updates!

So I've been kinda busy on a new little side project that I'm hoping I can use for some of the cases, as my main game is kind of restricted when it comes to terrain and enemies.

It's called JETBLOCK, and you can take a look at it on my new 'Games' page: http://games.luxus-elg.net

The 'side project' was quite a learning process, and I've now got a good grasp on movement and trigonometry, which I will make good use of when completing the ninja project.

I still have loads of work to do, and almost no time to do it in, but I like a challenge.

End of case 5, start of case 6

So yea, case 5 is pretty much done..

I'm currently working on implementing offset values, so it will be possible to go further up and down than my boundaries currently allow by offsetting the entire level.

more later, busy now

About cases 4 and 5.

Case 4 had us set up keyboard movement and boundaries for the character. Seeing as this was already implemented in my current build, I decided to shift my focus to other stuff.

Stuff like collision detection.

This is where my current knowledge begins to test its limits, and I really have to read up on the subject.. I've got it working to some degree, but way too much is hard-coded, and I need to setup some kind of dynamic hittesting vs whatever I want to throw at my hero.

So, two kinds of collision detection, then.

I need one for basic platforming, and another for picking up eventual powerups and combat.

As for combat, there are no enemies yet, but the first one should be done as soon as I get around to drawing him. :)

Powerups.. Well, I don't really know what I'm going to do about that yet.

Regarding case 5... Fuck.

Sprites, eh?

Well.. Seems I've got my work cut out for me.

I've got to rewrite the character class completely, and separate the animations to different movieclips. Great stuff.

Luckily, I've already got some rudimentary collision detection I can implement into the new control scheme the case requires. What I'm going to do about the ground remains to be seen, though.

Maybe I'll just scale the whole damn thing down a notch? I really don't know. We'll see.

Case #3, part 2

Not much here yet, but I have uploaded the swf.

You can take a look here.

Controls are the same.

I also just noticed that it defaults to level 2, but meh.

Case #3, part 1

Okay, so I'm almost done with case #3, creating multiplane backdrops in different scenes.

I'm not quite sure how I'm going to implement it, seeing as the case specifies that the scenes are to be connected somehow. As of now, I just have 3 buttons at the top of the screen that lets you jump between scenes, which you can then freely move around in.

Whether or not it will remain that way, I have not decided.

Images and the interactive swf will follow.

As for the story, it now has a name. It shall be called "Tiny Ninja's Awesome Adventure", with a japanese translation as follows: "Koninja-sama no Daibõken", or in english: "The Great Adventure of the Honourable Little Ninja".

I STILL haven't quite decided on the specifics, but time is running out, and I'm going to have to shift gears abit on this.

You, playing as the titular Tiny Ninja (who probably will end up having a totally rad and cool name), will start in a forest, knowing only that all your elder comrades have failed their contracts to assassinate the evil emperor (who also will end up with a rad name). They are all dead or captured, and it is now up to you to finish the job. Be it for the good of the land, your own financial health, or just for shits and giggles, is up to you.

Being a young ninja, your training is obviously not complete, and you will (probably) gain a small amount of experience on your travels. Alternately, you will find hidden scrolls which contain secret ninja techniques. Either way, this will lead to you, the ninja, obtaining new skills with which to maul, slaughter and otherwise annihilate anyone who would keep you from your task, not to mention your target itself. Rest assured, you will (probably) need all the help you can get to assassinate the emperor. Probably. Also, there might be hot chicks locked up in that castle, who knows?

The plan is to have swordfighting as the basic foundation of the combat system, with as much inspiration as possible from Muramasa: The Demon Blade, and to then add on swordfighting moves through either levelup or hidden scrolls (or both), and some other techniques like shurikens and maybe some sneaky ninja "magic". (smoke bombs, etc.)

There's a lot of stuff I want to implement, and not nearly enough time to get it all in there, so we'll see how it goes. I've yet to design a single enemy or npc, not to mention animate them, and I want several types, depending on the locale. (e.g. samurai warriors in and around the castle, archers on the rooftop, bandits and ronin in the forests and such.)

Hopefully I will have time to do most of it. I might actually have more time than some, as I have kind of jumpstarted the actionscripting, and inadvertently (though probably only partially) completed some of our future cases regarding the scripting. However I reckon I'll spend any extra time on drawing or animation, seeing as drawing is not exactly my forte, or possibly on assisting fellow students with actionscripting, should they require it, and I be able to.

Thats all for now. As previously mentioned, I will upload the swf, and link or embed it in a future post, so you can take a look at the project.

So.. yeah. Later.

meh.

Some updating

We've been handed a third Case, but I haven't completed it yet, so this post will just be a little progress update...

I've just finished moving all the code from the timeline into separate packages and classes, so now I can start on making parallax backgrounds for Case #3.

I was also contemplating whether or not to make the next case interactive, and I've decided that instead of just animating the character running in place through various scenery, you will be able to manually control him, thus setting your own pace, giving the viewer ample time to take in the epic backdrops (lol) and the experience as a whole. :D

Doing it that way would actually involve less work on my part, as well, seeing as I've already completed the code that handles the basic movement necessary to run and jump through various areas in the game. Great stuff.

.. Maybe I should start a trend of ending all my posts with a signature "sign-off" phrase?

..

meh.

Case #2 and then some

For case #2 we were told to create a running animation, a jumping animation and an idle animation.

Since this is going to turn into a game anyway, or atleast in my case, I decided to just implement some basic keyboard movement to demonstrate the animations. I'll probably end up using this keyboard movement later on, as well, seeing as it's pretty responsive compared to the sorta crappy code snippet already in CS5.

Here is the animation, let's all hope that embedding works in this blog.. :D

Click me to go to the animation!

*edit* decided to link to it, instead. having several embedded clips on the front page didn't sound like a good idea.

Controls:
Up arrow - Jump
Left/Right arrow - Run

As you probably already noticed, I did improve his looks abit, mainly the body.. That little round blob looked kinda shit tbh.