Space Grunts 2 DEVLOG #6 – Game progression, artwork and music

Space Grunts 2 DEVLOG #6 – Game progression, artwork and music

Alright, so let’s dive a bit deeper into some of the things I did this last week, the video covers the big and mostly non-technical stuff, but there is always more!

One of the smaller things I worked on was modifying the camera and how it keeps focus on the player. The camera code I was using was a the basic code I had running in the framework, but after playing Space Grunts 1 a couple of times, I noticed I did some extra stuff in that code. It limits the camera movement to only move when absolutely needed, and so most of the horizontal movements don’t even trigger a camera move when you are in a single room.  The result is a much more relaxed view for the player.

So I copied the changes of that camera code into the new code I had running, and with some extra tweaks we now have an improved camera running, which roughly looks like this:

tx=tmpPlayer.x+8;
ty=tmpPlayer.y;

int topUp=16;
int topDown=16;
if (tmpPlayer.myDirection==Globals.UP) topUp=48;
else if (tmpPlayer.myDirection==Globals.DOWN) topDown=48;

if (tx<cameraTargetX-64) cameraTargetX=tx;
else if (tx>cameraTargetX+64) cameraTargetX=tx;

if (ty<cameraTargetY-topDown) cameraTargetY=ty;
else if (ty>cameraTargetY+topUp) cameraTargetY=ty;


xSpeed=((cameraTargetX- (Render.width>>1)) - offsetX) >> 1;
ySpeed=((cameraTargetY- (Render.height>>1)) - offsetY) >> 1;

// limit camera movement speed
if (xSpeed < -2) xSpeed = -2;
else if (xSpeed > 2) xSpeed = 2;
if (ySpeed < -2) ySpeed = -2;
else if (ySpeed > 2) ySpeed = 2;

offsetX+=xSpeed;
offsetY+=ySpeed;

The offsetX and offsetY translate to the top-left corner of the screen, and all rendering is done using those coordinates.

I’ve also been reworking the mood of the visuals a bit more, I originally planned to have a much brighter game, but with brightness comes the down-side of not being able to play and create variation with lights. So I dimmed down the light surrounding the player and modified the ambient light for the level a bit more. It sets a different tone, and the bright areas still are very “bright” and colorful, but there are now more areas with a darker moody setting.. which I guess is how space looks!?

 

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