Castlevania Style Platformer

I'm using 0.99.62

so last night when I posted the cap, I found everything working fine, yet now this morning, it seems to be quite glitchy, I haven't experienced anything you mentioned Deadeye, but I did notice that the breakwall blocks seems to be made of superball rubber, where last night they just sat fairly nicely where I put them, this morning they squash each other and send each other flying on startup, and I have these white skeleton blocks, that I can't place in the water, they'll be destroyed on startup if I do.

I can place them above the water and they'll appear in it perfectly, but I can't place them in it in the layout. so confusing. It also seems to suffer from the odd slowdown this morning, which I don't get at all as it was never a problem before. Here's an exe of it, hopefully it'll run. Sigh, just when I thought I was making some progress lol

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4075855/Brent%27s%20Platform%20Engine%20Enemy%20Test.exe

and after putting the computer to sleep and moving to the internet cafe next to where I work, it works just like it did last night, the physics blocks behave, and there's no slow down, I REALLY don't get it lol

Ah, your demo .exe works as advertised. Not bad, though the sword swinging seems a little slow to me. Don't know how you're going to translate that into sprites, either. Could be a bit tricky.

Anyway, it seems to be coming along so kudos

thanks, I'm still tweaking things like speeds and whatnot. I'm just not quite sure what to work on at this point, maybe getting all the different kinds of enemies I want. Or perhaps the levelling and rpg elements I want. Ideally I'd like a Diablo II style levelling system and ability trees, but in castlevania style gameplay. I'm sure I'm in way over my head lol, I know I know, start small.

Question, in a side scrolling platformer, is there anyway to take advantage of bump mapping and pixel shading and all the fun texture stuff that 3d games use so well?

Yeah, why not?

I only ask because I have no idea what those things ACTUALLY are or how to use them lol, that's all

so I've taken a little break from my game, and recently come back to it. I have no clue how to get enemies doing what I want. So far I can make something that floats fly at the hero when he comes within range and have to move around obstacles, next I was hoping for a larger enemy that would also respond to the hero's proximity, but obey the laws of gravity, move backward when the hero swings his sword, and either swing his own weapon when in range, or throw an object at the hero, and I can't seem to get anything to work for him. Any ideas?

also, I've got physics squares that I can set up as fake, break-away walls. They get pushed by the hero's weapon, but they wobble and sometimes fall on their own when the layout loads, I've tried loading it as immovable and having the weapon collision make immovable false, but it doesn't seem to work, the bricks are always locked in place. Any ideas on that one?

thanks in advance guys.

also, I've got physics squares that I can set up as fake, break-away walls. They get pushed by the hero's weapon, but they wobble and sometimes fall on their own when the layout loads, I've tried loading it as immovable and having the weapon collision make immovable false, but it doesn't seem to work, the bricks are always locked in place. Any ideas on that one?

thanks in advance guys.

Try setting them to -not- be immovable (in events), when you want them to be immovable. I think, if I remember correctly, Ashley noticed that those and a couple of others have the wording reversed. It's fixed for the next version I think though. But yeah, try that.

that worked perfectly for the physics blocks, thanks

Just wondering, is there any way to create, conveyor belts, spring boards/bounce blocks, and moving platforms all either vertically, horizontally, at an angle, or along a curve/in a circle. I can't seem to figure it out

Vertical springs are easy:

<img src="http://i40.tinypic.com/ftn4vd.png">

1. Set the Jump Strength to something high

2. Use the Jump action

3. Set the Jump Strength back to normal

Basically that's it. For horizontal or angled springs try manually setting the X component of motion.

Moving platforms are also easy. Just move an object with Platform attribute on it. The Platform Behavior will recognize it and update your player position automatically. Note that there is a bug currently with vertically moving platforms though, sometimes the player will fall through them. David was supposed to have fixed it but it seems to have remained, though it doesn't happen as often as it used to.

For platforms that move in a circle try two Sine behaviors... one vertical and one horizontal. Set one of them to 75% offset.

For platforms that follow a path, try Rojohound's Path Movement plugin.

As for conveyor belts, the only method that I've found that works well is kind of complicated, but here goes:

1. Always ignore all input for your player. Treat your player as an NPC. Instead of the Platform behavior getting it's input directly from the keyboard, you're going to do it with events. This means that you will have to create events like "Control 'Move Left' is down -> Set player.Value('speed') to 200" etc.

2. Make two pv's for your player, one named "speed" and one named "addSpeed," or something. "Speed" is for the base speed of your player, this is what all normal movement will use. "AddSpeed" is any additional speed on top of that.

3. Make some events that go something like so:

+ Player is overlapping Conveyor at offset (0, 2)
    -> Player: Set player.Value('addSpeed') to -50

+ Always
    -> Player[Platform]: Set X Component of motion to player.Value('speed') + player.Value('addSpeed')
[/code:2cmplupt]

It might be a bit of a pain to set up initially but once you have it in place then making the rest of the game won't be much different than normal.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4075855/Brent%27s%20Platformer%20-%20Ground%20Types.cap

Here's what I have so far

By the way, I'm also trying to build a vanish block ala megaman, I've got the visual part of it down, but I can't find a way to change whether or not it's solid during the game. Any ideas? Obviously I can't have a vanishing block that you can still stand on when you can't see it lol

Nevermind, I got the vanish blocks working

Nevermind, I got the vanish blocks working

Okay then, because I was about to ask if someone leaked my Platform School tuts to you and you were just trying to slyly manipulate me into releasing them before they're ready. Just about everything you've asked for in the last few posts is in them, you see...