NinjaScroll - a work in progress.

SteveZX81

That is awesome!

Electric Dreams

Very nice use of this artwork assets.

Dave

@SteveZX81 thanks mate! Good old Ansimuz. You can throw his artwork at a screen and it will just look beautiful.

Martin

I need to investigate this - firstly side-scrolling, but also the parallax effect - very nice :)

Dave

@Martin Thanks man! I'm using the same scrolling technique as I did in the Gothic Vania demo. Just a multiplier in the scroll speed!

Dave

** Update **

Stayed up far too late last night adding the start of the enemy processing. Wanted to achieve the effect of them starting out behind the level, then jumping into the scene!

Think it worked out quite well! :)

Next up, collision and player score!

pianofire

@dave Absolutely stunning mate

Dave

@pianofire thank you so much man.

doumdoum

This post is deleted!

Spacemario

@Dave This is really cool! The foreground art reminds me of "Ninja Spirit", and the background art almost looks Game Boy-like-- it's a neat juxtaposition. The "enemies from background to foreground" trick is used in parts of my all-time favorite ninja game, "Shinobi III" on the Mega Drive/Genesis.

Dave

@Spacemario ;) Nicely spotted! Yep - I couldn't remember exactly which games use that technique but I've played a few in my time. I love the effect though and was very, very happy to be able to recreate :)

lawyerlounge

is the background-scroll randomly generating patterns, or is it a predefined level length and layout?

Dave

It's an array of 5 elements, each containing the index into the array of level images.

Each is drawn and scrolled with the camera, then, when the image at the end of the array is fully visible on screen, every element in the array is moved backwards, and a new element is created at the end, chosen randomly from a selection of the images (with a bias towards the trees, since they look good when repeating but the others less so).

I'm using a function like this:

function levelGen()
    L = len(level) - 1
    for i = 0 to L loop
        level[i] = level[i + 1]
    repeat
    level[L] = selection[random(5)]
    cam.x -= levelWidth
return void

Of course without the rest of the context this isn't much help, but I hope it answers your question!

lawyerlounge

Interesting, that's insightful thanks!

FuzeBen

@Dave Looking really nice, mate!
One thing that I would say is I think the enemies should run further before jumping in.

Dave

@FuzeBen The distance they run before jumping in will be randomised soon. Then, when they're coming out faster it should be quite a challenge to keep up with which ninja is coming from where and when they'll attack!

Dave

Got some more updates coming to this! Latest additions:

Collision - ability to hit enemies and be hit
Player and enemy attack sounds
Player score
Game over condition with ending screen

Will make a post in the next couple of days with some progress!

Dave

Update to Ninja Scroll! Sorry this has been so delayed everyone!

There's a couple other clips I'll be posting in a moment. Now we can chop enemies down, get chopped down by enemies, there're sounds and a game over screen too :)

This game will be in the demos for the next Fuze update! See if you can beat my high score of 26. It gets quite silly in the later stages :)

Too many ninjas, too many many ninjas.

Jaywalker

That looks awesome :)

Dave

@Jaywalker Cheers mate!