Another update on osc.

Well, I've been working hard(er than usual) on a level linking system for osc. Levels now have an x and y value, which show where they are on a grid. When osc moves off the side of a level, he either goes to the level which is adjacent in that direction on the grid or, if there isn't an adjacent level there, falls to his doom. At the moment, it works pretty well, except that:
a) Instead of appearing at the right side of the level if he came from the left of the next level along (and vice versa), he appears in the spawn point of that level (whereever I've put an 'x' in the level.txt),
b) when I fix that, osc will respawn where the x was in the first level, which could be in a really weird place), and
d) ...I forgot c.

So, with all of these problems in mind, I'm going to set off on Fishy's Epic Quest of Fixing-ness. Tomorrow. Because it's late. grraaaawaiwfojdsifnxnfioewhf.

See you tomorrow! :D

Update on osc

I'm still not really sure exactly which direction I want osc to pursue, but I've settled on a plan for now. osc will be the first in a non-linear series of games. It will set up the story for the next games, without having any kind of interesting twist which makes it separate from all other Metroidvania games. I'm too far into it to add an interesting gameplay element, but I'll keep trying to think of some, and each of these twists will be the basis for an entire game, which will be a sequel to osc. At some point in the story of osc will be a decision between several paths. In osc itself, nothing will change no matter which path is taken, but the next game in the series will be decided by it, much like the evolution pattern of the Pokemon Eevee. For example, when the game is beaten, the ending message will tell what the sequel will be based on the choice in the game. The sequel will carry on where osc left off, and each possible sequel will have a different main gameplay element.

As for my progress on the game, I must admit I haven't done much. I managed to put in keys and doors without many problems, and also doors to other levels without any problems in the code, but with many problems in practicality.

I've also added an external level editor. Isn't it just so advanced?

That .txt file results in the level shown in the image in the post below. It really is a text file, and it's incredibly annoying to use. There aren't even any line breaks, because I think that was probably where I went wrong the last time I tried to make a similar level editor. To be able to understand which row is which without having to count in multiples of 16, I have to resize the window so that the text wraps around every 16 characters. Safe to say, it's a huge step down from Atmosphir.

Next step is to give osc the ability to throw part of his scarf at enemies.

It's been a long time.

I'll admit I kind of lost interest in my blog, but I feel I would like to make another post, so it'll either be really long or really condensed, as a lot of things have happened since I last posted. The biggest thing for me at the moment (and definitely the most related to this blog) is osc. osc (yep, it's lowercase even at the start of a sentence) is a game based around the eponymous character, an orange-scarf-wearing cat thing. 'osc' is in fact an acronym of 'orange' and 'scarf' (sort of).

It's a platformer-RPG-Metroidvania-survival game, so... yeah. The art style is similar to that of Cave Story and Fez, and I wish I could post screenshots, but whenever I try the game window shows up pitch black on the screenshot. I'll work on making a simulated screenshot by photoshopping (or Paint.NETing, as it were) all of the backgrounds, blocks and props (and osc, of course) together. Hopefully it'll look like a real screenshot.

I've also been playing heaps of Minecraft. An online friend of mine, Turqmelon, created a server. I've had to repair the house twice after creeper attacks.

Well, I spent a few minutes making a screenshot. I used the real version for reference, so it looks exactly how it would have looked if I had actually taken a screenshot.

There's only one difference, though: keys aren't actually in the game yet, and neither are doors. Hopefully those shouldn't be too hard to implement though, so those will come very soon.

I'm making it in Ruby using the Gosu code library, FL Studio for music and Paint.NET for the art.

This is the furthest I've got with a game by myself so far! :D