Faster text skipping would be nice, too. I read pretty fast.

I do like how there are pauses built into the text printing for the sake of drama. Very nice. Shouldn't get in the way of usability, though. If in doubt, let 'em skip.

Hmm. Maybe. More likely, he knows that deep down in my core I know that the game was a load of old self indulgent wank.

But self indulgent wank is why I turned indie! It's my bread and butter! _{Fairly salty butter mind you... and only enough for a couple of slices a day...}

I am thinking more and more about it. I was having trouble with getting the physics I wanted (trying to be too clever and priori about it), but I've gotten a lot of experience on our current thing, so I think I could fix it.

One thing you don't see in the video (and which I've lost the source to) was a movement prototype which was sort of a cross between Katamari Damacy/Tank controls and one of those funny "pelican" planes/dual rotor helicopters. Atleast, I THINK it's called a pelican...

So, I had a craft which had two engines on its side. You used each stick to control the direction of each engine separately. Push both forward, and you go forward. Pull both back, and you go back. Push one forward, and one back and you turn on the spot. Push both to the side, and you slide to the side... that's all just like KD, but, I also made it so that if you push the sticks in opposite directions, you climb and dive. So, you pull the sticks apart to "spread your wings" as it were, and climb, or push them together to focus into a dive. Worked pretty nicely once you got used to it.

You couldn't aim for shit with this method, so it'd have to be coupled with some sort of really forgiving homing missle system, i guess, turning it into a sort of indie warhawk, i suppose.

I love the movement! This is sort of quick acceleration is what I was trying to suggest for guy balding... I guess it wouldn't quite fit GB as well, but some feel of accelerating would be nice.

I liked this a lot. Would kind of like the save points/restart markers to be more frequent, because I'm a lilly livered kinda guy. Well written, all the way.

Huh. I think I have fairly broad tastes:

Jurrassic 5, DJ Format, Boards of Canada, Mouse on Mars, Mogwai, The Hives, The White Stripes, Arctic Monkeys, Queens of the Stone Age, Air, Lemon Jelly, Gnarls Barkley, Audio Bullies, Dandy Warhols, Weezer, Daft Ounk, Flaming Lips, Interpol, Muse, Mcklusky, Violent Femmes, Joy Division.

So, erm. Indie rock and electronica, then, with a smattering of B-Boy breaks and oldschool hiphop. Not as broad as I thought, after all.

I also can't stop listening to comedy: Stewart Lee, Richard Herring, Armando Ianucci, Peter Baynham, Chris Morris.

WHAT HAVE I TOLD YOU ABOUT POSTING WHILE DRUNK?

No-one is interested.

I guess I deserve some cutting, below the belt criticism after all the shit I spout in everyone's direction. Looks like I have finally met my intellectual match:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1iELMw4qBM#GU5U2spHI_4

HE SAID IT'S HORRIBLE.

 

_{It wasn't even finished. Maaan.}

I am a bit drunk again. Sorry.

[edit]Ouch. You know what hurts more? According to his profile, he created an account JUST TO SAY THAT! I'd love to believe it's a bot or something, but bots aren't normally that profound in their criticism.

That's kkkkkkeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwlll news!

Who did you tell to "fuck off" in your acceptance speech? Anyone?

Hmm. So, if there are enemies who only hurt when they attack, does that mean you still collide with them? Can you ride on a robot's head when it's not attacking?

Some games like this tend to crush you if you're caught between an oncoming enemy and a wall. I'd hope that this doesn't happen (the enemy simply has to wait for you to get out of the way before it continues) just because it always feels less consistent when there's an actual telegraphed attack which you KNOW will kill you.

Being crushed never feels... i dunno... as consistent? More like a cheap way out of doing more code?

Arne has final say, 'natch.

Just had a thought about how to do mid-air stuff in general, based on what you said about air acceleration and trying to match an animation to it. Rather than a fixed animation, you do a sorta... "faked animation blend"

So we have a grid of animation frames. Going from left to right you have lateral velocity. Going from top to bottom, you vertical velocity. You pick the frame based on the current lateral and vertical velocity. So if your lateral is high and Guy is moving up, you pick the top right frame of animation.

Do... do you see what I mean? The width of it (range of lateral jumps) wouldn't have to be that much... just two or 3 different speeds: standing, slow, and fast. The height would probably be more important, especially for that "4 falling states" thing Arne's throwing around.

Then you'd have a generic landing which hopefully could link into these nicely. In my experience you'll need a standing landing and a running landing, too. Rolls normally look nice for running landings.

I agree with the doctor, and would suggest that you're not afraid to "break" animations if someone needs to do an action immediately, as in the example. For instance, if you are climbing up a ledge, and jump is re-pressed during that, you could simply snap the dude to the end of the animation and have him jump, or "queue" the jump but speed up the animation.

In any game where there are animation windows, there is always the desire for more immediate controls, regardless of how quick the animations are. You simply can't stop that desire. If there are going to be animation windows, that have to be by design - something important to the core mechanics of the game. Otherwise, they're just artifacts of FSM animation.

That said, it really is fine for the most part. This is total nitpicking on my side. And I am most likely wrong about this because apparantly, last time I was in charge of a platform game, the project didn't finish before all the developers left. 

All fair rebuttals, BMcC. I can't fault any of it. I just have to apologize if I came off overly critical.

I make suggestions not demands.

[FallingAnimation]

FallingAnimation
Definately need a falling animation. I noticed that when you just walk off some edge, you actually start the jump animation, so he looks at the heavens, rather than at where he's going to land. The falling animation should also follow in from the end of the jump animation, right?

Pixel Perfect Jump Bonus
Just a thought, and real gravy, but how about being awarded a score for managing a 3-block gap? A little sign pops up saying "Pixel Perfect!", flashing a marking of the trajectory of the jump you just completed? Diminishing returns on the bonus if you're just jumping the same gap over and over, or maybe only award the points the first time you do a particular gap of >=3 blocks. Hmm. Fair bit of work to remember which you have and haven't jumped. Just a thought though.

Why when he grabs onto a ledge after jumping does he keep looking at the screen, but when he climbs down into a dangly position he...doesn't?

It's just starting at a different position in the animation loop.  To keep things varied.

Is that... OK? 

It's fine to have them different, but in this case I'd switch them:

From a freerunning perspective, if you've just finished a cat leap (i.e. a jump which ends in the grip position) you'd be facing the wall or looking up it, anticipating a climb.

If you're coming down from the wall into a grip position, you'd be looking at the floor, or arching your neck around so that you can see the ground below/behind you, preparing for a drop.

So yeah, that's why it'd make perfect sense to switch those around.

[Down Ladder to Crouch Bug]

Alright. Some feedback for you, sirs! Let me preface this by saying that I'm digging it, and I can see it polishing up into something really noteable. Also, a lot of these suggestions are on minute details which I don't think anyone other than me particularly cares about.



Down Ladder to Crouch Bug
Bug: Coming down off a ladder (not jumping off) guy goes to stand, not crouch. Have to re-press down to crouch. Repeatable every time. Is this just because there's no bottomladder->crouch animation? Or something more sinister?

Terminal Velocity
When you fall far, you start to really fall fast. Can I recommend you add some terminal velocity so that he actually starts to sort of "float" down after a bit? - Not TOO extremely floaty, ofcourse! I was going to write out how I'd do it ( using a "velDelta.y = 1.0f - exp(-fabs(vel.y))" trick - so, essentially, "diminishing returns" on acceleration - feels less jarring than a simple threshold value for T.V.) but I'm sure you have your own favoured approach.

Grip -> Stand Animation
I hope this still goes in, and is played fairly fast. That'll make the "diagonal" trick (holding "up" while running into a block to climb it) quicker, and maybe look a bit smoother? I don't know. It should also lower the animation length, even without being sped up, because you at the moment, you go grip -> crouch -> stand, so you're going through, what, atleast 12 animations as opposed to just the 8 in the vault-up? So yeah, I hope that'll speed it up and help address points DrDoctors made about waiting for animations. As you know I definately didn't want me animations to take away too much agency.


Sprinting Acceleration?
I like that you reach your max velocity really, basically immediately. That's good for little nudges to get pixel perfect. Could you also add a slow acceleration on top of that which helps you build up speed so that you could go for 4-5 block gaps if you have enough space to runup? Like terminal velocity, the acceleration could be deminishing returns - quick to accelerate at first, and then harder and harder as you go on. You could speed the walk animation with it. I guess what I'm trying to get at is the idea that you want that precision you've already got at low speeds, but that it might be nice to cover open expanses a bit quicker - when you're accelerating, you feel like you're able to DO something to get faster, whereas with a fixed speed, you're maxed out immediately, and just feel like you're waiting. Might lead to some leet trick jumping, too

Alternate Jump Anim
The current jump anim is perfect for fairly vertical jumping. Does the other one really not fit for lateral ones? Could you switch between them fluidly based on a lateral velocity threshold? If you were to do the over-drive acceleration (above) then it might become more and more useful. Don't mean to whine about it. Just saying, because I've only got the one animation in  . And this game development was meant to be all about me, me, me, obviously.

Jump from Grip
I was thinking that it might be quite nice to be able to do a sort of half jump from a grip state - pushing away from the wall you're pointing at while jumping. It could help you to jump two blocks, and grip to another block. So yeah... not a big jump by any means, but certainly quite useful - could make chimney stack climbing possible?

Jump from Ladder?
Same as above, really. It feels a bit wrong to simply "detatch" from the ladder. Pressing left or right ought to do that. But pressing jump, for consistency, ought to move us "up" as we detatch, surely?

Additional Transition: Walk to Crawl
If you walk, and then move into crawl (so press right to diagonal down-right) you stop, go through the stand-crouch, then start crawling again. We could improve fluidity if we had an animation where you perhaps slightly dive/trip straight into a crawl from running, and don't stop moving while doing so.

Re: Exertion Lines
Yeah, the sweat things are cool in of themselves, but definately happen too much (and perhaps are a bit big?). Mea culpa. Pretty indulgent animation. However, if the Grip -> Stand animation is added (suggested above) you'll probably cut their use in half (although then you get other little bits of stuff going on in that animation... a sort of "collision" particle effect coming off the wall where he kicks it to vault up).

_{At the end of the day, it's your game, so although I will feel crushed that you don't use every single suggestion, whether or not they work well, I won't hold it against you.}

Gosh. Sort of glad you're not going with swarms. Don't want more competition for the game I'm doing 

I did Software Engineering.

I've found that there's a lot in a degree which makes a lot of sense, but for whatever reason, a lot of it seems to be ignored or disgarded in professional game as  it becomes a mad scramble to get the game done before an impossible deadline. A lot of stuff (but not everything) gets thrown out. I remember in the first couple of months of my job doing a Use Case diagram as part of a design document. We were taught to use those little UML stickment to represent agents. I handed it to some guy in the company and he thought I was being "unprofessional" for putting stickmen in my document. I didn't like to tell him that it's pretty standard software engineering stuff.

SE taught me a lot of good things about system design, and the proper way to do OO. However, games are so speed dependant that doing weird hacks to eke more speed out of the engine is considered pretty normal, so it took a while to adapt, and my early stuff ran really fooking slow. They teach you that you can always optimize elegant code, but that it's harder to turn spaghetti/speed hacks into elegant code. Game programmers seem more like "shit, I've got this really fast way to do this thing!" and just do it. So, I'll procrastinate and over-design systems and work fairly slowly because I start thinking of ways to genericise code, and by the time I get anything done, Tommy has super fast systems going (he's also just more experienced with code than me).

It just feels like two really different approaches, but I'm getting into it more, now.

University also gave me time to work on my own stuff, and learn for myself (I didn't have much of a social life, so I studied and wrote about game design a lot). It's good to be free to do that without the need to get a full time job for rent etc. It's room to breath and develop. That's the biggest thing it gave me.

The other thing the course did well was introduce me to the basics of a lot of different areas. I learned about sound processing (text to speech, speech sythesis) , OO + ADTs + Well formed formulas, real time graphics (although I was already finding that stuff out for myself), integrated systems, etc etc. Within computing, it gave me breadth, which is important for a designer... even if you're not a master of any realm, you should atleast understand what's possible, what's easy, and what's difficult within each so that your expectations are realistic, and your ideas are practical.

 

Oy!

Here's a dev tool I made to help with tile grabbing. Basically it scans the image and figures out what tiles there are and where they go, and also how similar they are to each other (just plain pixel matching, nothing advanced).

The neat part is that it can also print out map data compliant with BMcC's code, which kinda makes it a level editor aswell. This allows me to design the levels in Photoshop if I want.

It's still a bit featurelacking but it works as a dev tool.

That's damn cool! Doesn't that effectively mean that you can just make your level in your graphics editor? Or.. i mean... with the basis you have, it could go in that direction?

Neat as hell, sir!