Quite a great first day! This time I got lucky and the theme I wanted was chosen, so I had an idea already in my head. As a kid, I loved drawing mazes for my friend to solve – then I stopped doing that. I remember the feeling of the whole thing in a single sheet of paper, full of keys, traps and monsters that required a specific item to be killed. This is it, translated into a 2D platformer. Yes, Castlevania in one screen ^_^

I have published a few games, and I have lots of prototypes in my hard disk… but I’ve never built a 2D platformer before! So I was a bit unsure about this.

But things have gone great so far! I can easily edit the map in the editor, so building the level shouldn’t be a problem. Player movement is not that bad, either. I’ve been tweeting this all day, but here’s a summary:

He can walk and jump. Wouldn’t be a platformer otherwise… but jump height depends on for how long the jump key is pressed (a la Mario Bros). That’s a nice touch, I think:

He’s also able to climb ladders, but I feel they are a bit weird and I’m not using them. I also managed to get one-way platforms working, from which you can jump down if you need to.

The player is also able to slide down walls, climb and wall-climb. That’s why ladders are not that useful anymore.

I finally added switches, which are able to open doors or disarm traps. Traps or lava pitfalls kill you instantly, but I also added safe points to which you return when killed. There are also animated traps (those three moving things on the right side), which require a bit of timing.

Not that bad at all, considering it’s my first platformer ever and that I’m building it from scratch. I’m pretty happy.

Tomorrow I’ll draw a new tileset (the current one is not mine, but a free one I borrowed from Derek Yu), make a bigger level (you know, the whole screen) and add some basic enemies and fighting if I have time. May probably be forced to dump those, though…

Tags: platformer