July 2012 - Smells like 60 FPS news

First off, I'd like to establish a studio name.

Now that we have acquainted ourselves. Let's get on with the updateness.

July has been a busy month actually. Still not much in the graphic-visual side of things, but a far greater and more important issue has been tackled in the face.

Game performance and optimization.

I'm a big fan of games that run smoothly at constant 30 fps or higher. I've been reworking areas of the game to reduce lag and bring a more responsive experience to the player. One of the big optimizations was the one-way platforms. These platforms are classic to all platformers providing the player to be able to jump through them from below and land on top, then pressing down drops the player. It has come to my attention a long time ago that these kinds of platforms are very difficult to script. My solution for them was sloppy, but it made them work. I later used these to form annoying ladders where the player jumps one rung at a time. It was VERY annoying but I didn't have a solution... until now.

A new ladder system was implemented and the old platforms, while still very useful, will get a new method of functioning that will hopefully cause less lag. The new ladders are a simple climb straight to the top or bottom by standing at the top or base and pressing up or down. The player will automatically and very quickly travel the ladder. The player doesn't have the choice to stop anywhere between the top or the bottom. They function more like a short "warp" between upper floors and lower ones. Need not to worry about enemies, it is a consideration to clear ladders clear of damaging elements, or limit their protection from foes.

Another big optimization was the player's firing abilities. A lot of the old ways of handling collisions were updated and simplified to cause less lag. There never has been a limit to how many fireballs can be on a screen so this was actually an important fix I needed to make but never considered. I felt the need to never limit the fireball count because playing Mega Man X with the three shot limit sucked unless you stood too close to the enemy to be useful. Again, its all in the name of player response. You'll be glad when you're under heavily resistance from the Devil Men.

Now I did make SOME graphical enhancements. I been slowly redrawing some animations to clean them up. One of the things that the Matt Jordan player sprite lacked was a falling script and animation. This has been fixed and it immediately tied up a lot of loose ends in the animations. If you may recall player Super Mario World, just remember all of the weird motions Mario could perform, like sliding jump-ducking, and running in mid air when running off of the end of a platform. Those things have been finally fixed.

Another good one is some advanced background elements added to some of the key scenes of the game to help bring them to life.

The Life Depot

Jepson's Auto Shop
Good stuff.

If you want to help out in the development of this amazing project, click the Paypal button below. I do give bonus content to those who support me all the time, I'm sure it'll be worth your charity.