Titityler: A Soapy Platfohrmer

[pjbebi]

viewtopic.php?t=8326

In high school I drew a webcomic in which my friend Tyler was a bar of soap. Last time PJ visited home, Tyler couldn't help but notice his old friend really needed a bath. Maybe he doesn't have any soap? As Tyler, it's your job to collect 300 pennies from around the house so you can ship yourself to your old friend PJ. My goal was to make a flick-screen platformer in the style of Monty on the Run or Jet Set Willy with the advantages of new hardware, hoping to create something that's equally fresh, familiar, and fun, allowing players to earn a sense of achievement in a game that relies only on their own skill and wit.

Titityler was designed for users to easily make their own maps in custom. Maps are made entirely of tiles, converted to slices. No walls and no npcs. The scripts will read your starting map and starting position defined in custom.

With this alpha release, I'd love to hear everything you hate about it and think needs to be fixed or changed. Then I can make list of your brilliant insights with which to mold this into a thing strangers will want to play.

GOALS FOR ALPHA:
-land on your butt sometimes
-fix upward momentum when brushing a wall
-shorter minimum jump
-pausing after death/smoother deaths

GOALS FOR BETA:
bugs fixed
refined map
handsome graphics (all in alpha 1 are placeholders)
title screen/load/high scores
backgrounds
ending scene

GOALS FOR FINAL:
more maps
soundtrack
polish

KNOWN ISSUES:
*Without a Saved game, you'll have infinitely replenishing blue bubbles, however you may get trapped instead of respawning at your save point

[kylekrack]

Good.

A few things:
- For how slippery it is, the framerate feels a little low. Controlling the character, especially midair, is extremely finnicky.
- The minimum jump height is too high. It should be just enough to get up onto a half tile, since that's the lowest jump you might need to make
- There's an frame of animation of the character laying down when reloading the game. I need to be able to do this on command, I don't care if it does anything, I want to fall on my slime. The ability to duck and lower your own hitbox would also be a nice touch, without adding in too much gameplay
- There are certain respawn points that drop you to your death pretty quickly. Pausing after death until the player presses the jump button would let you see where you're about to fall before you die in a fan 4 times in a row in rapid succession.
- Why do the save pools gradually eat the UI? Doesn't seem to be a purpose to that other than hiding my health bar.
- Sometimes you lose upward momentum when jumping into a wall, which is just kind of punishing. It's especially rough when it happens against a small platform.

[pjbebi]

- Why do the save pools gradually eat the UI? Doesn't seem to be a purpose to that other than hiding my health bar.
- Sometimes you lose upward momentum when jumping into a wall, which is just kind of punishing. It's especially rough when it happens against a small platform.

wow. lots of good stuff here. thank you! I added some of that stuff to my list of goals for alpha. the framerate is kind of low, and at most you're moving 8 pixels per tick. I'm undecided about that since I've experienced some slowdown at higher framerates. If the problem is on my end, I could probably load slices per screen. As of now, I'm running the whole map the whole time.

[pjbebi]

titityler0017.gif (723.73 KiB) Viewed 100 times

Made myself a title screen. Saves/Loads are also working as intended. Release A2 is coming friday with lots of stuff.

[RMZ]

Absolutely love the work you're putting into this. The sudsy bubbles in game look great too!

[pjbebi]

It's hard to talk good when you're trying to play your game good. Oh well. Maybe we should stream it sometime.

[RMZ]

Really great video.

What are your plans for like tutorials and stuff for some of the mechanics? Some of the features require you to hold the jump button, is that something you want people to pick up naturally? Unfortunately there's a percentage of players who like everything spelled out for them and those that like to figure it out, the former tends to complain the loudest and even takes to discussion areas of Steam to immediately air their grievances with your game. It's hard to think of everything somebody might complain about and squash it like a programming bug, so just curious on your thoughts for tutorials.

Been an absolute joy working with you on whatever art you let me do. I've always wanted to be a part of a sidescroller and getting better at animations like the coin and the noodle were fun for me.

[pjbebi]

What are your plans for like tutorials and stuff for some of the mechanics? Some of the features require you to hold the jump button, is that something you want people to pick up naturally? Unfortunately there's a percentage of players who like everything spelled out for them and those that like to figure it out, the former tends to complain the loudest and even takes to discussion areas of Steam to immediately air their grievances with your game. It's hard to think of everything somebody might complain about and squash it like a programming bug, so just curious on your thoughts for tutorials.

I hadn't thought of doing a tutorial. Maybe I'll put up some signs in the first rooms that give the player tips like "hold jump" or "jump here".

[pjbebi]

Oh yeah. devlog stuff.
FIXES IN A3:
-fixed loss of horizontal momentum when bumping the ceiling
-two slices for plunger, so you don't get hurt by the invisible area near the handle
-tweaked fans. hopefully they'll stop making you fall through the floor on occasion
-smoother landings. less overlapping of player and floor
-handsome maptiles courtesy of RMZ
-music selection working in mini map menu
-backdrops are going, a work in progress
-enemies clear and load for each screen instead of all in the beginning to run the whole time.
-more sprites and sprite animations
-canceled 'continue' option in the intro if no save exists
-refined speed of enemies: spatulas, feet, flies
-better hit detection with platforms