[Project] Spiral Squad

[molul]

I'm back to my platformer game after... wow, four years already! Well, my last effort got stuck due to two big problems: I wasn't able to program ground slopes correctly, and the artist that was working with me at the time had no experience with tiled level design, so we tried making levels with objects in Tiledmap Editor, which was a big pain.

Recently I read in a post how to implement slopes correctly, so I thought I could try, and it worked! So little by little I rebuilt my game from scratch, fixing a lot of errors in the process. The Sonic Physics Guide also helped me a lot.

My goal now is trying to make a 4 player coop platformer game, in which you play as one of the four Spiral models (that's why it's called Spiral Squad instead of "Adventure") and try to reach the end of the level by using all the characters abilities in different places. Also, I want to program a level editor in-game, similar to Mario maker. It will most likely take me many years to finish it, but this time I want to take it easy and try not to hurry for anything.

Here's a video showing the current state of the new engine:


All graphics are just placeholders. I plan on redesinging Spiral with a more cartoony look, and of course using my own scroll planes (the ones in the demo are modified versions of some I found at http://www.opengameart.com), tiles (these one are from Super Mario World), music (the tune is from Sega Mega Drive's Dynamite Headdy), etc.

For now I want to focus on the engine and then on the level editor (I'm currently using Tiledmap Editor), and then I'll think on hiring an artist to create all graphics (levels, characters, etc). I also plan on making the music using a VST plugin that emulates Sega Genesis FM synth.

Well, it's going to be a long trip I'll post new videos whenever I have some new interesting features. I hope you like it!

[Sulunia]

It looks awesome!
I myself will try to make a platformer someday..

[molul]

Thank you! I'd prefer showing it with some final graphics, but at least I can show something I've implemented almost all the heroes' skills (cloak, jump, wall-jump, super jump, a blue rocket, a purple rocket similar to Yoshi's flutter jump, and ground pound) and I can currently make stages in which the camera focus is the hero or the camera moves along a trajectory.

My next milestones are finishing Spiral's skills (only one left: spinning+rolling, similar to Sonic's spindash), making one enemy, programming "running" stages (like Dynamite Headdy's like first stage), and then from that base I'll start with the level editor, which I think will be a long process.

[Sulunia]

Level editors..
You know, i've been thinking for a while about developing a overlap2d runtime in love2d. That would seriously save a lot of trouble for many of us.

Although from what i read, overlap2d can also set physic properties, like floor friction and such. Implementing that will be troublesome.

[molul]

I didn't even know about overlap2d, hehe.

I don't think my level editor will be universal. I want it to make level design easy for me, and giving players the possibility to design their own levels. I love Tiled Map Editor, but it has stuff I don't need and lacks a few things I'd need.

[pgimeno]

I've heard level editors tend to take about 50% of the code. (BTW Valencian here too)

[molul]

Oh, nice to meet you!

Makes sense that it takes so much of the code, but I think it's the best one can do for its game. Tiled Map Editor is really cool and helpfull, but there's a moment in which you need a much more specialized tool to design your levels.

Also I'm really fascinated by Super Mario Maker's "infinite game" concept. I'm so much looking forward to doing something similar during the next few months. I can see adding new items, enemies or platforms would be really easy.

[Jasoco]

I've written my own level editor for my platformer and yes, the code is bigger overall than the game itself. lol

I've also been fascinated by Mario Maker's simplicity and have borrowed some of its concepts.

[molul]

That looks really cool! I'm curious: what do those "E", "W" and "S" mean? Are they related to collisions?

I'm undecided with how to manage collisions on my editor. I've seen that Super Mario Maker directly marks tiles as solid, but in my game I have a collision tiles layer, and two ground collision types, one that allows jumping down from them and other that doesn't. I was thinking of dropping that collision layer and making all tiles solid by default, and then marking some as passable.

Also, I haven't seen slopes in Mario Maker yet, so I'm not sure if I should make drawing tiles as in Tiled Map Editor, one by one (Mario Maker automatically adds borders to the tiles, no matter the shape).

[molul]

By the way, is there a certain GUI library that you would specially recommend? I've seen in the wiki there are a few.