Still active

Just making a note here that I haven't stopped working on Project Jumper, I'm just really slow. Also, I'm planning out a new, better organized project to make better use of what I'm learning here. Anyway, the next installment should be coming out just as soon as I get it all worked out. Thanks for your patience.

Project Jumper Part 10:The Beginning and the (Bad) End

There's starting to be an actual game here, sort of kind of, so this seems like as good a time as any to actually give the game a little structure. That is, let's make an opening menu, a death screen, and let the game reset when you need to.

An opening menu is a good time to have a pretty splash screen, showcasing your artistic talent and getting the player excited about what he's about to play.

I'm going to use plain text on a plain background, and the finest crafted monochrome yellow triangle as a pointer. Ah, yeah.

Project Jumper: Interstice III

Again, stuff added in bold is new. Not that there's a lot of it.

• Display map
• Scrolling
• Layers (e.g. background)
• Display player sprite
• Move player sprite
• Left-right
• Jump
• Mario style controlled jumps
• Ladders
• Map collision
• Tiles that can be jumped through from below
• Harmful tiles
• Special effect tiles
• Different environment types, eg water
• Text boxes/popup messages
• Sound/Music
• Background music
• Sound effects
• Collectables/powerups
• Camera
• Follow player
• Stay in map
• Follow target other than player
• Cut scenes
• Changing levels
• Continous map (load area changes seamlessly)
• Main menu
• Save games
• HUD
• Enemies
• Ability to kill/be killed
• AI/pathfinding
• Multiplayer
• Weapons/Ability to fight enemies
• Projectiles
• Stompin'
• Different movement types
• Climbing
• Swimming
• Flying
• Double jump
• Editable controls
• Pushable blocks/crates

Project Jumper Part 9: Agility Training

It's time to improve helmutguy's maneuverability. I've got a few things that I want to do here.

• Mario style jumping
• Double jumping
• Ladders
• Walljumping

 I'm not sure I'll actually get to all of them, though. Remember, I'm making this up as I go.

Project Jumper Part 8: This isn't stomp at all! Fixing the delay in embedded sounds

I fully intended to spend this update on giving helmutguy a more robust set of physics, including the ability to stomp on Skel-Monsta's head. Instead, that stupid delay at the beginning of embedded mp3s has been driving me crazy, so I'm going to fix it once and for all. While we're at it, we'll get our first taste of editing the actual flixel files to suit our needs.

Project Jumper Part 7: Lock and Load

Well, I think that helmutguy has been defenseless long enough. Let's give him some way to fight back. I'm going to go with two different abilities; that should establish some basic principles.

1. Pew pew lasers
2. STOMP

This is really only 5 pixels tall, but it looks pretty sweet 

zoomed in.

Need more help with FlashDevelop?

This is as much a bookmark for myself as anything else. Michael Williams has a tutorial over on tutsplus that explains a lot about how and why to use FD either instead of or alongside the official Flash IDE. It also has a lot of tips and tricks to help you code faster and more efficiently. Be sure to check out the comments also, there's some good tips in there. I've now got a bunch of new post-it notes next to my monitor with keyboard shortcuts I didn't know about before.

Project Jumper: Interstice II

Let's just take a look at our progress so far. Anything bold is new stuff I've thought to put on the list.

• Display map
• Scrolling
• Layers (e.g. background)
• Display player sprite
• Move player sprite
• Left-right
• Jump
• Mario style controlled jumps
• Map collision
• Tiles that can be jumped through from below
• Harmful tiles
• Special effect tiles
• Different environment types, eg water
• Text boxes/popup messages
• Sound/Music
• Background music
• Sound effects
• Collectables/powerups
• Camera
• Follow player
• Stay in map
• Follow target other than player
• Cut scenes
• Changing levels
• Continous map (load area changes seamlessly)
• Main menu
• Save games
• HUD
• Enemies
• Ability to kill/be killed
• AI/pathfinding
• Multiplayer
• Weapons/Ability to fight enemies
• Projectiles
• Stompin'
• Different movement types
• Climbing
• Swimming
• Flying
• Double jump

Project Jumper Part 6: Sound; Bleeps Bloops and Frustrated Screams

OK, time to buckle down and get sound sorted out. You guys have no idea how super excited I am this. No idea.

Actually, for the most part it's not too bad. Yeah, Flash only lets you embed mp3 files. But a lot of the time, that'll work just fine, and if the limitations aren't anything that will affect you, then everything is gravy.

Obviously, we're going to need some sounds. Let's make a quick shopping list:

• Background music
• Player jump
• Player death

Project Jumper Part 5: Killing the player, aka Failure Is Always an Option.

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you had the most excellent of holidays. Me, I'm celebrating the new year by getting helmutguy killed.

Incidentally, my original plan for this installment was to get started with sound. On the surface, it seem like it's a straightforward and simple thing to do, right? Make sound, embed the sound into your program, play the sound when appropriate. Done. Simple. If only! It turns out, you can't embed a .wav file into flash! It only supports mp3s. I could just convert all the sounds I make into mp3 format first, but there are certain technical reasons why that's not super great for sound effects. There are workarounds, but I'm going to fiddle around with them and see what works best.

Meanwhile, it's time for danger!