This week was quite busy in the Advancers group.

Talk on Coolest Projects

• Oliver gave a talk on the “Coolest projects” and many of us are planning on targetting it this year –
  • the deadlines are Mid-March for submission of ideas and Mid-June to attend the event itself!
  • Mark and Oliver are going to dedicate the last 30 min of each week to helping people with their projects.

Platform Engine

We started a platform Engine and got most of the code done – next week we’ll finish up the engine (not much code, honest!) and see what it would take to make it into games.  A Platform Engine is something that’s useful in lots of types of games or interactive adventures – be they mario-style or escape-room style, etc.  Once we have this platform engine done, we can easily apply it to other cases.  Think about ideas for platformers for your coolest project!

Things we got working:

1. Gravity so the player falls
2. Stopping when we hit the ground
3. Not falling “into” the ground
4. Walking along bumpy ground
5. Not walking over bumps that are too high (like walls)
6. Jumping

Things we didn’t get working (yet):

1. “popping” up over walls
2. Animating our walk
3. Snagging on edges
4. Scores, lives, etc.

Next week we can look at the above to see how we might do it, and also what it might take to make it look pretty, add a loading screen, etc.

The full code for today is below (click to view large):

Code from Week 1

We will finish this next week and make a game out of it!  You can download the project from here