Creating a Scene

Now I have to create each individual scene for the game, I have decided on making four levels, a start screen and a game completed screen but for now I will only concentrate on making the four level scenes. For the first scene I have use dthe background for the desert that I have edited myself, I wanted to use this one first as it was my favourite background and helped set the scene as a cowboy theme. I used the existing tile set that I have created for the scenary, and finally inserted my characters. I did this for three more scenes after and theyn all had different background. You can see below a print screen of all four different scenes.

Scene 1

Scene 2

Scene 3

Scene 4

Making the Tiles for My Game

I decided that considering my game is based on a cowboy theme that I should try and make a tile set of my own that has a sort of cowboy or desert theme to it. I felt the easiest way around this was to edit an existing tile set as I liked the shape and design of them already, just as they were based on grass they did not suit in my levels. To edit them I opened up each individual section of the tile and clicked the button "edit frame" this opened you up to Stencylworks own imaging software "Pencyl", I then experimented around with a variety of yellows and different shades until I found a style that I was happy with. I then saved the codes for each individual colour and added them to the rest of the tiles to complete my desert theme.

Creating a sand effect on Pencyl

Opening up individual tiles ready to edit them

Adding Sounds

I have decided that my character needs sounds to make the game more interesting to the user. I feel the only sounds needed for my game would be the main character jumping, and crushing the enemies. To get the sounds I downloaded them off Stencylforge by searching the sound behaviours, then to add it to my characters I have to click on both individual behaviours (jump and crushable) an dadd the sounds.

Deciding on Extra Scene Behaviours

For a sidescroll game you'll have to have a way for the camera to follow the player so it does not disppear off the screen, to do this there is a simple behaviour available on Stencylforge called "Camera Follow Player". This is a simple behaviour and when downloaded you just click the button "Add to Scene" and choose a character for it to follow, for mine I have chosen the main character (Cowboy) and this also means that the player will never disappear off the screen.

Adding the Scene Backgrounds

To add the scene backgrounds I firstly had to edit them to be the size of the scenes within the game, to do this I used Photoshop. The size of the scenes within my game were 640 x 384 pixels. Once all of the scenes were added to the game file all I had to do was click "Attach to Scene" and then select the desired scene and it will now be the background. I did encounter a few issues as the background was often not showing in the game, but I found out after that the problem was only due to the fact that I had not clicked the background properties as "No Colour".

Editing a Scene Background to Fit the Game

Adding My Characters Into Stencylworks

When I created my game in Stencylwork I used the side scroll example as a template for my game. Firstly I had to add my own animatons for the characters. To do this I opened up the pre existing characters and changed the frames to my own, for example firstly I clicked on the character Mambo and changed the name to Cowboy as this was the main player. Secondly I had to open up each frame (walking left / right, jumping left / right and the stationary image) and click edit frame, this brought up an option to change each frame to own images so all I had to do was find the images within my files and replace them. This process then had to be repeated with the bad guy character, which in the example was called "Pronger" so firstly I changed the name to "Cactus" and changed all the animations required for it to be a proper character. After this I had to make sure both characters are in the proper character set, so the Cowboy character needs to be in players and the Cactus character needs to be in the enemy section, this allows the main character to 'Stomp' the bad guy (enemies). The good thing about the side scroll example is the fact that all the behaviours I needed to make succesful characters are included already.

Walking Right Animation (Cowboy)

Hurt Left Animation (Cactus)

Idle Right Animation (Cowboy)

Weekly Update Report 2

This week my primary focus has been creating the characters to be used within my game and the backgrounds to be used for my levels. I decided on a cowboy blob for my main character, who is purple and has some stereotypical western clothes like jeans, a bandanna and a cowboy hat. For the bad guy I have chosen a cactus as I felt having a plant as a bad guy would give the user a bit of a comedy feel to the game and obviously is highly appropriate to my chosen theme. My plan now for the next few weeks is to create the whole game itself, I need to include all of the character images in as frames to make them into an animation, and then give the character the appropriate behaviours. I also need to think of how many levels I will have, whether I will create my own tile set and whether to have start-up screens and completed screens.