Huge Improvements to Level Editor

The biggest thing I've done since the last update is in an area that you can't really see which is the level editor. I've completely revamped it from the ground up. It's more robust and helps me build levels, make edits and whatnot way faster than before. Pretty much what would have taken me an hour will now take me only around 20 minutes or so. I'm guessing this'll be an even bigger help when I start constructing larger areas. Of all the things I've changed, the one I needed the most was a way for the editor to break up my larger sprite sheets into the individual pieces without me having to input the information every time. Now I can make an XML file with the info, and the editor will grab it and load up the pieces as individual selectable "tiles". They're not exactly tiles, but you know what I mean. I've also added a bunch of new types of world collision rectangles and the ability to spawn enemies in the locations I want them to be in.

Changes to the Game Engine

I've gone a bit deeper into the whole, segments turning see through. Now I can have multiple sets of objects become visible and invisible at the same time and I can also control when they become visible separate from each other. All for what I THINK is a low cost. In addition, I've further added to the functionality of switching levels. I show it here by running to the right, and appearing on the left of a different area, then running back left to once again appear on the right side of the original level. This can be toggled to happen automatically or be player controlled with a button press. I haven't gotten around to resetting the objects that are in the level yet, but I've got a good idea of how I can do it. Which should also work nicely with the save system I have planned.

Shadows. I have Them

Another thing I added is a system to determine whether or not objects should be shadowed or not. By shadowed, basically I just mean darkened as I don't think doing normal maps and whatnot on 2D sprites is something I'd want to invest my time in. . . yet. Anyway, I've got it set so that you can go in and out of shadows to varying degrees. It shouldn't be an issue applying this to everything in the game and as far as I can tell, I don't think it's a resource hog. Anyway, I think it's pretty.

Ceilings

A long long time ago, I had the whole tunnel thing implemented, but I've gone and updated it to work a bit better. Instead of just checking against your height, it'll check against the height that an object's head (or top most point) is at when deciding whether or not you're hitting the ceiling. I think I'll make it so that baddies take damage if slammed up against something. Anyway, it's back and I'm glad to see that it still works.

That's about it for now. A lot of visible progress. It seems like a lot in a short time but really, the speed that I could do it was only made possible by the week and half of straight cleaning and coding I did previously. Anyhow, I've got a couple other things planned. I really need to work on making the transitions between areas a bit smoother. . . Also, I need some new art if I want to build out levels to test, but before that. . . I need to finalize at least some of the areas the player will be going through. Mmmm. . . . also have to clean up my targeting code some. Plenty to do, not much time to do it in.