Platformer game TUTORIALS

firemaplegamesfiremaplegames Member Posts: 3,211
edited November -1 in Announce Your Game!
Hey,

When I get some time, I was going to write a series of step-by-step tutorials for creating a ROCK SOLID platformer game. Similar to Super Mario Bros., Sonic the Hedgehog, and all the other great 8-bit and 16-bit gams from my youth. Following similar tutorials is what taught me how to be a programmer a few years ago. Hopefully it will help others like it did me.

I find the current platformer template a little hard to work with. I am going to start from scratch.

I will make a wiki for this project(once I learn how!) as well as playable template versions of each chapter.

Here are the topics I am going to cover:

Basics
1. Basic Player Movement - left and right
2. Jumping
3. Ducking
3. Solid Platforms
4. Cloud Platforms (ones you can jump up though, but can stand on)
5. Moving Platforms
6. Breakable Blocks
7. Eroding/Collapsing Blocks (ones you can step on once or twice)
8. Disappearing/Reappearing Blocks
9. Conveyor belts
10. Tramplolines
11. Air vents/wind
12. Vines and Ladders

Items
13. Keys/Doors
14. Treasure Chests
15. Switches
16. Collectibles: coins, hearts, gems, etc...

Weapons
17. Bullets
18. Boomerang
19. Hook Shot/Grappling Hook
20. Bombs

Enemies
21. Stupid enemies
22. Slightly Smarter Enemies
23. Smart Enemies

Special Moves
24. Double-Jumping
25. Wall-Jumping
26. Sword Attacks
27. Power sliding
28. Swimming

I'll add more when I think of them!
Let me know what you think!

Joe
«1

Comments

  • RacetotheMoonRacetotheMoon Member Posts: 323
    I'm very much looking forward to reading your pages and learning from your experiences. I just picked up a license today and was already getting started on a platformer idea I had. I'm finding the jumping is a bit inconsistent in the demo provided and am hoping it's something that's fixable.
  • StanStan Member Posts: 138
    Looking forward to this :)

    Thanks Joe!
  • beefy_clyrobeefy_clyro Member Posts: 5,394
    that would be awesome joe
    Warning There was an error rendering this rich post.
  • JoshKahaneJoshKahane Member Posts: 470
    This looks truly great Joe. I am not kidding thats quite a list, some simple and some more complex which will really give a lot of people a good base of help and will be in-valuable to a lot of people. Nice one, I wish you luck on creating it! :)
  • UtopianGamesUtopianGames Member Posts: 5,692
    Sounds amazing!!!

    Go Joe!!!

    Darren.
  • dereklaruedereklarue Member Posts: 121
    Sweet!!
  • butterbeanbutterbean Member Posts: 4,315
    Go Joe! :)
  • DanielAvniDanielAvni Member Posts: 114
    Cant wait i really need this and learn alot from it please start as soon as u can haha
  • JGary321JGary321 Member Posts: 1,246
    I think this will really help noob & veteran alike. Looking forward to it.
  • ktfrightktfright Member Posts: 964
    I love the idea. can't wait to see what happens.
  • HunnenkoenigHunnenkoenig Member Posts: 1,173
    Don't promise too much! :-P

    First get it done, than advertise.

    I know from experience that good will not always ends in solid results :-)

    I am looking for it too.
  • debugdesigndebugdesign Member Posts: 886
    How long do you expect it will take? This way we could be getting our visuals ready.
  • rebumprebump Member Posts: 1,058
    So I guess your next app to be released is a rock solid platformer that many are going to copy a bit from the demos released from such? :-)
  • firemaplegamesfiremaplegames Member Posts: 3,211
    I have most of the first couple done...

    It's not perfect yet, though. I want it to be bullet-proof. Almost there. Hopefully soon!

    Trying to tie up loose ends before MacWorld.
  • ktfrightktfright Member Posts: 964
    I'm rooting for ya! ;)
  • DanielAvniDanielAvni Member Posts: 114
    i cant wait im making a game right know platformer and once these tuts are out i will prefect it so its perfect! I cant wait!
  • rebumprebump Member Posts: 1,058
    Would love to see the jumping demo if it is as (or even near as) solid as Mario-esque games.
  • rature3arature3a Member Posts: 2
    very good idea,
    thank you
  • DanielAvniDanielAvni Member Posts: 114
    Firemaplegames
    Any date u can tell us these might come out?
    I REALLY WANT THEM. haha
  • firemaplegamesfiremaplegames Member Posts: 3,211
    @rebump: yes, that is my goal. It is NOT easy! There is some small issues with GameSalad, as well as Box2D (the physics engine), and just little stuff here and there with Timers not always firing exactly the same, etc.

    Also, fun things that work 8 out of 10 times, stuff like that.

    At any rate, I have it pretty much solid at this point. One weensy issue that's still bugging me, but I might just forget about it and keep going.

    I have these working pretty much perfectly so far:

    Movement
    Jumping
    Ducking
    Solid Platforms
    Cloud Platforms
    Ice Platforms
    Conveyor Belts

    Now some of these don't sound very complicated, but when you couple them with things like running and stopping on Solid Platforms vs. Ice Platforms, they get pretty tricky.

    I want this to be absolutely bullet-proof. This is for my games as well.

    Once I have everything working, I will break it up into the tutorial files.

    I want to make sure that the tutorials are coherent, and not always changing as I keep changing my mind with the code.

    Hopefully they will be done soon! I am currently at MacWorld, and also working on a million things, so you'll have to bear with me. :0)

    Joe
  • rebumprebump Member Posts: 1,058
    @tsb: Yeah, really!!

    @FMG: Your generosity apparently knows no bounds!
  • jbrown2177jbrown2177 Member Posts: 66
    This engine or tutorial you're working on sounds great. Because my second game after I get this first one out will be a platform game.
  • VoidedSkyVoidedSky Member Posts: 1,095
    Can't Wait!
    ~CTM
    Warning There was an error rendering this rich post.
  • quantumsheepquantumsheep Member Posts: 8,188
    Always wanted to do a platformer of some kind, but just didn't have the patience to work it all out!

    Glad you do though! ;)

    Looking forward to it!

    QS

    Dr. Sam Beckett never returned home...
    Twitter: https://twitter.com/Quantum_Sheep
    Web: https://quantumsheep.itch.io

  • QuinnZoneStudiosQuinnZoneStudios Member Posts: 452
    Very cool Joe!
    My current game is a platformer and a few things I've figured out okay but next I still need to get my moving platform working right. Trying to reverse engineer the GS example lol!

    Anyway thanks and have fun at MacWorld ;) Oh and good luck!

    Mike
  • firemaplegamesfiremaplegames Member Posts: 3,211
    Thanks! I now have the horizontal moving platform working solid now, and have the vertical one almost there...
  • ZillaZilla Member Posts: 157
    I can't wait! I am especially interested in the VERTICAL MOVING PLATFORMS.

    I am still struggling with my attempts because I have some difficulties when the players runs and jumps on these platforms especially when there is MORE THAN ONE on the scene that the actor can run on....
  • tekkendptekkendp Member Posts: 49
    Great stuff - 21, 22 and 23 is what I'm looking forward to.
  • firemaplegamesfiremaplegames Member Posts: 3,211
    Just letting everybody know that I am still working on this...
    Trust me, it is brutal!

    I have these working so far:

    Moving
    Ducking
    Jumping
    Solid Platforms
    Cloud Platforms
    Ice Platforms
    Conveyor Belts
    Horizontal Moving Platforms
    Vertical Moving Platforms
    Breakable Blocks/Platforms
    Timed Platforms (disappearing/reappearing)

    I'll start to release it in a little while.
    There's some more stuff that I want to lock down first.

    Joe
  • TobyToby Member Posts: 478
    This sounds really terrific and very generous. How do you find the time?

    Maybe Firemaple is a T-1000 from Cyberdyne systems and does not sleep!

    Nice to see contributions back to the community.
Sign In or Register to comment.

© Vanilla Keystone Theme 2025