I don't think I'll be making another game genre tutorial after Platform School is done. But other people keep saying they're interested in making tutorials (you know who you are ) and RTS and RPG both seem to be pretty popular requests...

Anyway, after this if I do other tuts they'll just be short ones on specific subjects. No more long tutorials for me

What about giving controls a tab order like many oop languages do?

Yeah, this. The way Sol was explaining that VB does it is there's some kind of tab index for entry fields and buttons and such that can be edited. It defaults to creation order but you can change it in the object's properties or some such.

To make this easier the next version of the Platform behavior has builtin support for horizontal and vertical moving platforms, as well as that Platform attribute (to enable jumping through platforms) .

Thanks Rich (and David ) for the new features.

In light of the new addition I'll be remaking lesson four to utilize the new changes. And to save myself some hassle, I'll wait until the next build is out before I release another lesson

This is the best and most intuitive form of tutorial I have ever seen. Holy .cap!

I think it would be great to have a level editor in addition to the game, so if you have time I would really appreciate a tutorial explaining how to make one, and maybe even how to make the levels seperate files or something of that nature!

Hey, thanks

As far as a level editor is concerned, I agree that it wold be good to have a tutorial that teaches how to make one. However, that's more of an advanced project so I won't be including how to make one in this series I'm afraid. This series is pretty much aimed at beginners.

Hmm... how about a "power select" mini-menu that pops up? you could hold down the F key to freeze the action, then a menu wold pop up in the corner like so (excuse the crummy mspaint mockup ):

<img src="http://i42.tinypic.com/mkjzp.png">

Then you could point at the power you want with the arrows and let go of the F key to activate it. You could have diagonals and stuff too if you run out of room.

That way you need only one key, there's no need to type in annoying key combos, and you get a slick looking interface all at the same time

You don't need to teleport past the spikes... you can cut the rope on the platform

This is turning out to be really slick. I'm impressed. I think the up-down-up-down key combo is a little excessive. Perhaps you could do a simpler control to activate it? It's not hard to do, it just seems like it's more key presses than necessary.

And I was able to teleport outside of the level (again ).

A tip... to keep from "replacing" yourself in a wall, have a dummy object go first, and if it's overlapping solid then run a quick push-out loop. Once it's free, move the player to the dummy object's location and kill the dummy. (You can tell which direction the dummy needs to be pushed by doing a system point collision test using it's top, bottom, and sides locations before running the push loop.)

But this is looking really nice so far, excellent work

Good job!

But...how I can do a veritial moving platform?

It's a lot harder than it sounds. I wouldn't really consider it a "beginners" thing. I still have yet to make one that works flawlessly. In fact, I haven't seen one that someone's made in Construct yet that works flawlessly. There's always jitter or collision problems because of the gravity on the platform behavior.

I'm pretty sure I could work one out if I spent the time on it, but it would be more complicated than a horizontal platform. If I do make one that works I'll include it in an "extra credit" tutorial

Okay, the next lesson is ready

• Lesson Four: Detecting the Environment Using detector objects to collect input from the environment, as well as how to make a springboard, how to make a moving platform.

Ah, that's too bad. But I guess it's a good thing I hadn't started drawing the UI yet

This is great

I love the cartoony style. The platforming feels pretty good for the most part, and I haven't yet experienced the enemy-stomping bug you mentioned. I do get partway stuck in walls sometimes though.

The level design though really could use some work... some places are just impossible to get past if you miss a jump and go the wrong way. And in several places you can't go back because the jump is ever so slightly too short.

Also... Totoro music? Interesting choice

I haven't played through all of it yet but I will soon

Say like a punch. Just standing with a straight, profile torso is fine, but someone like me would want the punch to have more life to it. Will I be able to have sprites for say, different positions of the torso so it can twist with things? I imagine I could do this one way or another, but will it be implemented to be done easily in the editor?

I asked Rich this very question (sort of) and he assured me that yes, you can do that. Not in the editor, but at runtime (changing a body-part's animation frame or whatever). At least that's what he said.

Thanks, guys

I started working on the next one yesterday. I might have it ready by tonight, or tomorrow morning at the latest.

No problem... good luck with your game