Iron Fist Platformer Update

OK I have uploaded another demo of Iron Fist, my Kung Fu scrolling platform game made in BlitzPlus.



Download it here: http://www.jbcomputersolutions.com/ironfist.shtml

It is just an engine at the moment but is great fun and really smooth (I think). The "to do" list is 8 pages long though! Send me your ideas and bugs if you like. If anyone feels like modifying the graphics and emailing them back to me (for free ;-)) then please do so - but don't rip the existing graphics for your own projects!

Your frame rate should be well over 50 FPS on a 2GHZ or higher, let me know if you fail to achieve smooth gameplay and post your system specs, thanks.

Oh yeah, please read the Readme ;-)

Looks nice - Bruce Lee for the 21st Century - I would play it if I had a PC.

Falken: What do you have then? Shame you can't play it as that is where the fun is!

Just saw you post in the Mac OS forum so I guess I have answered my own question.

maybe you can port it to blitzmax :) then anyone can play it :)

Nice idea, Deux, but I've got my own projects on the go - I'll be showing off my first BlitzMax creation soon.

Grey Alien - Yeah just switched to Mac - I like them but I'm really missing all the compatibility of a PC! Go and buy Max then I can play your future creations!!!

I think the player should be able to move while they are kicking and punching.

Health bar should be at bottom of screen, preferably overlaid over screen because that would look better. At the top you don't notice it and you die before you realise you are low on health.

Jumping into lava pits is too unforgiving. If the player could grab onto a ledge and pull themsevles up then if they almost made it over a pit they wouldn't die, though if their feet are touching the lava they might take some damage if they don't pull themsevles up fast enough.

Needs an arrow telling you to go to the left. Also, you could have spots like Double Dragon where you can't advance until you kill all the guys.

The graphics need work. Mixing photographs and cartoon stuff rarely works well. Plus the screen is so busy it's hard to see the action. And the draw order of some stuff is weird. The tree is in front of one crate, and behind another.

A quick easy way to make your game look better would be to make all those background objects black, and drawn behind everything else. Then they will look like silhouettes. Also, make the sky darker, more saturated, more pink/orange.

There are no Easter Island heads in China. :-)

The giant plant isn't realistic. But then neither are floating platforms in the sky. :-)

Floating platforms underground are okay because they might be rocks jutting out of the wall. But above ground, you could have houses with roofs you can jump on, and two floors, and stone blocks alongside to get the player up there. Plus round poles sticking out of the ground at varying heights that the player can jump on and walk through.

Crates need to look more like something you'd find in China.

I have a sprite you can use for a powerup, that I made somewhere around 1992 and never used for anything:

@Falken, cant wait to see your bmax stuff !!

Will download your game the minute I can break away from my pathetic internet connection.

Deux -

If only you knew - its a real slice of old school cheese - 5 days so far in the making and nearly finished!

*blinks*

You were being sarcastic, yes?

TBH, screenshot didn't make me want to even download it. You've got at least four different styles of graphics in there - none of which fit together at all.

GfK: Those stick men took ages ;-) The graphics are a mish mash as I am just posting a work in progress. It is fun to play and I felt was a good example of how to make a platform game in Blitz Plus, take a look dude!

sswift: thanks for the sprite and the tips.

I should have said that this really is just an engine test as I know the graphics don't match up and it was cluttered and there are platforms in the sky etc. For example crates won't really fall from the sky! The point is it works! And I was proud ... Oh yeah, the level will have the correct ethnic theme eventually. The underground pillers are from Cambodia and the plants are from a sub-tropical garden in Dorset, UK!

The idea with the draw order is that the sky draws (an is static, I have a draker sky ready for another level), then background objects (which should be darker or silouettes, then the platform objects, then finally the foreground objects. I want foreground objects so you can walk behind stuff. The "tree" you mentioned is actually 2 trees, one in the background and one in the foreground.

The levels will have a bigger feel to them eventually, plus you'll have to train first like kicking melons on poles etc.
Although ledge grabbing is a good idea, I might not do it as I wanted an old-school platformer feel like Turrican which had no ledge grabbing. (but I might cave in, in the end)

In reality you can't move when kicking unless you are in mid air, you could move and punch but really the idea is you are committed to an attack and thus have to wait until it completes. It will have animation frames in the end of a leg going out and back in so it won't feel like you have "frozen" as much.

Anyway thanks for the ideas, wait for my next post!

regards