Adventure Apes Screenshots (WIP Platformer)

[ScaryPotato]

Okay, so after tweaking a few things here and there, I've put up an updated (beta) version of the game for download. Figured that if a picture is worth a thousand words, a video should be somewhat more valuable, so I posted a clip on youtube showing a bunch of the new levels!

I've had some really awesome suggestions so far from you guys here and would love to hear what you think of this, thanks so much:)

[TheMonsterAtlas]

When under water I somehow got stuck in the ceiling and died multiple times .___.

If you die in the game you should be warped back to a check point, this not only makes the gamer want to proceed further but it's also good for debugging.

(I got stuck where the chest is in the first level, first couple of seconds into the game, don't want to spoil it ;] lol)

[dugan]

Cute looking game - is it made in gamemaker?

[ScaryPotato]

XLR8ED - I am going to have to fix the collision detections somewhat if that's the case, I occasionally would manage to stick to walls, but never a ceiling, so that isn't good. Thanks for pointing it out. There are savepoints throughout the game, but I guess they`re only really useful if you can actually make it that far without the game eff-ing it all up!

dugan - Why yes it is made in gamemaker. How did you know, does it have the look and feel of something made with that program (add questions mark here, because mine suddenly stopped working)

[ScaryPotato]

Before:

After:



Before:

After:


So here are a couple new shots with some (hopefully) more convincing looking blocks. I kept the option to flip them horizontally, which means that there are places where the 'mortar' between each one is 2px wide on occasion, but aside from that, I'm pretty happy with them! The last one will be some lava tiles, and as much as I want to have some nice rippley variations, something more bumpy and rocky is probably the way to go, as it'll let me throw in random gems and pockets of lava much easier:)

As always, suggestions are more than welcome. After all, it's the feedback I got from you guys that sparked the change, so thank you!

P.S. Sorry about the size difference, I scaled the 'before' images up for my site

[9_6]

If you want to be a lazy bastard, you should look into autotilers.

You can make a tileset like this (except less crudely ;P):

And then never have to look at it again because you just place blocks in the map and have the game figure all the tiling pishposh out itself but without randomization (e.g. flipping tiles).

This is especially helpful with the gm room editor which can just drive you crazy.

This may look like an intimidating task at first but if you break it down, its really simple:

You just need a way to check the tiles and a 2 dimensional array should do that trick just fine.
This can make all the difference to your sanity on bigger levels.

Also I'm not really sure if the light system adds something to this game.
It just looks way too smooth for all the hard pixels you have imo.

[PypeBros]

So here are a couple new shots with some (hopefully) more convincing looking blocks. I kept the option to flip them horizontally, which means that there are places where the 'mortar' between each one is 2px wide on occasion, but aside from that, I'm pretty happy with them!

To be honest, I can hear the "thematic" blocks crying for a return from here.
[img=http://i.imgur.com/gUMHw.png]
The wave pattern and the octopus shape of level D were equally (if not more) important. Such artistic elements is what makes temple apart from regular architecture, imho.

[ScaryPotato]

Here is a little update of the different levels...

PypeBros - My wife agrees with you completely about the old blocks with the patterns! When I showed her the first update, her reaction was underwhelming to say the least, so I added a few patterns in the mix to give a little variety.

9_6 - The last image has a test at the sort of block-placement that you described, and it makes a big difference. With 16 different situations and 9 types of blocks, it made for a lot of image files, holy! I'm not sure if it's something that would be worth doing on the other levels, given the fact that they are carved blocks and the effect would be very subtle compared to the lumpy rocks and lava, but you never know:)

[9_6]

9 different block types?
Just what are you doing that needs 9 different variations of stone?
I can only see 3, normal, lava and with crystals in them.

Btw the lava should probably glow aka not be affected by the light system.

[ScaryPotato]

It's nothing more than to satisfy my own whims really. I wanted to make three variants each type of block, plain, lava and bejewelled in an attempt to make the tiling seem a little less obvious. Granted, there is only so much variation you can squeeze out of a 16x16 tile!

I had thoughts of trying to do little alpha/glowy fades on the lava and such, even making the jewels twinkle, but those little touches will probably wait until I get the rest of this thing done. It's become a much longer running project than I had originally planned!