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[Toodice]

Hi, I'm new here but was tempted in by the competition.

I've been meaning to build something along the lines of this game idea for a while, so I thought this would be an ideal opportunity to actually start it.

A 2D 2-player platform game where the idea is to kill the opposing player.  Each player is armed with a rocket launcher that only damages the enemy, not themselves.  The rocket explosions will cause any players within their vicinity to be blasted away, allowing each player to perform skilful rocket jumps and also control the movement of their enemy by placing rockets carefully.  Finally, a hazard in each arena will cause lots of damage so bouncing the enemy into it is the way to ensure a rapid victory.

It's not the most original idea but it should hopefully be good fun once complete.

I did begin putting together the idea in Game Maker, but I'm already sick of the interface.  Instead, I'll be firing up C# tomorrow and should hopefully get the movement code sorted pretty quickly.

As is almost customary for this sort of game, the graphics will be retro pixel art and the music will be chip-based.

[Conker534]

Sweet. I love chip based music.

[einstein]

Sounds great!

Will this game be online?

[Inanimate]

Perhaps it would be more original if your rockets caused no damage at all, and your goal was purely to fling them into the obstacles?

[Toodice]

I'll be trying a few ideas along those lines once I have a working prototype up.  Cheers for the suggestion though.

As for online play, I'm concentrating on just getting a finishable game together first, then I'll see if I can get network support added. If I run out of time but it's fun, I can always build network support in and release a post-competition version.

In other words, no promises yet...

[Toodice]

I've got a rough platform game going now but progress has been hampered by a strange bug.  Firstly, the game detects a collision one frame too late.  This results in the player being drawn over the top of the platform that they have collided with.  Then, strangely, it seems to realise it's mistake and pop the player back on top of the platform again.

It's much more sinister than it seems too, as it can cause the game to think that the player is on the ground at times when they're not.  This causes some unpredictable jumping problems, such as occasionally letting the player wall-jump (which is something I haven't coded in).

I've chased it down to a maths problem but have fried my brain too much to get to grips with it tonight.  I'll be at work until late over the next couple of days, but I aim to have the movement fully functional by the end of the weekend.

Next week's target will be to get the rockets working and to add in player two with a playable alpha up for download after that.

[rivon]

Put the collision detection before the drawing part, though I dunno how your code looks like.
My gameloop:
1. update sprite positions etc. according to their speed and time from the last frame
2. handle the input
3. collisions and reacting to them
4. drawing

It works

[Toodice]

My progress hasn't exactly been as I intended it.  I've got some time off work this week though, so I'm hoping to make up for lost time.

Put the collision detection before the drawing part, though I dunno how your code looks like.

The collision detection is before the drawing code, which is why it confused me.  It turned out that when I tested for a collision I forgot to take the player's velocity into the equation, so the collision wasn't being detected until the next frame.

1. update sprite positions etc. according to their speed and time from the last frame

I almost forgot to do that.  I wouldn't have noticed until I tested it on my brother's faster PC.  Cheers for reminding me. 

I've tidied a few other things up regarding collisions to avoid a bug where the player could be launched across the map (sometimes through the bounding wall) if they happen to land on a corner.  I've also added terminal velocities to avoid anything else causing a player to leave the map or even just pass through a platform.  Overall, the physics is pretty robust now.

Next up is the rocket code...