With the original mechanic, however, it would be a little more old school in that you'd actually have to be good enough to clear the whole path of levels, y'know?

How about two modes? Normal and Hardcore/Old-School. Normal let's you advance at your own pace and isn't as rewarding/punishing. Hardcore would reward skill and efficiency, but the payoff would be bigger (ie. the Best Ending, additional secrets, minigames, etc.)

I guess...  But I (personally) would want there to be areas that only the best players would be able to see.

Luckily, we don't have to decide on any of this yet. 

The reason I like that mechanic is for situations like this:

Suppose there's a real hard part of the map and you want to get through it to get some great secret.  If the game didnt un-clear levels, you could just try and try at the same stage 'til you beat it, then do the same with the next and the next and etc. until you reach the goal.  With the original mechanic, however, it would be a little more old school in that you'd actually have to be good enough to clear the whole path of levels, y'know?

But you're right -- it's simple as pie to code in and out.  We could just make it an option when we have enough levels, even, and feel it out then.

I like it.  Simple is good. 

So, if you lost, you would have to play the previous room, correct?  Which would allow you to choose a new path if you just couldn't beat a certain room?

I'm pretty sure it's C and DirectX.  But don't quote me on it!

[Arne:]

Arne: Sweet!  It looks great, my man. 

My tile system is quick and flexible, so ANY themes you wanna do, do em.  Even if it's just for a one off bonus room (like the Metroid one).

I like the dithering, it makes it look grittier (in a good way).  And it matches the style fine. 

The rotating drums look very cool.  The water brings us to a design decision:

I propose that he can swim, but only on the surface of the water, ala Yoshi's Island.  What do you think?

Re: The Title

I always thought it'd be funny to do a title like, "Guy Balding: The Adventures of Guy Balding."  (I.e., _CHARACTER NAME_: The Adventures of _CHARACTER NAME_)  That's funny to me.  :D

The game's coming along well by the way!  I'm THIS close.  I do have a pretty big bug to kill, but I'm pretty sure I know exactly what's going on.

Keep those concepts coming!  They're great!

Johan:  Thanks!  ::swoons:: 

[EDIT:]

A standing up from crouching/crawling animation would be good, too. 

Anything else?

Generic death animation?

Death by falling too far animation?

Ooh, and death by being crushed (from above).

I like the spinning around generic death idea!  Very LoZ.

Did someone say ridiculously complicated door opening sequence?

I whispered it in your ear as you slept.    (That's so dope!)

I was trying to make a real Parkour-ish jump, and that's why it's so lateral.

Don't get me wrong, the animation is sweet.  I just can't get it to fit with the "standard" platform game jumping. 

To take this to the extreme, wouldn't it be cool to have the character be immortal?

That's a neat idea, but I don't think it's right for this game.  This game is more inspired by the hardcore, unforgiving platformers of the days of yore.

That having said, I think it should be more pick-up-and play than those games.  And I don't want the player to ever die without it truly being their fault.

I really like the idea (did I suggest it?  I can't remember) of being able to escape death in certain cases.  That should make it a bit more forgiving right there, but I also think it'll fit the more ponderous gameplay.

Awesome stuff, everyone!  Keep the concepts, discussion, and those sweet sweet animations coming! 

EDIT:

I demand an idle breakdancing animation.

Hehe, yeah!  Maybe for reaching the goal?

Does it have to blink?

Yes!  Our marketing team tells us that blinking is IN, in a big way.  Now everything must always blink, everywhere.  All the time.

Lookin' good, dudes.    I gotta get to bed now, though. 

How much new and exciting stuff will I find in the thread tomorrow?  I can't wait to find out!

Awesome job, everyone!  Should be wrappin' Milestone One up tomorrow for Monday's release.  Then:  Design!

Night.

[EDIT:]

OK, 'bout time I contributed something other than yap. So, here's a ceiling shimmy!

Very nice, sir.  For the Mission Impossible level, yeah?

Can you stop it at the last frame?
I'm not sure it meshes well with bezzy's cliffhangers...It should though...just get rid of the delay on the first frames of bezzy's to make it look like he's pushing off.

Yeah, I can.  All frame delays are done in-code.

Keep the awesomeness coming, guys!

EDIT:  A standing up from crouching/crawling animation would be good, too.  But it would effect the mechanics in that you'd have to wait for him to drop/get back up.  I'm cool with that, though, if everyone else is.  I think the gameplay is going to be pretty deliberate, so it should fit fine.  And I'd make the animation quick and painless.

[@vitaminNewB:]

@vitaminNewB:  Sweet, thanks!  I eagerly await the sprite sheet.  (When you arrange it, can you fix the background in place as he climbs up?  Like Bezzy eventually did with the ledges?  If not, no big deal.  It's actually not a big deal to code with the animation system I put in place.)

@Xion:  Hehe, awesome.  You infuse so much character into your animations, I gotta say.  It's great.

See?  Aren't you glad I pressured you into that, now? 

EDIT:  Oh, and I've noticed that, unfortunately, Bezzy's jump animation doesn't fit very well.  It's too... lateral, I guess.  (I think he mentioned that himself, actually.)  If anyone could do one that maintains the form of the character a little more rigidly (think Mario), that'd be great.

The way I have it coded, it's actually two animations (Jumping and Falling).  Jumping would be the jumping up animation and would stay on its last frame until descent.  When descending, either from a jump or walking of a ledge, the falling animation would cue.  (A good example is Bernie's character in Sky Hammer, I think.)

Hmm... perhaps.

You're the one animating. 

EDIT:  Goodness, testing with the graphics and animation in place is a joy.  The little guy's just so cute!

There's nothing wrong with that!  That's what I mean.

Maybe a better way to word it would be "crawl idling" or something?  You know, him just sitting there.

How would he get under 1 tile high ceilings without crawling there?

Climbing up a ladder. 

He needs crouching so he can sit stationary under 1 tile high ceilings.  And for the possibility of ducking hazards.

Also, at this resolution I don't think we really need transitions (though they do look nice).

I mean "actually" crouching, but I'll add that to the growing collection of animations.  You're very talented!

BANT

Hm... I've got to get his blasted states working, try to figure out this one bug that's (you guessed it) really bugging me, and then any niceties.

I asked earlier, but it may have gotten buried by all the posts -- do you think you could do a fake handheld border?  There isn't much space to work with unfortunately. (Arne's new concepts match the game screen correctly, I believe.)

EDIT:  Oh!  Also the missing animations.  Crouching, hanging from ledges, and climbing to the top of ladders.

Though, technically ladders and ledges weren't included in the Milestone One goals... 

PNG is fine, thanks!

I'll put the corrected animations in the sprite sheet right now.

SO CLOSE to milestone two, I can smell it.

EDIT:  Omigosh, I just noticed the lasers reflecting around the level in the Mission Impossible mockup.  SO nice.

EDIT 2:  OK!  They're in now.  Piece o cake.

EDIT 3:  (I mean the animations, of course.  Not the lasers.)

[Help!]

Help!

On the spritesheet, Xion's three animations are messed up!  Almost as if the previous frame isn't cleared before the next or something.  (You can see it if you look close -- notice the skin colored pixels to Guy's left in the last 3 frames of the walking animation.)

If anyone can get me the spritesheets for these animations without that problem goin' on, that would be just swell!

(Also, more info on animation timing would be nice, but that's easily corrected later.)

[EDIT:]

It is time.

(To put in animations.)

EDIT:  Animation system in place!  That was very much easier than I expected...

[Re: Palettes]

Re: Palettes
Ohh I was speaking about the look, not the code aspect.

Oh, right on.  Yeah, your pixel art fits together very well.

Re: Collecting and Found Game List
Maybe all the games, regardless of media, are rotating. That's how you tell they are THE thing to pick up on the map.

That sounds good.  Judging by the animations so far, this game is going to be quite fluid despite the static screen.  I like that.

Yeah, Floats can be nasty and cause some jitter. With a small set play area like we have here, wouldn't a 4byte integer do? You'd get 6-7 'decimals' I think...

Yeah, I fixed her right up.  What a pain, though!

EDIT:  OK, it's all back to normal again!  Hopefully no more jitter.  EVER.

[Re: Palettes]

Hahaha, "The Pantymaster."  :D

Re: Palettes

I've been developing in high color, mang!  Is that OK?  It should make designing levels, doing art, etc. a lot easier.  But if your heart's set on 256 colors, we could switch over by build 2.  I know there are advantages and disadvantages to both.

Re: Collecting

I like the idea of the treasure being something more interesting than gems.  Games would be real cool (that animation's dope, btw).  And it would be neat to be able to view a list of the specific games you've found.

So now he's an overweight perverted game collector?  Hehehe 

P.S. -- I actually came on here to vent.  I decided to do an early optimization (quite stupid of me) to try and rid the engine of floats, 'cause every once in a while I would notice a little sprite freakout.  It was REALLY getting on my nerves.  So I spent the last 3 hours trying to fix things up and TOTALLY broke the code. 

Then I pasted in a backup and started again from scratch and guess what.  I only needed to add like 3 lines to do what I wanted to do.

I am dumb.

EDIT:  ARGH JUMP JUST JUMP ALREADY