[Game] Alone: isometric platformer

cocos2d for iPhone » cocos2d games

[Game] Alone: isometric platformer

(55 posts) (14 voices)

Started 1 year ago by itlgames
Latest reply from phpbug

Tags:

12 Next »

itlgames
Moderator

Hi there,

My first iPhone game is now out on the app store!

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/alone/id356286001?mt=8

And a video, from an old development version though:

It's an isometric platformer game, I love these kind of games, been playing them since I was a kid with my ZX Spectrum!
There is a download section to get new levels, once I get new ones! (working on a couple of new levels it right now)

I have used cocos2d for the menus, and to render the layers and sprites, got some performance issues at some point, but so far is working fine, I think. I didn't use the isometric tiling support on last version of cocos2d as I started working on this like a year ago, can't remember, it feels a while now! I got stuck in version 0.8.2 and didn't have time to migrate to 0.9, to be honest I may need to implement from scratch the rendering routines, as implementing 2D sprites in isometric is such a pain! So I am thinking in some ray-casting or something at the pixel, lot of works I guess...

And also, some promo codes, I have already gave away a few, so until I get a new update, here you go 7 of them:

9P9TAR94E99P
XW3MEYXTLM64
6KAMHJJEMR4P
PLLWYXHY7EM3
L9L9AM9XNATF
ETFY4KHAPJXF
EFYXPLTFPEM9

Please have mercy with me on your ratings! ;)

Any troubles let me know and will try to help.

Thanks to all of you and thanks to cocos2d to help us developing our games.

Posted 1 year ago #
abitofcode
Moderator

Just bought it (in the UK so these promo codes don't work, you had me at ZX Spectrum though), really good feel to it, especially like the retro sound effects!

Two minor points;
1) I think you need a level before the one shown above where you can practice jumping from pad to pad, and experience the moving pad without dying. Getting use to the controls for the first time in a 'Death room' is a little frustrating. (I'm guessing you've play tested this 1,00000000 times and could probably do this level in your sleep)

2) I kept finding that my thumb had fallen off the control wheel, it seems to be a little to far left and bottom, I've not got particularly chubby thumbs but I had difficulty in the Death room moving with any accuracy.

Good luck on the app store :D

Posted 1 year ago #
Tim
Member

I grabbed 6KAMHJJEMR4P. As abitofcode mentioned, it's rough going early on with the controls. I didn't get past the death room (I know, I must really suck at this game). I like the graphics and idea though, but it's a pretty challenging game. Good job for a first game, and I left a review online.

Good luck.

Posted 1 year ago #
itlgames
Moderator

Thanks guys, I think you need to go to the US iTunes store, you can change that in iTunes, bottom right I think, there is a country flag, click, and you get the full list of stores. Sorry, not sure why Apple only redeem the codes on the US store! Sorry if you couldn't use the code.

I can update the first level to be a bit more elaborate, so you can practice jump and stuff. I know about the control, feels a bit small sometimes, I am going to make the hit areas bigger in next update. There is another way to control where the directions are the 4 corners of screen, to be honest I find that more accurate, but I did introduce the pad on screen on request to some other feedbacks.

About level difficult, I had this dilemma, few people testing before found it too difficult, but others found easy! so wasn't sure. I don't really want to frustrate people just at the beginning! Yeah, to me, I have played so many times I can pass the levels even blind!

Thanks.

Posted 1 year ago #
itlgames
Moderator

Ok, I have uploaded a new update, it's on review, so I hope will be available soon.

What's new on this version:

- Updated introduction level to have some "death rooms", so you can practice without getting killed.
- Control pad hit areas are bigger now.
- Some minor bugs fixed.
- Added new objetcs.

I will also add an updated video on the game website:

http://www.itlgames.com/alone

Thanks for your help and support.

Posted 1 year ago #
abitofcode
Moderator

Magic, I'll look out for it.

Posted 1 year ago #
itlgames
Moderator

You should be able to get the level update if you go to the downloads section, so you don't need to wait for the update.

Posted 1 year ago #
blackmouth
Member

@itlgames,

I have to agree with the other comments regarding the difficulty. Having the first room a death room can be frustrating. I made it to the second room with the zombies and robots which looked exciting but one hit forced me to do that death room again, ugh. Would it be possible to keep the keys?

I also think the player might have an easier time if there was a shadow underneath your character.

Congrats on getting your game out, Cheers.

Posted 1 year ago #
itlgames
Moderator

You can use those little green men, they are save points, so, once you collect the key, and the knife, before going to that other room, be sure you collect that green man, if you get killed after that, you will be back to that exact point, with any object you had already collected.
Sorry I thought I made that clear on the intro level and on the help, but obviously I didn't! Those save points are key important on the game, so will need to think a better way to make it more obvious.

I know about the shadow, already though about it, but shadow system I have at the moment is really really very primitive! Like shadows are only visible on the tiles, not on top of any other object, that is why I didn't want to include the shadow on the character. I'm already working on that, but that may take a few updates before I get it done.

Thanks for your input.

Posted 1 year ago #
itlgames
Moderator

Guys, I have rejected that v1.1. update on queue cos I want to include some new things, already had feedback from users, so this is what I plan to include on the update, apart from what I already included (quite soon, today or tomorrow):

- Remove double-click on direction pad buttons.

- Record automatically a save-point every time we enter a room, that way if you get kill, you always get back to that room. I will keep old save-points green little men, as support for i.e. very difficult rooms where you can get kill in different points (just to not remove that feature, as I still think is nice)

- Unblock all levels, so you don't need to play all previous levels to play new ones. Just bearing in mind the difficulty increase with each level (either more complicated rooms, or bigger maps, or both! Level 10 in development, has 36 rooms)

Cheers.

Posted 1 year ago #
thefuzz
Member

@itlgames : The game looks really neat, I'm off to buy a copy now!

re: "I have used cocos2d for the menus, and to render the layers and sprites, got some performance issues at some point, but so far is working fine"

The game I've been working on (to be announced soon!) is also isometric running on the cocos2d 8.2 series. Probably the biggest performance issue I ran into was with changing the z-order of sprites. I have tons of em running around and have to do it every frame. If thats what instruments is saying is a big performance hit for you then it is solvable by subclassing AtlasSpriteManager to do in place children updates.

Congrats on your release!
-Dave

Posted 1 year ago #
itlgames
Moderator

Yes, isometric z-order is such a pain with 2D sprites... wondering if wouldn't be better using 3D on a orthogonal view.

Thanks, glad you like the game!

Posted 1 year ago #
riq
Key Master

OFF-TOPIC:

@itlgames: I've just added support for depth buffer support for Tiled Maps in trunk (will be available in v0.99.1).
http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/wiki/doku.php/prog_guide:tiled_maps#z_order_and_depth_buffer

Posted 1 year ago #
itlgames
Moderator

Thanks Ricardo, too late for me anyway!

Here some more promo codes, please say who gets what, so people know:

9M6NWNRKEJTF
LNLYYN4T6TWT
MRX46N93H3ER
7KFNMKLRKY69
6KFJMJR7FLTE

Posted 1 year ago #
pfg2009
Member

I grabbed 6KFJMJR7FLTE. It's downloading now - I can't wait to see it. I grew up on ZX Spectrum as well and I really like the return-to-the-basics feel this game seems to have :)
I will share my thoughts as soon as I play it.

Posted 1 year ago #
itlgames
Moderator

Thanks, bear in mind those updates I am doing, after the first impressions of users, I thought I had to do those changes, hoping to make things easy for people.

Posted 1 year ago #
pfg2009
Member

I love the music! Very cool.
A couple of thoughts:

* There is a lot to read and it seems that some of the information is duplicated. For example, a lot of the information in "Help" is repeated in the "Introductory Level". I wonder if there is a way to slim down the amount of text a little so that it doesn't seem overwhelming the first time you play it.
* The first couple of rooms in Level 1 took me a while to complete. I couldn't quite get the timing right to avoid the spikes in the room with the key. That was beginning to get a little frustrating. Since this is the first level, you might consider making it a little easier at first.
* I'm not sure how much computing you are doing behind the hood, but if increasing the frame rate is a goal, one thought might be to pre-render the background as a single texture and just use sprites for any blocks / objects / people that need to be in the foreground. that should reduce the number of items to sort and draw and give you quite a perf boost.

That said, I'm really liking what you've done! Great job!

Are you planning on cranking out more levels for people to download?

Posted 1 year ago #
itlgames
Moderator

Hi, thanks for your feedback!

I did update the intro level to have some "death room" where you don't get killed, so you can practice, if you go to download, you should see that level updated. Let me know if not. I will include it anyway on next update.

About the text, yeah, I know what you mean, I just wanted to be sure people knew how to do things before getting frustrate.

Frame rate is 12, which I am quite happy to be honest, code is already optimized, and because the low fps, I have space for more things to do, which I am already planning.

Walls, tiles, and annexed room objects are all in separate planes, so I don't have to re-order them, but thanks for the advice.

And yes, I have already two new levels, nearly ready, just got stuck with the new update, but once I send the update to review, I will go back to those new levels. These two new levels would be, I think, more difficult, and longer, level 10 will have 38 rooms! Not all of them death traps though. To be hones, one big level would be like a complete new game in the era of those ZX Spectrum games! Batman (http://www.crashonline.org.uk/28/batman.htm) had nearly 100 rooms I think.

Posted 1 year ago #
pfg2009
Member

Right on!
Did you ever play Knight Lore? That was one of my favorites.

Posted 1 year ago #
abitofcode
Moderator

Cheers for the update, I've been practicing in the safe room. The corner controls are strangely a lot easier to get used to. I'll stick a review up once I've got a couple of rooms in but looking good.

Manic Miner would be a great port for the iPhone having only left right and jump controls, maybe one day...

Posted 1 year ago #
itlgames
Moderator

Yeah, I did implement initially only the corner controls, I though it was more easy, but I did include the control pad as request of people testing the app before releasing. If you get the iPhone in both hands and put thumbs on top, to me, is easy to reach four corners without moving my hands, maybe I have long fingers, dunno... Anyway, I think is good to give people some options.

Knight Lore, Fairlight, Head over Heels, Batman,... those were my favorites back on my ZX Spectrum. Manic Miner, a classic, play a lot on my friend's amstrad.

Since I posted the new codes only pfg2009 grabbed 6KFJMJR7FLTE, if no one else is going to use them, I may use myself to give to someone else, as I already run out of the first 50 codes. If anyone has take any of those, please if you could post, will appreciate.

Thanks guys for your comments and support.

Posted 1 year ago #
itlgames
Moderator

Hi there, back a few days ago pfg2009 suggested to "pre-render the background as a single texture", actuallyI think I didn't read properly the first time and I though you were saying to not including floors and walls on the z-ordering, which I don't, but what you said actually makes lot of sense!

Because the engine I did, all is database driven, so ever single floor cell is an sprite, therefore I have 9x9 sprites which consume CPU to render individually. Then I have two images for the walls, and two for the doors, and two more for each wall if any decoration (like windows)

But because the nature of my engine, all assets are separate in individual png files (would need to change everything from base to do something else). Having say that, I know the limitation of my engine, but in the other hand gives me lot of flexibility to create levels (I have an editor tool to generate them and fills the database)

So my questions is, would it be possible to generate a single sprite compound of several png files? Is not really an atlas file where you have set of images and from there you create different sprites, it's the other way round actually, you think guys this is possible at the moment? I haven't found a way to do it right now.

Thanks.

Posted 1 year ago #
Steve Oldmeadow
Administrator

@itlgames - have a look at CCRenderTexture.

Posted 1 year ago #
itlgames
Moderator

Thanks Steve, that is exactly what I was looking for! I can doubled or tripled the performance of the game just doing this, brilliant.

Posted 1 year ago #
itlgames
Moderator

Ok, didn't tripled the performance, but the first real test definitively improved a 50% or so, which is still very good! And is so damn easy to integrate, instead of adding your sprite to any layer, jsut call visit, and create the RenderTexture object and call begin and end enclosing all sprites you want to include, then add just the RenderTexture to your layer, brilliant.

Posted 1 year ago #
itlgames
Moderator

Steve, looking at the RenderTexture class, on the begin function we have glDisable(GL_DITHER), shouldn't we comment this line or just call glEnable(GL_DITHER) on the end function?

I realized after rendering the texture, some of my images changed quality.

Posted 1 year ago #
riq
Key Master

@itlgames: at least it should be documented. Could you open a bug ?
BTW, If you comment the line, does the quality change ?

Posted 1 year ago #
itlgames
Moderator

Hi Ricardo,

If I comment the line, or put the glEnable(GL_DITHER) on the end function, yes, images quality don't change. To be honest is only noticeable cos I have the splash screen with a gradient, everything else is not really affected or can't see any difference.

Will try to open the bug later today or tomorrow.

Posted 1 year ago #
pfg2009
Member

I'm glad the pre-rendering trick worked. Every node you render takes down the perf a little - the fewer different things to draw, the faster the overall result.

Posted 1 year ago #
itlgames
Moderator

Ok, update 1.1 is now out on the store! Hope it fixes those flags with controls, and makes things easy with returning you to same room if you get killed, so no need to those annoying save points!

Cheers,

Jose.

Posted 1 year ago #

RSS feed for this topic

12 Next »

Reply »

You must log in to post.