The Platformer

OK, here's something I really hate. Coding how a player moves.

It turns out there's a lot of intricate guesswork going on behind the scenes of most platformers. For instance, did you know that many platformers change the amount of friction exerted on the player body depending on the current action?

Or that bodies accelerate nonlinearly?

There's a million factors involved and they're all fairly easy to code - but there's no easy math behind it; no science. I'm just going to have to continuously pull numbers out of a hat until I find something that feels right. It's quite frustrating - why can't it be as easy as just running and jumping?

My latest upload (public build #2) disabled movement while you're in the air. This is how I want the game to be, and this is exactly how to make it un-fun, which I guess means my opinion isn't worth anything in this case.

I haven't pulled any of the levers or pushed any buttons yet when it comes to acceleration or friction. The game obviously has a sluggish feel to it here but it take shape over time; patience!

The buid does, however, feature some of Greg's artwork actually applied to the assets in-game. I have to say it turned my game from looking hideous to awesome in a single build. I wouldn't take it as anything near final though - just yesterday we took the game in an entirely new direction (artistically) and the next build I post here will likely be altogether different.

(I think I'll post with more images from now on, because - let's face it - a blog post without pictures is like a whore without makeup)