09-20-2020, 01:31 AM
As I have been working on my platformer engine, I am moving in the direction of a metroid-vania style game with free exploration and backtracking.
Here is a demo of the current state. There are some player animations yet to be done, and there are no NPCs or enemies yet. Tile collision detection needs work.
I am still figuring out what I want to do with backgrounds. I can either treat the 2nd scroll plane as another layer of map and tap into more palettes, or use it for hblank or parallax effects. I could end up picking and choosing per room.
Music is a placeholder. Tiles are a work in progress. Music and tiles are original, though, with tiles in particular, I have drawn inspiration from Castelvania.
Colors are not optimized for a stock NGPC screen. I will have to work on that. They work well on a NGPC with backlit LCD replacement.
What works:
-Dynamic room sizes. Some are vertically scrolling only, some are horizontal only, some are a combo, and some don't scroll at all since they're exactly the size of the screen.
-Quick switching between rooms/maps as you exit one and enter another.
-The castle that you're in front of at the beginning can be entered by pressing up in front of the doorway (this kind of exit is allowed but not used elsewhere)
-Side exits bring you into another room, and there can be multiple exits in a room.
-You can climb vines (though climbing animation needs to be done)
-Some platforms allow you to jump up through them and then push down/jump to jump back down.
We'll see how far I can take it.