really fun and educating game about game development, I wish I had played this game when I was in my game developer phase :(. But overall enjoyed this game a lot and learned a lot too. thanks for making it so good <3
This is amazing and very informative. I think it's a great way to illustrate the concepts and to get some hands-on understanding. I hope you'll consider doing more of these on occasion.
...I think what this game taught me is I don't actually like platformers like I thought. "Slidey and floaty" seem more to my liking oddly, with the default settings, and my extremes I put didn't slide, but, I sure leaned into floaty pretty hard! Heck, I basically made Kit fly and bypassed the challenges, and going through on the presets didn't quite feel as fun for me.
Is there a term for, like, "anti-platformers" I guess? I put in 19 max speed and 80 for Accel/Decel, max jump height/duration with no downgrav increase, doublejump on, air accel/control/brake all maxed, variable height on, max coyote time/jump buffer and minimum terminal velocity, and I absolutely drenched it in every drop of juice I had, and it was legitimately the most fun "platformer" experience I think I've had, and I've played a lotta sonic and mario games...
Also: No idea what "Jump Cutoff" does, maybe a question circle coulda been nice for it.
Jump Cutoff determines the minimum height of your jump if you have the variable height option turned on. The higher it's set, the smaller the minimum jump is (i.e, if you tap the button you'll get a tiny jump).
I tried to set my jump cutoffs so that a simple tap of the button sufficed for most of the jumps and holding the button worked for places the player might want extra height or control.
Edit: I tried your controls, and while I would certainly not make this a character's default jump arc, this is basically what gliding as Knuckles feels like in the Genesis games. But Knuckles can stop gliding to land on platforms... and I think your Kit could use that as well, haha.
Part of me wants a game where that wouldn't be needed, if that makes any sense. A sorta anti-platformer of sorts, with the opposite of precision. Least, that's what I learned from playing with this.
A game that wants you gliding about on momentum as your regular default state, perhaps where any platforms you'd want to land on are big enough that your "stop gliding" is just faceplanting.
Kind of reminds me of A Hat in Time, especially with the 'gliding everywhere with double jump and fast acceleration'. That's a 3D game though.
Otherwise, I do think you're onto something. In high school I kind of made a similar type of platformer as you described but you're playing as a tiny RC car (hence why you can have slipper momentum and have so much control in your jump). I now want to explore that concept again since you're implying there is a demand for it.
Maybe we can start the trend towards 'vehicle based platformers'.
this was super fun!!! it felt great when i made kit feel responsive and clean :) plus coming up with solutions to any issues i found made me feel very smart!!!
my controls:
Max speed: 11 Acceleration: 69 Deceleration: 80 Turn speed: 99 Jump height: 3.6 Gravity: 1.3 Duration: 2.9 Air control: 42 Air acceleration: 38 Air brake: 13 X dampening: 0.2 Y dampening: 1.1 Lookahead: 0.1 Zoom: 9 Coyote time: 0.2 Jump buffer: 0.2 Terminal velocity: 11
Fun setup that'd hopefully be good for an action platformer?
max speed: 13 accel/deccel: 30 turn speed: 85
jump height: 4.1 down gravity: 1 duration: 3
air accel: 30 air control: 40 air brake: 22 (tbh you could probably stand to set this far higher, to be able to more easily stop in midair just short of an enemy's contact damage hitbox and make melee attacks)
variable height: yes jump cutoff: 4.1
coyote time: barely above 0, not high enough to show as 0.1 jump buffer: high end of 0.1, just low enough to not show as 0.2 terminal velocity: 15
rounded corners: yes
jump and landing SFX on, GFX set pretty low but not to nothing. run GFX: 0 Trail: just barely above 0.
it took me forever to try this, but i'm glad i finally did. if i were to criticize it at all i'd say that i feel it'd be more accurate to say there is a small window of where the settings are set to that would be fun with the level, but that's more of a nitpick than actual constructive criticism.
I really love this! It's a pleasure to use. I've wanted to make something similar for our educational toolkit Gamefroot for years but we've never got around to it - as you know there's lots of moving parts!
But now that we have some inspiration (you beauty) we are porting this interface and all the variables into make.gamefroot.com. It's not currently visible or ready to show off but I just wanted to let you know that your work is inspirational and that we will be engaging the next generation of game designer with your thinking and our thinking combined.
I'd love to chat more about this if you ever have a spare moment :)
Ah, this is great! I’ll have to point game jam friends to this the next time they want to make a platform game so that the world won’t be afflicted with yet another ice-skating game with floaty physics. :)
Feel like this is missing a jump acceleration meter, so that the height of a short press can be messed with without making that of a long press gigantic. This absence is especially easy to feel with the supposed run & jump presets, Sonic's in particular.
The platforms are also weirdly finicky. The series of crates can randomly just take away all of your momentum, which gets in the way of feeling out and showcasing the points this app/game/essay tries to make. Maybe a toggle to also make the *platforms* rounded corners would've been a good idea.
There's also a weird effect to horizontal damping, where putting it at low levels feels "better", but when you run into a wall, the camera will snap back and jerk behind your character, which makes me motion sick. I couldn't find any settings combination that kept a tiny amount of it for feeling the impact of running into a wall without getting in the way of the lookahead.
I truly love the idea behind this, but I can't say the execution actually illustrates it well.
I have always wanted to make a platformer and this makes it so easy to tweak values it would be nice if there is a feature where I can download the values and put them in my engine.
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No speed runs of this yet???
Thank you for making it..!! I appreciate it, and I love your YouTube channel..!!
good
this is awesome! thank you :)
great tutorial and very informative!!
if you click to another panel right after the one he's talking about, you get locked there.
really fun and educating game about game development, I wish I had played this game when I was in my game developer phase :(. But overall enjoyed this game a lot and learned a lot too. thanks for making it so good <3
I used to play this for fun and now it helps me with basic sidescroller movements and is in most of my games that I've tried to mak
This is amazing and very informative. I think it's a great way to illustrate the concepts and to get some hands-on understanding. I hope you'll consider doing more of these on occasion.
...I think what this game taught me is I don't actually like platformers like I thought. "Slidey and floaty" seem more to my liking oddly, with the default settings, and my extremes I put didn't slide, but, I sure leaned into floaty pretty hard! Heck, I basically made Kit fly and bypassed the challenges, and going through on the presets didn't quite feel as fun for me.
Is there a term for, like, "anti-platformers" I guess? I put in 19 max speed and 80 for Accel/Decel, max jump height/duration with no downgrav increase, doublejump on, air accel/control/brake all maxed, variable height on, max coyote time/jump buffer and minimum terminal velocity, and I absolutely drenched it in every drop of juice I had, and it was legitimately the most fun "platformer" experience I think I've had, and I've played a lotta sonic and mario games...
Also: No idea what "Jump Cutoff" does, maybe a question circle coulda been nice for it.
Jump Cutoff determines the minimum height of your jump if you have the variable height option turned on. The higher it's set, the smaller the minimum jump is (i.e, if you tap the button you'll get a tiny jump).
I tried to set my jump cutoffs so that a simple tap of the button sufficed for most of the jumps and holding the button worked for places the player might want extra height or control.
Edit: I tried your controls, and while I would certainly not make this a character's default jump arc, this is basically what gliding as Knuckles feels like in the Genesis games. But Knuckles can stop gliding to land on platforms... and I think your Kit could use that as well, haha.
Part of me wants a game where that wouldn't be needed, if that makes any sense. A sorta anti-platformer of sorts, with the opposite of precision. Least, that's what I learned from playing with this.
A game that wants you gliding about on momentum as your regular default state, perhaps where any platforms you'd want to land on are big enough that your "stop gliding" is just faceplanting.
Kind of reminds me of A Hat in Time, especially with the 'gliding everywhere with double jump and fast acceleration'. That's a 3D game though.
Otherwise, I do think you're onto something. In high school I kind of made a similar type of platformer as you described but you're playing as a tiny RC car (hence why you can have slipper momentum and have so much control in your jump). I now want to explore that concept again since you're implying there is a demand for it.
Maybe we can start the trend towards 'vehicle based platformers'.
Maybe, maybe!
...did anyone else feel like the "Doesn't feel right" defaults were actually fun a bit even with the level clearly not built to accommodate?
I feel like default settings Kit could very well have a place in a game built to accommodate the high speed high jump platforming Kit was doing.
max everything in jump, but turn air control and air brake to 0to launch yourself like a catapult, also turn on double jump to still hav some control
Can u make an android port?
There is probably something wrong with coyote time. You can jump when you're way off the edge, but not when you're right on the edge.
One problem: Sometimes the screen can get tinted yellow.
this was super fun!!! it felt great when i made kit feel responsive and clean :) plus coming up with solutions to any issues i found made me feel very smart!!!
my controls:
Max speed: 11
Acceleration: 69
Deceleration: 80
Turn speed: 99
Jump height: 3.6
Gravity: 1.3
Duration: 2.9
Air control: 42
Air acceleration: 38
Air brake: 13
X dampening: 0.2
Y dampening: 1.1
Lookahead: 0.1
Zoom: 9
Coyote time: 0.2
Jump buffer: 0.2
Terminal velocity: 11
Fun setup that'd hopefully be good for an action platformer?
max speed: 13
accel/deccel: 30
turn speed: 85
jump height: 4.1
down gravity: 1
duration: 3
air accel: 30
air control: 40
air brake: 22 (tbh you could probably stand to set this far higher, to be able to more easily stop in midair just short of an enemy's contact damage hitbox and make melee attacks)
variable height: yes
jump cutoff: 4.1
coyote time: barely above 0, not high enough to show as 0.1
jump buffer: high end of 0.1, just low enough to not show as 0.2
terminal velocity: 15
rounded corners: yes
jump and landing SFX on, GFX set pretty low but not to nothing.
run GFX: 0
Trail: just barely above 0.
personal favourite settings:
20 accel
6 top speed
40 deccel
65 turn speed
no instant movement
jump height 3
down speed 1.2
duration 3
air accel 25
air control 30
air brake 1
no double jump
no variable height
zoom 6
x damp 0
y damp 1.5
lookahead 0
ignore jumps
coyote time 0.2
jump buffer 0.2
term velocity 15
rounded corners
particles:
2 run
3 jump
6 land
s&s:
1.2 jump
1.1 land
no trail
lean angle 5
lean speed 60
sfx for jumping and landing
It makes me want to make a game but it was too easy
Gdevelop
it took me forever to try this, but i'm glad i finally did. if i were to criticize it at all i'd say that i feel it'd be more accurate to say there is a small window of where the settings are set to that would be fun with the level, but that's more of a nitpick than actual constructive criticism.
I really love this! It's a pleasure to use. I've wanted to make something similar for our educational toolkit Gamefroot for years but we've never got around to it - as you know there's lots of moving parts!
But now that we have some inspiration (you beauty) we are porting this interface and all the variables into make.gamefroot.com. It's not currently visible or ready to show off but I just wanted to let you know that your work is inspirational and that we will be engaging the next generation of game designer with your thinking and our thinking combined.
I'd love to chat more about this if you ever have a spare moment :)
Awesome, i love it. Great job!
This is very nice.
Hey Mark, can I use this controller in my game?
Ah, this is great! I’ll have to point game jam friends to this the next time they want to make a platform game so that the world won’t be afflicted with yet another ice-skating game with floaty physics. :)
You are an invaluable resource to game designers, Mark. Thanks for this! Maybe I will try out making a platformer next.
This is great!
terminal vel 20
jump buffer 0
coytete jump 0.4
My build
M ax speed 5
Instamove
turn speed 60
jump hieght 5.5
down grav 2
air contrull 60
air accelleration 60
air brake 60
Feel like this is missing a jump acceleration meter, so that the height of a short press can be messed with without making that of a long press gigantic. This absence is especially easy to feel with the supposed run & jump presets, Sonic's in particular.
The platforms are also weirdly finicky. The series of crates can randomly just take away all of your momentum, which gets in the way of feeling out and showcasing the points this app/game/essay tries to make. Maybe a toggle to also make the *platforms* rounded corners would've been a good idea.
There's also a weird effect to horizontal damping, where putting it at low levels feels "better", but when you run into a wall, the camera will snap back and jerk behind your character, which makes me motion sick. I couldn't find any settings combination that kept a tiny amount of it for feeling the impact of running into a wall without getting in the way of the lookahead.
I truly love the idea behind this, but I can't say the execution actually illustrates it well.
🐞 instant movement checkbox doesnt work in web
The resource is great, it will definitely help a lot of people create unique character moves! :D
Also, thank you very much for the opportunity to download the code.
I have always wanted to make a platformer and this makes it so easy to tweak values it would be nice if there is a feature where I can download the values and put them in my engine.
I'm going to have a crack at doing this for Javascript games. It might generate JSON :)
ye
This is amazing! Thank you for making this awesome tool, Mark.
Very cool, Mark. A very helpful (and entertaining) demonstration.
Very fun and informative, thanks Mark.