Come along to make a Platformer with me!

[bobbyjones]

So hello lovers. I have been using LOVE for a couple years now but I have yet to actually release a game. So I am going to try to change that by making an awesome platformer. But there will be twist to it. I will document the whole adventure here. My goal is to work on the game 3 days a week and to have a prototype done in a week. The game will be opensource and free. It will hopefully be a good resource for beginners. If I ever "forget" to update this thread for a couple days please pm me to "remind" me to get to work on it lol.

So yeah today is day 1: Today I will start out with designing the game. I know I want it to be a platformer but I do not know what features I will want it to have. Heres a list of things i want to have a rough idea of by the end of the day.

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Setting (Where and when):

Plot (What,Who, and Why):

Art Style:

Length of game:

The genre:

Core Mechanics(what will make it unique):

Platforms I want it on(Do i want it on Mobile?):

My list is pretty small but that all I can think of for now. I will update the post when I start getting an idea of what I want to do.

Day 1 Update 1:
So literally right after posted this I went to handle some business (lol) and I thought of a great idea for the game. But I also reached my first roadblock. I will update the list first then I will explain my roadblock.

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Setting (Where and when): In space and the year is 2076. It will take place on various space ships and planets. Including the Intergalactic Plumber(kinda like Ben 10(I like Ben 10)) Space Station. 

Plot (What,Who, and Why): The plot is about a new host of the Omnitrix who is tasked with saving the universe from Vilgax's heir who is in the process of creating his own version of the Omnitrix. The player and his team will follow the heir around the universe in hopes of stopping him from getting all of the needed materials.

Art Style:

Length of game:

The genre:

Core Mechanics(what will make it unique): Able to change into different alien species. Different planets have different gravity and air composition that can affect various aliens negatively.

Platforms I want it on(Do i want it on Mobile?): I can already tell that the game will be hard to have running on Mobile so I will cross that out now. But I do plan on having the game in the browser using love.js. But that may present some issues. Optimizing for luajit is different from optimizing for plain lua.

So from that list im sure you get the general idea of what the game will be about. And my roadblock is content vs mechanics. What I mean by that is that some games like flappy birds is fun because of the mechanics. Examples of that can be found in popular games. In move or die you have to keep moving, in geometry dash you have jump puzzles and etc. Basically I am trying to figure out if the game should revolve around a story or a simple mechanic. I could attempt to put both together but it may not work well. What do yall think?

Day 1 Update 2 Just figured out the kind of art style I want.

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Setting (Where and when): In space and the year is 2076. It will take place on various space ships and planets. Including the Intergalactic Plumber(kinda like Ben 10(I like Ben 10)) Space Station. 

Plot (What,Who, and Why): The plot is about a new host of the Omnitrix who is tasked with saving the universe from Vilgax's heir who is in the process of creating his own version of the Omnitrix. The player and his team will follow the heir around the universe in hopes of stopping him from getting all of the needed materials.

Art Style:I want the art style to be like the art of Ben Ten: Alien Force. For prototypes and most of development i will use programmers art due to the lack of an art bone but maybe along the way I will find either money or a willing artist. 

Length of game: 

The genre: Don't even know I included this. lol

Core Mechanics(what will make it unique): Able to change into different alien species. Different planets have different gravity and air composition that can affect various aliens negatively.

Platforms I want it on(Do i want it on Mobile?): I can already tell that the game will be hard to have running on Mobile so I will cross that out now. But I do plan on having the game in the browser using love.js. But that may present some issues. Optimizing for luajit is different from optimizing for plain lua.

This is it for today hopefully tomorrow I will start working on a prototype.

[Davidobot]

Some one likes Ben Ten a bit too much..
Will the game be combat-based? So something along the lines of Cobalt?
Or will there be a focus on exploration and puzzles?
How do you plan on handling animations of something with the great amount of detail that your art-style entails?

Also, good idea for a way to finish a game.

[bobbyjones]

Some one likes Ben Ten a bit too much..
Will the game be combat-based? So something along the lines of Cobalt?
Or will there be a focus on exploration and puzzles?
How do you plan on handling animations of something with the great amount of detail that your art-style entails?

Also, good idea for a way to finish a game.

I want it to be compat base yes. I was thinking about that as I was falling asleep last night. I do plan on having something in the game for explorers but I'm not sure what that will be yet. Maybe I will have hidden collectables and beautiful art for them to find. (I watch Extra Credit so I have some understanding of what I should try to do lol)

The art will probably be left to the very end, but for animations considering the large variety of animated creatures maybe using something like spine would make it easier. Although I can't afford spine and I'm assuming the eventual artist won't have it either. So I will probably have to create a custom solution for skeletal animation.

[bobbyjones]

Day 2: So for today I want to start work on getting a prototype started and running. (probably will be doing some web dev to host some prototypes online) So the first thing i want to do is make a list of things I need for a demo to represent what the game will be about. The purpose of this first prototype is to see if the game will be fun. It will also determine what mechanics would be harder to implement than others.

here is the list of things I want in this prototype:

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Multiple Planets - At least 2
Multiple Aliens   - At least 3
Ability for the player to be able to change into various aliens.
Multiple enemy types - At least 3
I want Aliens to be effected if they are in a certain air composition that effects them negatively.
Gravity based on planet and alien mass.
Projectiles
Combat
Pickups and drops.
Animated Sprites

Thats it for my list. It is pretty short so I hope I am able to bang them out relatively quickly. I know how to do most of the things on the list.
repo


Day 2 Update 1: I got a bit done today but it taking me longer than I thought to do certain things. I updated the repo. I will work on this again tuesday. Hopefully I will have something to show yall then

Edit: Just in case you try to play whats in the repo it will not work. I need to figure out friction in a nice way.

[scissors61]

Looking forward to this, It sure will help me with the platformer I want to make.

So from that list im sure you get the general idea of what the game will be about. And my roadblock is content vs mechanics. What I mean by that is that some games like flappy birds is fun because of the mechanics. Examples of that can be found in popular games. In move or die you have to keep moving, in geometry dash you have jump puzzles and etc. Basically I am trying to figure out if the game should revolve around a story or a simple mechanic. I could attempt to put both together but it may not work well. What do yall think?

For a guy that can morph into different aliens, an explanation is needed! But not necessarily a deep one. Games like metroid can show a story in a minimalist way. And if you can change into different aliens, the game cannot be based only in one gameplay mechanism, but in a standard platformer with different ways to play it, it depends on you to make those mechanisms fun and interesting. In what circumstances you can morph into another alien is another design choice, you can make the transformations into temporal or conditional power ups like mario games or gradius, or make the transformations a permanent ability, like metroid. Also you have to choose if the levels will be divided into small missions or a huge area to explore. I think making all these decisions will depend on the nature of the gameplay elements of each transformation. If they are combat based, good for exploration, or for jumping, etc. Good luck on your project, Looking forward!

[bobbyjones]

I actually was supposed to work on it earlier today but I will later. After I do homework . (College sucks kids don't go)

[bobbyjones]

Seems I didn't have time to do this yesterday, but I am in a boring chemistry class so I'll discuss the issue had reached on Sunday (I think)

So in this prototype I am planning on keeping things simple by having each entity including the player handle their own physics. There will be no physics engine in this prototype. Mainly for simplicity. So each entity handles their movement, velocity and acceleration. Currently there is no concept of a force in the code yet. And that's where the issue is.

I tried to mimic friction by using acceleration. But that is kinda hard to do. Friction is not an acceleration. Friction is a force... The force of friction. So in order for friction to work properly I will have to add the concept of forces. Or at least hard code it in. To calculate the force of friction I would use the following formula

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forceFriction = μN

N is the normal force. Basically it's the total amount of force that pushes an object against a surface. So if an object is on a table the normal force is the weight of the object. If an object is pushed against a wall then N will be the force of the push. μ is the friction constant. Basically it's the amount of friction between 2 objects. So rubber and asphalt would have their own constant and so would rubber and wood.

The force of friction acts opposite of the force push against it. So for example if you push a block to the right friction would be acting to the left. And the same is true for the opposite. Using this i should be able to implement friction properly later. Using the mass of the player and a made up friction constant.

[bobbyjones]

Day 3: Time to work on Friction!!!

Although I should be sleeping rn (I have lab in the morning) I am going to work on adding friction to my prototype. I already discussed what the work will consist of so I will just dive right in.

Day 3 Update 1: Luckily in about less than a hour I added in friction. The handling still is not how I want it but its good enough for now. I am going to spend the next 10 minutes setting up gh-pages and a web demo of my crappy prototype.

Day 3 Update 2: Well lovejs seems to not(I cant believe I just realized I left the not out) be working for me rn. I will upload a .love but it isn't much so far.

[monolifed]

main.lua:5

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local playState = require 'states.play'

It works when not in a .love/zip but it is case sensitive when inside the .love
It happened to me a few times

[bobbyjones]

Bro. I used Sublime to make the States folder lowercase and it kept showing it as caps so I thought it was still caps. I swear. I usually do not make a mistake involving caps. (I used to be a Linux user)