Dev Log #3
It is surprising just how much a few coins will make a stage funner to traverse.
I went back and re-coded a lot of the way the controls are handled. I wasn't very happy with the way controls felt. It was hard to land on very small platforms. The first goal of this project is a failure if the controls don't feel good. It still needs a little bit of tweaking but it is definitely a lot smoother than before.
The original sprites for the platform tiles as seen in the older screenshots had to go. Their original sizes were way too big. If I wanted to stage to look at least half-decent, I had to use a tileset that was much smaller. I found and started using a new tileset.
There are now "coins" as a collectable. They may not stay as coins, but they are serving as a perfect placeholder. It is surprising just how much a few coins will make a stage funner to traverse.
The first "stage" is completed and ready to be played. It is pretty easy to complete, with a few alternate routes that you can collect some extra coins.
If you look at the GIF in the top of this post, you'll see the character walking back and forth between sign posts. If you haven't guessed it already, those are checkpoints! You can't see what is happening behind the scenes, but it is also setting the player's "respawn" location when you activate the most recent checkpoint.
Also, I threw in a pretty nifty audio manager script that I picked up from a YouTube video. So now there a simple and efficient way to play sound effects and music.
I've been streaming my development on a twitch channel that I've set up as well. I have no idea how Twitch works as a social network, but I think following will let you know when I'm live? It's just a screen capture with some music in the background.