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[Relix]

I think that she should roll when falling from very far, but maybe you're going to add that.

This.

[Ishi]

I think that she should roll when falling from very far, but maybe you're going to add that.

This.

Cheers guys. Yep, skill roll is already planned. Tempting to do it next, but I should get stuck into some overall map structure stuff.

[Oddball]

Those transitions are really smooth and fluid. I like it a lot.

[FK in the Coffee]

The movement is incredibly fluid, man!  The platforming looks pixel-perfect, and the agility of Trixie is amazing!

[Ishi]

Update

Made a start on the code structure for the world, and the editor for it.



(This isn't an actual layout - I just scribbled some random rooms in.)

Not sure yet whether the final game will feature a map, or what it'll be like, or how the camera will behave with regard to these rooms, but I'm storing and editing the room in the classic Metroidvania style layout. Currently I can draw rooms out with the mouse. Eventually I'll then be able to zoom into that room and edit the actual tiles, entities, whatever.

It should make it pretty easy to put the game world together, especially if I want to add or change anything - I can just drag rooms around the map.

[MaloEspada]

the physics in the video are very nice

[Ishi]

Update

Tinkered more with the editor stuff, nothing too exciting. Got game states set up so I can switch between Room Edit, Section Edit (a section is just a screen's worth of tiles), and Play.

I wouldn't want to do an update without a pic, so here's a logo I made the other day. I like to try and give a project some visual identity even when it's early days.

And if you fancy some audio identity, the Lupin III theme is awesome. I'd like to get some of that European glamorous adventure style game's cutscenes and stuff. Cruising around on a yacht, investigating and hunting for long-lost treasures and inheritances.





By happy coincidence Fujiko has a bit of a Trixie vibe in the video's pic. Never seen that pic before.

[Ishi]

Just wanna update this thread because it's been inactive for a while. Not much happening at the moment while I'm on crunch time at work, but I'm eager to get back onto it.

I found an old sketch so I'd have something interesting to post. Trixie's more of a make-it-up-as-you-go-along person.

[baconman]

Wow, that movement video is just WOW. Completely elegant physics going on there, too. I can only envy how you just naturally seem to stitch this stuff together.

You've been doing this stuff a long, long time, huh?

[DrDerekDoctors]

With odd-shaped rooms in the map, are you making it so the camera can't show tiles outside of the room, and if so how will that deal with inner-corners? One of the reasons I opted for rectangular rooms in my game is because of how you deal with L-shaped rooms, tbh, so I'm interested to hear your approach.

[Ishi]

Wow, that movement video is just WOW. Completely elegant physics going on there, too. I can only envy how you just naturally seem to stitch this stuff together.

You've been doing this stuff a long, long time, huh?

Thanks Been coding at home for about 11 years I think. Been making releasable-quality games for, hmm, 6-7 years.

With odd-shaped rooms in the map, are you making it so the camera can't show tiles outside of the room, and if so how will that deal with inner-corners? One of the reasons I opted for rectangular rooms in my game is because of how you deal with L-shaped rooms, tbh, so I'm interested to hear your approach.

Yeah I'm not really sure about that yet. FIrstly I'll get the camera generally working. I'm not sure how strictly it'll follow Trixie, though I don't want a camera quite as floaty as Cave Story's. The animation-based movement is a bit of an issue as during the run anim for example, the player's position changes only about 10 times a second, so I don't want the camera to follow that too closely or it'll get jerky.

The simplest option for the camera would be for it to just ignore the rooms, and follow Trixie as if it the whole game was one enourmous room. I certainly intend on all of the rooms tying together properly, so it wouldn't matter if the camera crossed the border between rooms (no visible / obvious difference in terms of the tiles not matching or anything).

Locking the camera to rooms would probably be quite nice though, as it would make single-screen rooms, corridors and shafts feel a bit different (no horizontal and/or vertical movement). Then the odd-shaped rooms do become a problem. I could, of course, just not create any odd-shaped rooms. I think it's a problem I'll deal with at a later date.

[Relix]

You've room borders marked up in the code, right? I'd make the camera follow the mc and when it hits the room border, it stops there on that axis. And then it starts following the mc again when there's no room borders to stop the camera. Allows you to make odd shaped rooms and vertical and horizontal corridors.

[Ishi]

It can get a bit glitchy on the inner corners of rooms. And say you've got a T-shaped room, and you drop down the centre bit, you don't want the camera to suddenly snap into the vertical section and change direction abruptly. You'd want to detect the junction, smoothly approach it, come to a complete stop, and then start travelling in the new direction.

[DrDerekDoctors]

And this is why all my rooms are rectangles.

[ANtY]

Great animations, movement system and physics! 

[Relix]

It can get a bit glitchy on the inner corners of rooms.

...yeah, maybe.

I've always made my cameras act like that tho, hit level/room wall on x-axis, stop on x-axis and same deal for y-axis. The camera can still follow the player up/down/left/right. If both axis are blocked, it just stops until the player has moved far enough from the corner for the camera to start following again.

And say you've got a T-shaped room, and you drop down the centre bit, you don't want the camera to suddenly snap into the vertical section and change direction abruptly. You'd want to detect the junction, smoothly approach it, come to a complete stop, and then start travelling in the new direction.

This part I didn't understand. Why the camera would suddenly snap..?




Maybe I should stop posting <<

[SolarLune]

I think the camera would snap because the target, Trixie, would be far enough down where the camera would go down at, say, 15 pixels a frame, but the level border's in the way because it hasn't followed the target to the center area yet.

[Ishi]

You want to avoid this major snapping situation, which would happen if you just pick the closest 'legal' camera position to the player: (green area is the visible portion of the world, light blue is the room shape)



Also a snapping of the velocity, where it immediately changes direction, will be really disorienting:



So ideally you need to get the camera to smoothly change directions at the corners. Which is doable, but might get messy with rooms of any size.



And then if you overshoot at a t-junction, it starts getting silly. Handling this nicely would be a nightmare, unless you start partially locking the camera at the junction until you know for sure which way the player is going. (Black dot is the player)

Maybe I should stop posting <<

Never! All contributions are great. Now I've been inspired to clarify the problem situations.

 

[SolarLune]

@Ishi - The partial locking idea sounds good. That's how some games do it - they lock at designated 'single-screen rooms' until the Player edges toward one of the screen edges, at which point the view follows them.

[Ishi]

@Ishi - The partial locking idea sounds good. That's how some games do it - they lock at designated 'single-screen rooms' until the Player edges toward one of the screen edges, at which point the view follows them.

It almost may as well just be a separate room at that point, though. Although that depends how your room-to-room transition behaves - smooth movement, screen flip, pause + scroll. I can see myself going with a solution where the camera largely ignores the room layout. They'd still be useful for selecting music or whatever.