Hi Everyone
We started work on on our scrolling platform game this week and I showed you all how to get started. You can customise even further to suit your game as the weeks go on .
To understand the concept, you must understand that the STAGE is only 480 pixels wide (x goes from -240 to +240). No one SPRITE can be larger than the STAGE and we won’t be able to see a SPRITE that isn’t on the STAGE (ie. it’s x position is less than -240 or greater than +240). So we have to set up a series of SPRITES that extend past the stage and move them across the stage from left to right and under Mario’s feet to make it look like he is moving over the ground from right to left!
1. We started picking our character from the internet or from the Sprite Library
2. Next, we drew our own Ground SPRITE using the PAINT NEW SPRITE button. Important!! The sprite must be the full length of the stage!! See the 1st picture above for an example of what the ground sprite could look like. Mine looked like a brick wall, but yours can look like a stone wall or concrete one or some kind of footpath or road.
3. Now we must code our Ground SPRITE! We need to set it’s inital x position to zero and continuously move it in a direction for as long as we are pushing the right or left arrow buttons. To do this we need a new VARIABLE called XPOS. Go to DATA and create this new VARIABLE. See the image below on the bottom the instructions for setting up the initial position of the first ground SPRITE. After you create and code the first one, we can duplicate Ground SPRITE 1 and create Ground SPRITE 2. Be sure that Ground SPRITE 2 has an xpos set to 480 pixels more than Ground SPRITE 1.
4. Lastly, for this week, we need to get the Ground SPRITES to move!!
!!IMPORTANT! !Click the little i button on your Ground SPRITE and see all the information about the SPRITE. Change the rotational direction of the Ground SPRITE to non-rotational. It is a button that looks like a dot.
We then coded the Ground SPRITES to move to the left when we press the left arrow key and to the right when we press the right arrow key on our keyboards. See below: Be careful to program the left arrow key to Point In Direction 90 and the right arrow key to Point In Direction -90. Notice both the Change xpos By commands have different numbers! (-5 and +5) Get these wrong and the SPRITE will not move in the correct direction. Once you have the 1st ground SPRITE working the way you like, duplicate it and all it’s coding. All you have to change in Ground SPRITE 2 is the xpos. It must be set to XPOS +480. If you duplicate that sprite, you must set it’s xpos to XPOS + 960 and so on and so on…
We will add some obstacles this week and maybe have some rewards for our character as well.
See you Saturday
Martha