LÖVE

Thanks kikito. I've seen it.
The article was published @Gamedev.net, last month.

I found a bug:

if you stand on the ramp at just the right place, then jump, you can stand just above the ramp. i have attached a screenshot.

sorry if i was to vague, but it is hard to describe.

It's all cool, I already know about this bug, but thanks for taking the time to post it here. I do intend to fix this as soon as I've discerned the cause, which I suspect is related to the heightMap handling. This thing is littered with small glitches, I'll post an updated version soon (or you coud just pull the repo) so you can have fun finding them Also, there's now things to shoot.

Bumpety bump, there's a new version of the game available. I added smoothed-out scrolling (cheers bart!), shooting, proof-of-concept AI and fixed everything you guys have mentioned so far.

The AI is interesting because it isn't fixed. Although the script I wrote to handle them is pretty basic and yields these... weird results, what's actually happening is that the SA-X clones are running around the map and evaluating their own state to detect terrain. This means that they are navigating the map independently, without waypoints. Whilst they can't be directed to a specific point at the moment they can nevertheless be made to behave in distinct ways to create different AI profiles, and with some small changes they could probably be made to reach simple goals/targets, such as a waypoint or the player.

The 'enemies' don't fire back yet, I just wanted something to test the power beam out on. Have fun.

There's a new version with some fancy stuff, an update list and download are in the first post. Enjoy guys.

Nice, the animations are great.

New version looks nice with the new sprites. I'd be mighty impressed if you could implement sloped/curved surfaces.

It's looking amazing.
One thing "." and "/" for keys?
You didn't remember that could end in weird places (and also need key combinations) in some foreign keyboards didn't you? Glad to have alternate keys!

@azonicrider I didn't make them, but I wrote the stuff that displays them. Thanks!

@dreadkillz I don't know how long you played the demo for, or even whether you looked at the screenshots or code, but ramp tiles are featured in all of these, including the latest .love file. There are no 'curved' ramps just yet, but there is capacity for them (e.g. making a heightMap table and tile graphic); the current ramps work on a y=x basis.

@coffee Thank you, and yeah, I've never even seen a non-English keyboard. I'm using these because I have no idea what the keyboard keys should be as I usually use a pad for platformers. Regardless, these will be changeable at some point.

The strange thing is that in the italian keyboard I have to press - instead of /. / is Shift+7, and - is... -, I think it's in the same position as / in the english keyboard