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[Dailyman]

This was made in a jiffy, so excuse it's sloppiness.



As I see it, the real challenge in making this level would be the programming, not the spriting. Just wondering, could it be programmed allowing for simple variables like the color of the terrain, terrain shape, types of trees and etc? If I remember correctly, IB doesn't have a system of different layers implemented so that could be a problem too.

Wait, we already have the music for this right

[Soulliard]

Is Amita Range the actual name of the setting of Rescue: The Beagles?

Most of the work here will be programming, but it's very doable. All I really need are graphics for different plants and the sky.

[Rostiger]

Thread revival time!

So, after finishing Lyle I would like to concentrate on another stage. I don't like to start up new stuff when there're so many opened threads and ideas swarming around.
Since the beginning I wanted to see a scrolling stage in IB and recently played a lot of Rescue the Beagles, so one thing led to another and you know how the story goes on.

Anyway, I'll be whipping up a mockup screen, as soon as we clarify the following points:

Procedural Generation: Yes/No?
In the original the levels are procedurally generated. The advantage is that it will be different and new situations arise everytime the stage is played, which can certainly be interesting.
On the other hand, a predesigned stage can be optimized a lot better and unpredictable wonky situations can be avoided, no to mention that it is less effort to implement.

If we go for procedural generation, we have to decide how far to take it. In RtB everything is generated: the geometry of the hills, the background art, like trees, grass and stones etc., the items coming up, eventual level hazards, up to things like level colors for the hills, the sky, etc. I'm pretty certain that implementing a generator that was used for a whole game just for one level would be quite overambitious.

Using a predesigned level means that it will loop forever, which might lead to a stale experience after a while. The only way to avoid this to a certain extent is to make the stage as long as possible and picking a random x starting position each time the stage is loaded.

Size matters!
In RtB a lot of environment can be displayed at once because the player is quite small. In IB, however, the character sprites are about ten times larger. Therefore the landscape would need to be almost equaly scaled up, otherwise there will be giants running through a tiny landscape.
That also means that probably a higher resolution needs to be used - I'd suggest something around 600x450 (which has the same aspect ratio as 512x384).

Slopes and other technicalities
I've read somewhere that the IB engine is capable of collisions on slopes, however afaik it has not been used in any stages before and it would be good to know if the sprite animations (which are designed to run on flat ground) look good walking down slopes and how much of an angle can be used before it starts looking awkward (because the characters will step into thin air).
Furthermore all hills basically must be continous jump through platforms.

Unique stage items and gameplay
We need to think about how we want to adapt the stage to IB in more detail. E.g. in the original, the player can't be pushed outside the screen, except if he gets stuck in a pit. If we apply this to IB, it would derivate from the other stages, but make sense when it comes to running forwards. A simple solution might be to stick with the current formular and kill the player when he's outside the screen to much on either side.
Unique objects would also be a nice touch, like owls or beagles flying respectively running past, either as some sort of usable item or with certain effects on the player upon collision, or just rushing through for the flavor.

There surely is even more to discuss about this stage, but I think for now it's enough material to start a little discussion.

Oh, any by the way, yes, the stage is called Amita Range.

[Logabob]

Modern dungeon crawlers (Torchlight, Diablo) often have randomly generated levels. However, rather than generate the entire level randomly, which could be problematic considering their gameplay, the designers opted for a more contrived but better controlled approach: Each level is actually composed of several predesigned pieces which are stitched together at various transition points in a logical, but randomly determined manner.

I don't know if a similar concept could be applied to IB, or even if it would be a superior method, but the thought immediately occurred to me.

[Rostiger]

Yes, this is actually a good point. If we go for procedural generation, I think this could be the way to do it. The only thing is that all parts need to connect to each other on the same height level. With well designed parts this shouldn't be much of a problem though. This method should also be easy enough to code for the stage, because you don't need to worry about generating much other content than the sepparate parts.

[Soulliard]

Procedural Generation: Yes/No?
In the original the levels are procedurally generated. The advantage is that it will be different and new situations arise everytime the stage is played, which can certainly be interesting.
On the other hand, a predesigned stage can be optimized a lot better and unpredictable wonky situations can be avoided, no to mention that it is less effort to implement.

It would not be difficult to procedurally generate the terrain. A predesigned level could work, too, but would probably be more work.

Size matters!
That also means that probably a higher resolution needs to be used - I'd suggest something around 600x450 (which has the same aspect ratio as 512x384).

At 600x450, the pixels would be stretched and ugly. Auto-scrolling stages should really stick to a 512x384 screen, unless a larger screen is completely unavoidable.

Slopes and other technicalities
I've read somewhere that the IB engine is capable of collisions on slopes, however afaik it has not been used in any stages before and it would be good to know if the sprite animations (which are designed to run on flat ground) look good walking down slopes and how much of an angle can be used before it starts looking awkward (because the characters will step into thin air).
Furthermore all hills basically must be continous jump through platforms.

Not the bottom hill.

I've been updating the engine lately to make sure everything works correctly on slopes. A lot of the animations don't fit perfectly, but there's really nothing you can do about that without requiring a lot of extra animation.

Slopes which go one pixel up for every two pixels across usually look pretty nice.

One thing that can cause problems, though, is two platforms really close together. If a character is standing on one platform, and standing directly in front of another platform, the character will fall. So make sure there's always at least 60 or so pixels between them.

Unique stage items and gameplay
We need to think about how we want to adapt the stage to IB in more detail. E.g. in the original, the player can't be pushed outside the screen, except if he gets stuck in a pit. If we apply this to IB, it would derivate from the other stages, but make sense when it comes to running forwards. A simple solution might be to stick with the current formular and kill the player when he's outside the screen to much on either side.

Keep game rules consistent. Going off stage is always deadly.

Unique objects would also be a nice touch, like owls or beagles flying respectively running past, either as some sort of usable item or with certain effects on the player upon collision, or just rushing through for the flavor.

Owls are already an item. Beagles could be a nice background effect.

[Rostiger]

It would not be difficult to procedurally generate the terrain. A predesigned level could work, too, but would probably be more work.

Sounds good, let's go for the random generation then!

Not the bottom hill.

Ah, yes, obviously.

I've been updating the engine lately to make sure everything works correctly on slopes. A lot of the animations don't fit perfectly, but there's really nothing you can do about that without requiring a lot of extra animation.

Slopes which go one pixel up for every two pixels across usually look pretty nice.

One thing that can cause problems, though, is two platforms really close together. If a character is standing on one platform, and standing directly in front of another platform, the character will fall. So make sure there's always at least 60 or so pixels between them.

Great - I think because of the overall size, steep slopes wouldn't work well either way, so we should be fine.

Also here's a quick mockup:



It's nothing fancy, just to start sketching out how things might look like. I've chosen four different color combinations from the original that I liked. Either we settle for one, or (if not too much work) the stage could randomly load one of four color sets...

[knight]

I like the original one the best. Procedural terrain sounds cool. Is the collision going to be surface based because that would probably be the easiest.

[Rostiger]

Hmm, which one do you mean with 'original'?
All four of them are taken from in-game color combinations (they are randomly chosen each time a level loads), so in that respect they are all the original.

[JMickle]

the purple/blues looks most reminiscent of the game, at least for me.

but yeah it looks great and the size looks fine.

[Blaizer]

You got it wrong for the grey palette... The light grey should be at the back and the mid grey in the middle. So it matches the rest of them. Otherwise, I'm really liking the look of it.

[Yigguth]

it should be a different color each time you start up. how hard would that be? wouldn't it be the same as coloring the player sprites if both people are using the same character

[Soulliard]

It'd be simple.

[JaJitsu]

looks sweet 

[Dailyman]

Considering how long this level has been up for grabs and how easy it is to sprite it, I figured I might as well go ahead and finish it off. I didn't bother making different color variations or slopes because I figure that will be computer generated.

[ink.inc]

Hoo Rah.