Quote:In the not too distant future,
Next Sunday A.D.
There was a guy named Joel,
Not too different from you or me.

He worked at Gizmonic Institute,
Just another face in red jump suit.
He did a good job cleaning up the place,
But his bosses didn't like him & they shot him into space!


We'll send him cheesy movies,
The worst we can find...(la! la! la!)
He'll have to sit & watch them all,
Then we'll monitor his mind...(la! la! la!)

Now keep in mind Joel can't control,
When the movies begin & end...(la! la! la!)
Because he used those special parts,
To make his robot friends --

ROBOT ROLL CALL (Let's Go!)

Cambot (Pan Left!)
Gypsy (Hi Girls!)
Tom Servo (Hi Tall Guy!)
Crooooooow (I'm The Wisecracker!)

If you're wondering how he eats & breathes,
And other science facts...(la! la! la!)
Then repeat to yourself its just a show,
I should really just relax...For Mystery Science Theater
3000.......

LOL, I that was one of my favorite shows of all time, I have all the DVDs.... anyways

So yesterday I downloaded you new version, but before I could post some feedback the site went down, so I'll try and remember what I said.

-If you just keep running forward, horizontal bullets fired at you pass straight through you without doing any damage (I assume this has something to do with the bullets skipping right over the player's collision boundaries)

-Those huge sprites(Battleship, First Boss, etc) really slow down the game when they are onscreen, maybe you could split them up into smaller easier to blit pieces.

-This is just a question, are you "culling" the tiles and enemies that aren't on the screen?

Well, thats all I can remember, but enough with the bad, the game is really fun, I'd rate++ you, but I dont think it will let me do it again.

Moving platforms (and keeping the player moving while standing on one) can be kind of tricky.

I think you've made a good start by classifying moving platforms as enemies. They are inherently evil, so it's very appropriate! :p I was actually gonna suggest it as I was reading, but you're 3 steps ahead of me.

This is how I would handle keeping Stompy moving whilst atop a moving platform (let's say it moves horizontally)...

You have the platform draw routine (or maybe a separate movement routine, I don't know; for simplicity let's assuming you handle it all in one Draw function). So, you call Draw(), and you say x+=dx;. After that, you can do a collision test between the player and the platform. (You already do this since the player gets hurt and flashes when touching enemies right now.) In this case, though, you don't hurt the player and make him flash on collision; instead, you add a call such as player.x+=dx; (where dx is the platform's moving speed).

You'd also have to align the player's y-coordinate properly, and you might have to make the platform's rectangle a couple pixels larger (since the player should be standing immediately on top of it, but not inside of its rectangle).

You could also do a test of the player's vertical movement during collision time to determine what to do. You might not want the player to be able to jump up, through a platform, then land on it. (Instead, you want the player to hit his head and bounce back down.) Then you could say, 'if player.dy<0, then don't move the player, except for pushing him back down and stopping his jump.' Or, if you want the player to be able to jump through the bottom but not fall through the top, you could say, 'if there's a collision and player.y>=0 (not jumping), then move the player along with the platform, but if he's still jumping, don't move him until he actually lands on the platform.'

Hopefully some part of that makes sense. ;)

Do you have a level maker ?

Ravuya: Mystery Science theater 3000 was a good show, but I've only seen a few episodes.

Sir Sapo: about the horizontal shots not doing damage, does that only happen on one specific level(third?), or in all the levels? About culling, the tiles are culled, but now that you mentioned that, I noticed the enemies weren't. Well that's fixed now.

MikeDoty: thats alot like the idea I'm having. Luckily, it's even simpler than that. Although it might look like it, an enemy in the game doesn't have to do damage, or even attack. For instance, the items that you pick up in the game are enemy objects as well. I don't know why I called the objects "Enemy", when a more appropriate name is "Entity".

MarijnStevens: Well, MikeDoty made a good level editor. I haven't made one myself yet, but I might after I finish the main game.

Thanks for all of the feedback!

It happens on all the levels I have played so far, but only bullets that are moving in a perfect horizontal line(ie. the foot soldier robots on Level 2). If you need more info just let me know.

I don't think something is being cleared right, or something. If you make a level that doesn't have an end (you can go all the way too the last tile) and jump up, its acts like you're on a crate. I was pushing right as I was jumping, so it might be going out of the array bounds or something.

Do we get a lightsaber in level 4?

Yeah, I'm aware of that bug, but can't seem to fix it.

There seems to be some confusion. Level 4 is on a bridge at night, not in space[grin]

Oh, it looked like your older platformer "Bob", I thought you were paying homage to it or something...

Oh...[sad] lol, j/k