Elysian Shadows

So, this is a current work-in-progress being developed with a couple of 3D artist friends. Basically, the idea was to make the most basic game we could think of just so we would actually finish it. When the time came for the 3D models and animation to be put in, development slowed to a crawl. This turned into me getting bored, and creating a level editor. Which turned into the 3D artists being completely preoccupied with the functionality of the editor rather than doing their goddamn work. (sigh) In any case, the editor is significantly better than it started out, and I thought I'd share.

Basically, when you hit enter to start the game, it asks you for a new level name. If you leave it blank, it will ask for a level to load. If you leave that blank, it will load the default level. Probably the best thing to do at this point would be to enter in a new level name, which will load the default level, but if you choose to save your level, it will save under the name you gave it, rather than overwriting the default level.

WASD moves the character. The 1 - 4 texture/type settings for objects can affect what happens to the character. For instance, that red ramp to the left of the character in the default level increases the character's speed and jump height. There are currently only two "boost" objects, so hitting 3 or 4 when those are selected will just turn it into a black box that does nothing. In the editor, there are two spring objects on the bottom. The second one is actually a "boost" object - still working on making something for the HUD there. Anything you click on will show in the top right of the screen, so the rest you can work out as you go.

Here is a random screenshot, because it feels weird putting a download link without at least showing you something.



Yup, now you know you want it, right?

http://www.sendspace.com/pro/dl/usx5zm

All feedback is totally welcome.

Great game so far!
But I've found a bug - when I run down the red ramp and walk of it - and immediately press the other direction when I'm off the ramp - the gravity gets wired, because if I jump after that, I just fly upwards.

Question:
What programming language are you using, and what libs are you using?

Milch wrote:Great game so far!
But I've found a bug - when I run down the red ramp and walk of it - and immediately press the other direction when I'm off the ramp - the gravity gets wired, because if I jump after that, I just fly upwards.

Question:
What programming language are you using, and what libs are you using?

Thanks! It's more of a side project at this point, as I'm really trying to get actual audio work done, but it's been a lot of fun to make. I'll check out that bug, thanks for letting me know. That ramp increases your jump, which really just changes the gravity variable, so I'm guessing it's something with that. There's another bug that happens when you have spikes just below a spring platform - if you die in the spikes and get reset on top of the spring, it shoots you up in the air. It seems to me that Blitz is just a little slow with this reset, and freaks out when it hits the spring platform.

This is all done in Blitz3D. Like I said, it was supposed to be a really quickly made game.. that and I was curious of just how much could be done with it. I always see people asking about stuff like level editors for their game, but never saw anybody make one with it.

Looks amazing dude.

The only two problems I had, when you rotate the view the object selection goes out of sight in editor mode. Also I couldn't figure out how to delete objects.

Also, if you made the currently selected object highlighted that would help.

Dude that sidescroller looks sweet and the ingame level editor is great!

That green guy ahaha

Thanks guys!

dandymcgee wrote:The only two problems I had, when you rotate the view the object selection goes out of sight in editor mode.

Yes, that was an unfortunate side effect of the "HUD" just being 3D objects placed in front of the camera. They follow the camera's movement, but if it's rotated it gets messed up. I haven't really tried to much to remedy that really, as it's something I never use; zooming the camera out is sufficient for me.

dandymcgee wrote:Also I couldn't figure out how to delete objects.

Ah yes, that would be the little boxes underneath the HUD objects. Due to the (arguably stupid) way that the objects are created, you can only delete the last of that type of object. So if you've got 6 platforms, clicking that will delete the 6th, hitting it again will delete the 5th, and so on. Maybe one day when I actually plan on making a level editor instead of tossing it into a pre-existing game skeleton, I'll do this more competently.

dandymcgee wrote:Also, if you made the currently selected object highlighted that would help.

That is an excellent idea. I can't think of a way to do that off the top of my head in Blitz apart from doing something kind of weird like retexturing, but I'll definitely look into it.

aamesxdavid wrote:Thanks guys!

dandymcgee wrote:The only two problems I had, when you rotate the view the object selection goes out of sight in editor mode.

Yes, that was an unfortunate side effect of the "HUD" just being 3D objects placed in front of the camera. They follow the camera's movement, but if it's rotated it gets messed up. I haven't really tried to much to remedy that really, as it's something I never use; zooming the camera out is sufficient for me.

dandymcgee wrote:Also I couldn't figure out how to delete objects.

Ah yes, that would be the little boxes underneath the HUD objects. Due to the (arguably stupid) way that the objects are created, you can only delete the last of that type of object. So if you've got 6 platforms, clicking that will delete the 6th, hitting it again will delete the 5th, and so on. Maybe one day when I actually plan on making a level editor instead of tossing it into a pre-existing game skeleton, I'll do this more competently.

dandymcgee wrote:Also, if you made the currently selected object highlighted that would help.

That is an excellent idea. I can't think of a way to do that off the top of my head in Blitz apart from doing something kind of weird like retexturing, but I'll definitely look into it.

Thanks for addressing my feedback. Good luck with the highlight feature, unfortunately I wouldn't where to even begin helping you in Blitz.

Pretty snazzy! I have wanted to try blitz3D, but I don't wanna try too hard because I would rather use a different language for programming, and if it's too easy, or I spend too much time learning I wouldn't want to switch :D

eatcomics wrote:Pretty snazzy! I have wanted to try blitz3D, but I don't wanna try too hard because I would rather use a different language for programming, and if it's too easy, or I spend too much time learning I wouldn't want to switch :D

Well I've seen some pretty crazy stuff in blitz3D and a lot of people have told me it's easy as it is efficient, but then again I'm a C++ fanboy myself