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[lobstersteve]

POCKET PLATFORMER

A free, super accessible browser tool to create your own platformer games. Inspired by mario maker, bitsy and pico8.

• Design your levels by simply drawing stuff on the screen
• Redraw sprites to give it a personal touch
• Export the game and share it with the world  

First post:

Hello there  

So i started this project. I'm not 100% sure yet, which direction to go with it, but so far it was fun jamming with it, and i'll definitely will stick to it for a while.
The idea was to make a super accessible game creator in the style of bitsy, where you can create a platformer game, by simply drawing stuff on the screen.





It is done 100% with vanilla javascript, without help of 3rd party libraries, or even sprite sheets -> it's all code.
Therefore, it runs in the browser, and the whole game can be exported as a javascript game file.

My next plans for upcoming features are:

• more interactive elements (first some generic things like trampolines, shooting canons, etc.). But i also have some more unique elements in mind, to make this game creator stand out. One general goal is, for the elements to be interactive between each other, and have multiple possible use cases.  
• player mechanics that can be activated/deactivate per game (walljump, double jump, dash..)
• maybe redrawable sprites. which would be a cool feature, and easy to implement, but a concern i have is, that users could redraw the elements in a way, that they are not recognizeable as what they are anymore (trampoline doesn't look like a trampoline anymore, but behaves like one). I'll have to think about that

[Prinsessa]

This is cool! I think people would have a lot of fun messing around with something like this if it's accessible from a browser. Reminds me of some old Flash things I would play way back in the day.

The art is very nice and self-explanatory too (like regular platforms versus ones you can jump through), so I can see the issue you mentioned with customisation. Maybe you could just offer some themes and palette swaps? c:

[lobstersteve]

thx 

The art is very nice and self-explanatory too (like regular platforms versus ones you can jump through), so I can see the issue you mentioned with customisation. Maybe you could just offer some themes and palette swaps? c:

yeah, i was also thinking about palette swaps, or maybe only allowing to redraw the player. i really don't know yet

[lobstersteve]

It's been a while since i posted, but i've been working on the game here and there in the after-hours
The most obvious things i added are more game-elements. For now: trampolines and disappearing blocks.



The disappearing blocks work in a way, where they don't reappear as long as the player is in the way, which might lead to some interesting level ideas



I also took care of some game-feel stuff. The hitboxes are more forgiving to your advantage (smaller for spikes, bigger for trampolines), also i implemented coyote-jump. even though it's a minimalistic game, controlling the player should feel good

[lobstersteve]

Feels a little weird to post updates about the project, as there is still nothing visually impressive about it..and TigSource likes sexy pics  
But there has been a lot of progress on it, mainly surrounding the overall system. You can now create multiple levels, and finally export what you have created as a standalone game  



You can also import it again, to continue working on it.



Also some small tweaks and mechanics, as for example the walljump, which you can see in the GIFs  

[Prinsessa]

It's so cute! Being able to just export a playable HTML is really cool, I think I would've loved something like this when first starting out, especially considering I'd be able to then edit the JS and stuff in the file. You've got something really neat going here.

[lobstersteve]

It's so cute! Being able to just export a playable HTML is really cool, I think I would've loved something like this when first starting out, especially considering I'd be able to then edit the JS and stuff in the file. You've got something really neat going here.

Thx <3 that's true, you could change the JS to your liking. It might be a bit complicated too enhance it to add new features or something like that, but you could totally change stuff like jump-speed, run-speed etc. 

[airbug]

Thumbs up for doing it in HTML and JS! Sharing demos will be simple.

Watching this.

[lobstersteve]

Been silently working on my platformer creator for quite a while. Newest obvious addition are ...  
*~* COLORS *~*
.. and also a new UI that hopefully makes it clear how to use the tools.




I underestimated the effort of some things, which i didn't even think of in the beginning, like flipping the sprites depending on the direction they are facing, which is not a built in functionality when working with vanilla javascript and sprites.

Next on my plan are decorational objects, that don't interact with anything, but will make the levels prettier  
and an editable start and ending screen. Once those things are in place, the basic functionality should be done and you will be able to create full platformer games  

As for the direction i want to go with the project in general, i'm leaning torwards giving the players full creative control by allowing them to redraw every object and adding more tiles. My concern was, that players could make some objects unrecognizeable, but then it's their game and their fault  

also: PLEASE HELP ME TO FIND A NAME FOR THIS PROJECT

[lobstersteve]

As mentioned in the previous post, i've added  decorative elements, and a title and ending screen to the game.
Now, it seems like a real game when you export it 
The start and ending screen are also editable -> you can change the game's name (obviously) and the ending message. You can also add decorative elements there, to make it look more fancy. As later on it will be possible to redraw the game's elements, you could get creative there, and basicly draw whatever you want