Just returned from a short little underway, (although it felt more like a month than two weeks) and I had a little time to spend on my game, polishing up a few glitches, and most importantly adding menus. The introduction is only a formality, it's not useful at all, clicking next through the three windows then finish on the last one will initialize a character on your computer. (it's a first-run script that will explain how the game works and what you should do, as well as some basic help, but right now I'm more concerned with getting everything functional.) once created, the help dialogue will never re-appear, unless you press "P" at which point you should close out of the game and restart, P deletes all stored data dealing with this game.
Ok, that being said, Here is what works: A simple list of actions that can be chosen if, from the main menu, you click on "Character", then click on either "Powers" or "Gadgets". for the time being, all powers are availible for use, in the release game, they will have to be unlocked, and then upgrades will be availible for purchase as well, none of those work at this time. so select the powers you want, based off the action button you would press (note that only specific actions can be assigned to specific keypresses/swipes. left tap is the "Jump" menu, while right tap is the "Attack" menu.) For the sake of porting to computer as apposed to android, use the wasd keys for swipe-direction, spacebar for left tap, and mouse left click for right tap. Makes sense right? Space-bar jumps, left click attacks...
So once you've selected what powers you want, you'll notice the only other working button on the main "Character" page is the "Gadget" button, with one gadget availible. Moving on, lets start actually playing this game, go to "Level Select" from the main menu, click 1, because thats the only one that actually works, and it will load up with a pause menu up, click either "Play!" or hit the esc key, use the keys and play through the level, destroy thin blocks and bad guys to get collect coins, the game is only 100m long for now, but you can hit the esc key again to pause the game(this will be equivalent to hitting the back button on android phones) select restart, end level, or character, here you can modify the characters powers, in game, but whetever you select here will not be saved, and will revert to your original selection once you've ended the level and return to the main menu. The in-game character button will only be for a visual reference and stats, and right now is only for debugging.
Right now the coins are saved to your computer when you end a level, thats the only time they are, I'll add a script that stores them any time the game window is closed, sometime later maybe. Got a lot more to work on, so let me know how I'm doing, Feedback drives me forward!
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wqv3ljp24rkvu5b/AndSS%200.04.zip
Very groovy! Is the gadget a passive thing; the coins kind of floating towards me, is that the gadget or is that normal?
ReplyDeleteI only noticed two things that I would've considered "off": I got trapped once because I couldn't move backwards, and I ran into an indestructible cave- I'm not sure if that's intentional, like "Hey, you should be paying attention and avoiding things like that" but after the screen passed me, there wasn't any sort of death or anything like that.
The only other thing that feels weird is that the jumping feels very floaty, and for an action-runner sort of game, it's not very natural. That'd make for a neat gadget or power, though.
The menus are really cool! I've been fighting with anything resembling a GUI in mine, and I'm just not satisfied with how anything looks. The character customization/selection screen feels just right, though some of the options are a little arcane. Maybe have a pop-up description, or picture or something?
Anyhow, it's really awesome to see the progress you've made. Really looking forward to future updates!
Thanks, The Gadget thing is passive, and is designed to allow coin gathering to be easier, and more lucrative. I'll add a powerup magnet later with powerups that will spawn randomly: timed bonuses for increased damage, invincibility, 2x coin collection, stuff like that. The jumping is a bit floaty but is quite a bit better than the original, I had to increase gravity by about double to make it this way, and I can increase it more, which I may do later. I haven't toggled around with the numbers a whole lot. The cave problem... inherit in the level creation generator. I might keep it, and it'll be just like you said "Should have looked ahead further to avoid this situation" and maybe you shouldn't destroy all the destructible blocks, because you may need them in order to avoid that situation or to jump just that much higher over the next hurdle. The jumping right now is designed to only allow the player to jump over two blocks. upgrades will be availible to allow the player to jump higher over taller blocks (for much later on in the game.) There won't be any backward movement, but i may create a few powers that could remedy that situation to allow the player to get stuck less. in the future, when the player falls off the back of the screen, dies, reaches the end of the level, it will end the level. but for now the only way to end a level is manually with the escape menu. Thanks for the input. It's hard working on this project without much/any feedback thus far. I'll shoot you a message on your board, got some comments about WD that i want to post. :)
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