22 replies to this topic

[chrscool8]

Alright, so I'm making a momentum-based platformer, you know, like Sonic games or Fancy Pants (but entirely its own, not a fangame), and it's all fine to make the inside of a secret base or something have crazy jumps and floating platforms and whatnot, but I've gotten to a point in the story where I want the player to enter a building at ground floor and need to get to the roof.

The problem is... I cant design a level that looks like an at least semi-typical office building or something and also have it be more wacky than just flat floors and stairs. How do you suppose I might do something like this? What would make a building interior fun? There's things like jumping out a window from one building to another, using elevator shafts, and fire escapes. What more can I possibly add or do?

I've scoured the internet, and it seems the number of platformer games with building interiors is very near 0.

So, what say you?

Chris

[ookami125]

well not sure if this will help but the only way i can think of a way to make an office building in a platforming is to make the building really old and falling apart or make more then one building (all falling apart)

[chrscool8]

well not sure if this will help but the only way i can think of a way to make an office building in a platforming is to make the building really old and falling apart or make more then one building (all falling apart)

Holy crap. All my hours of Uncharted and I didn't even think of that. That's brilliant. Fallen roofs and floors can make up slopes and ramps. Awesome.

[mach3000]

yeah, old building falling apart is cool

or maybe building is so old and ancient that trees and flowers are growing like wild in it making it a beautiful ancient old building

[EdgeV]

I've scoured the internet, and it seems the number of platformer games with building interiors is very near 0.

So, what say you?

Chris

There are quite a few platform games out there that take place in building interiors.

Old Apogee games like BioMenace, for example.

http://sfprod.shikadi.net/old/pic/biomenacess.png

http://www.3drealms.com/menace/images/menace1.jpg

Or Castlevania.

http://guy.com/a/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/sotn6.jpg

Or try Iji if you want an actual GM game:

http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/8501/iji700.png

Ventilation shafts and teleporters can also add an interesting twist.

Unusually shaped floors and ceilings also help. It doesn't need to be logical as long as it feels somewhat like a building.

Edited by EdgeV, 06 February 2012 - 03:26 AM.

[chrscool8]

Thanks for the tips. And I totally blanked on Castlevania games.

[xhawkeyex]

Jump over desks, swing on lights, jump over fallen parts of the floor and run through parts of floors fast enough before they fall, grind on railings and between buildings using christmas lights. Hope these ideas help

[mach3000]

random idea, maybe for some reason the building or city is underwater and you got to the bottom of it somehow and now u gotta get to the roof cuz your oxygen tank is running out

[Jster391]

Or, the opposite of what Mach3000 said. Perhaps the city is sinking into lava or boiling water/acid/hazardous liquid (or those said items are rising), and the main character has to climb to the top to live. So s/he started at the bottom floor or ground level, and then by using rubble, ramps, cars, windows, and other objects they get to the higher level. You could have it so it gradually gets harder and you have to climb more until you die (Sort of like the game Avalanche) or create objectives. For example, on the first building there is a helicopter that you escape too but the helicopter runs out of full and stranded you have to repeat etc until you find some sort of cruise ship with last survivors like 2012. You could throw in random, quirky, things like, ballons for a temporary boost, shoes with springs, mini-jetpacks, grapnels, climbing gloves, explosives to propel yourself higher, hoses to use as mini-jetpacks, etc. It could also be themed as a Tsunami like the one in Japan...

Just some ideas, I might write this down for a later game.

[Adequate]

Big rooms, secret rooms - but big rooms are key

[Jster391]

Big rooms, secret rooms - but big rooms are key

Exactly how big?

[Adequate]

Big enough to suit your game.

For god's sake, use common sense. You know, game devs had to use initiative, creativity and a truckload of sneaky thinking to make games before "interweb forums" came about.

[Yal]

I cant design a level that looks like an at least semi-typical office building or something and also have it be more wacky than just flat floors and stairs

The first thing that comes to my mind when I read "office building" is "SMASH STUFF TO PIECES!".
You should have computers, drawers, coffee tables, coffee machines, and crates (all buildings has crates!) all over the place; all of these are possible to destroy by attacking them. Also the enemy can destroy such stuff.

You can sometimes use the stuff for cover, letting the enemy smash the stuff and then you kill them out of point-blank range when they're recharging their punches or just looking the other way. You can also break the stuff for bonus points, and sometimes there might be items inside.

You can also make the items more interactable. For instance, you can have pot plants in the background, only that some plants are Venus Fly Traps that try to eat you when you get close enough. Also, a pile of documents kinda works as ice: if you run into the pile, you start to send documents flying with your feet, and you're stationary! Unless you jump off the pile. Also, if you run at the pile of paper for a long enough time, you'll send the entire pile flying and end up on the table/desk they lay on and suddenly get a rocket-boost because you worked up full running speed.

Place a pile of paper just in front of a really steep sloop to let the player boost up it, for instance?


Also, offices always has aquariums in the background. Have a bunch of big aquariums with pirahnas inside. They should be smaller than one screen in size, but still be so big that you risk drowning in them.

[chrscool8]

Alright, even more good stuff! You guys are awesome.

[IKSB]

I don't know what the situation is in the game... but would it be possible to have the building falling apart as you run through it? I mean like a building literally tilting over as you run through it, you leap out of a window into the next building. Then something explodes one the floor above and a support beam falls through the ceiling, creating a slanted platform to the next floor in the building. One building fell to the side and is now leaning on another building, letting you run slanted up the elevator shaft, but the elevator just broke loose and then falls down the shaft, forcing you to leap out of the way.....



So many possibilities, but it's limited by what your game engine is capable of. (Can the player run on slants? Can the terrain change under your feet, like a building falling down with you inside it.... etc)

[Jster391]

Big enough to suit your game.

For god's sake, use common sense. You know, game devs had to use initiative, creativity and a truckload of sneaky thinking to make games before "interweb forums" came about.

geez man calm down. I wasn't being serious but I would be interested in the size of this game. And by that I mean will the player by 32 or 64 pixels or just like 16.

[chrscool8]

Again, more great stuff. Thanks everyone.

Here's a shot by the way: (secret lair)


Crazy slopes aren't a problem here.

Edited by chrscool8, 07 February 2012 - 09:51 PM.

[EdgeV]

The level design sure looks nice. The security camera is certainly an interesting thing.

And a texture for the walls would make it look even nicer.

Edited by EdgeV, 07 February 2012 - 10:52 PM.

[chrscool8]

The level design sure looks nice. The security camera is certainly an interesting thing.

And a texture for the walls would make it look even nicer. :smile:

Thanks.

There's some brushed aluminum texture for ya.

Edited by chrscool8, 08 February 2012 - 12:28 AM.

[Yal]

Just out of curiosity, have you made that slope engine yourself? Also, what version of Game Maker are you using?

If you draw SHAPES or just can't be bothered with making one sprite for every slope for every stage tileset, here's one way you can texture stuff nicely (assuming you don't use the free version of Game Maker):

- create a surface the size of the view
- set the drawing target to this surface
- draw_clear_alpha() the surface to complete transparency
- tell the slopes [that are inside the view] to draw themselves on the surface
- create a new surface the size of the view, set the drawing target to this surface, and use a for loop to tile it with the texture you want to texture the slopes with. (Translate the image with view_xview mod width_of_image, view_yview mod hieght_of_image to make it look that the texture is "stuck to the slopes" instead of moving around with the view)
- There should be a function surface_set_alpha_from_surface(); use that to erase alpha from the tiled surface using the slope surface
- draw the background (you seriously need a texture there too!)
- draw the tiled surface which has now its alpha erased so that it's only visible where there are solid ground
- draw all other sprites
- delete the two surfaces to free memory


You seriously should do that. It'd look a lot nicer than ugly plain gray everywhere.



Also, judging by the screenshot, you've based all characters from the same template... that's a bit bad. You gotta have more variety; for instance, make the bad guys a bit taller (user right-click to quick-copy a selection in the image editor; then just drag it upward at e.g. legs, waist to easily make a character taller). You should also give characters multiple skin and hair color; my post-apocalypse platformer Final Columbus features characters with pink, purple and green hair and a range of different skin colors. Also using different eye colors is easy to underestimate.

For instance, make the common ninja enemies brown-black in skin color and have dark green hair and perhaps sunglasses. The next tier of stronger ninjas could be blue-white-blonde asians, they should also have some cool 5x5 pixel red symbol on their suits' left chestplate, like a tiger head, a katana silhouette or a swastika. Heck, just blotch a bunch of pixels in a red color that doesn't seem blood red, and leave what it is up to the player's imagination.





Oh, also, investigate putting some BACKGROUND DECORATIONS to your levels. Like computers, desks, chairs, flags with the bad guys' symbol on it, eerie tubes with organs and animals preserved in green liquid, posters, pot plants, places where the wall coating has fallen off so that you can see the bricks beneath it, windows where the sunlight fall in (draw a slanted yellow polygon below the window with an alpha of around 128-64).

Nothing makes a game seem as bland as filling it with interactables only, especially if they're flat non-textured stuff. You really should work on getting some eye-candy into the game, your current screenshots aren't making me willing to play it at all (and I'm one of those people who don't judge games by their graphics, mind you!).


EDIT: Heck, we aren't talking getting some eye candy here, we're talking getting some eye food into your game.

Edited by Yal, 08 February 2012 - 08:45 AM.