks, if not months from the production time.

ps what button at top do i need to insert video , i used insert hyperlink?

  Forum Custom Tags / Forum Questions

[BlinkOk]

All it needs to do it let the designer place characters on the map and tweak the attributes

this is true. all you need to to is drop the sprite and save the location and a couple other numbers. it's just spitting out numbers. you can do the rest in the game

ps what button at top do i need to insert video , i used insert hyperlink?

if you edit one of your posts that kevin has changed you will see exactly how it looks


ps: that level is looking sweet! i have changed the backgrounds and added an eskimo. they are in the latest update i sent you

[micky4fun]

Hi all

thanks BlinkOk , I have sussed the youtube bit out now , I thought I had to use a button in post , lol oh dear

well I will try an editor when I have done all the levels as its not that hard placing all the moving platforms/enemies  as I am doing at the moment.
the most time is coming up with the ideas and level design , placing them don't take long , its only my job getting in the way

well the ice level is neary complete , I have spent most of my time re-doing the way the fox is handled on the platform
this has now allowed me to do more stuff with bigger platforms etc , there is loads of tiding up that I can do , but will leave most till game is complete as don't want to move stuff now that I might need to
move back on other levels

just wanted to share this with you , it was my birthday yesterday and got a birthday card of my brother , he's wife does birthday cards , they surprised me with this
it looks a lot better than this image shows , its all in 3d , multi layer card , that does not really show in picture here , they got the image off of my youtube video
quite good I thought ,

will post ice level very soon
mick :)

[BlinkOk]

haha. very cool card mate. happy birthday too.

[monkeybot]

Happy Birthday Micky.

[micky4fun]

Hi all

Yep thanks guys ,

ok heres the ice level a few things i will change later , will make them ice keys that open the paint chest rather than gold
the penquins poo you can slip on but does not kill anything after , still lots of tiding up and slight re-arrangement of enimies
but other than that think this is the level

any comments welcome
mick :)

[BlinkOk]

ok mick i just downloaded it. it looks great. the sliding is a great idea and the snow makes it look fantastic. back to playing it (there goes my day!)

[kevin]

New demo's looking good and happy Birthday for the other day..

[LemonWizard]

Okay. Just wow. You've done some great work Micky. I'm really super impressed. How long have you been working on this project now?

A year? Hehe.

It's pretty nice to see playbasic running a game with graphics like this. How'd you get such good graphics in the first place? Must've had some very very nice art!
=p

Anyhow. GOOD JOB. :D
I'm really super impressed. Now... the kicker. MULTIPLAYER LEVELS?

I bet you, I could incorperate a multiplayer level thing for the game.
It might be tricky and messy though at first.. I've messed around ALOT with Multisync and I recently found the best way to get almost 0 latency with player and player movement...

Actually I'll share it here. A trick with multisync I discovered from experimenting is not to overload the message stack with a constant player X and Y update. There should actually be a timer that helps decide how often to update. Playbasic runs it's code several times a milisecond.. or once a milisecond.
That's 1000 messages on the message stack a second for multisync to handle. It can keep up but I found, the less frequently I sent a message via multisync the less lag I experienced.

I tested through hamachi, using a simple program that keeps track of another player's movements.  I got roughly 1-10 ms of lag. At most.
So yeah ^^; I can definitely help. I'm incorperating a system into all my games pretty soon (it's been in design for 3 years almost) for lagless multiplayer gaming experience, using multisync.
I can code some of that into your project if you want. But I need to know what your system variables are, and how you're storing the player's locations.
Also what flags or checks you're using. For example... switches I saw in the video. If hit by one player, obviously the ID of the switch along with some
other crucial information about what object that switch must be effecting will be required to be sent over to the other player.
I bet I could achieve some decent synchronization. I don't know how willing you are to give me the source code, which is why I'm asking.

Just an idea but honestly I really could (over a few weeks likely) make this into a really great multiplayer feature game (as well as single player)