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Scrolling Game Development Kit 1.4.0 Released
BlueMonk writes "Hoping that 2D gaming is not dead yet, version 1.4.0 of the Scrolling Game Development Kit for Windows was released at the weekend. It helps beginners as well as more experienced developers create 2D scrolling games. Take a look at some of the games created with the kit while you're at it." It's great to see homebrew 2D game construction supported like this.
It may just be me, but in my opinion the physics model is one of the most important features of a game. Good physics means great control, which makes all the difference between a good game and a great game.
Take, for example, the difference in physics between Super Mario 2 and 3. Each character in Super Mario 2 had their own funky physics, like Luigi's leg-spinning jump, which was sort of the charm of the game. However, Super Mario 3 had solid physics where you could easily predict where your character was going and send the character where you wanted it to go. I think that's a big reason why Super Mario 2 is a good game and Super Mario 3 is one of the best of all time.
Anyway, to relate this back to the article, a good side-scrolling game development kit needs a good or customizable physics model. Do many open game development kits emphasize that?
I (as the author) have long been excited about the idea of maybe just porting the runtime engine to another platform, since the runtime engine is a small percentage of the total project, and is the more important piece. Then you would at least be able to play the games accross platforms if not design them on any platform. I would probably have to drop VBScript support for the cross-platform version of the runtime, though, unless someone has implemented VBScript for other platforms.
Unfortunately I have few of the skills and little time to take on such a project (I haven't done much Linux/Unix programming). I'd be happy to support whoever would be interested in taking it on, though.
Version 1.4.0 introduces support for larger graphics. So, while most of the existing games use small sprites, the new version supports sprites and tiles up to 128x128 pixels. Even though the maximum size prior to version 1.4.0 was 64x64, many of the games didn't make graphics that large. Hopefully 128x128 will invite the larger graphics and make more people happy with graphic sizes in general. The new version also introduces support for multiple resolutions. Previously, all games were 640x480, but now they can run in 320x240, 640x480, 800x600 or 1024x768.
Oh, and in reply to the rest of your comment, the kit doesn't support a truly isometric view, but the included Wizard sample game does demonstrate a simulated kinda-isometric view. Rather than effectively offsetting the camera downwards and to one side, it only offsets it downwards. That means you can walk behind walls when your sprite is above (but partially overlapping) them on the screeen, but everything is still aligned to vertical and horizontal lines. You'll also have a problem if your sprite is tall enough to need to be in front of a particular graphic sometimes and behind it at others. (IE, walking in front of or behind the same piece of a tree trunk is not possible based purely on the position of the sprite).
At least there are some ways to kind of kludge a semi-isometric view. But it's not quite as helpful as a true isometric engine would be. Hopefully the parallax scrolling multiple layer support makes up for part of that defficiency.
vbslacker is a half complete attempt to get VB working in Linux. Currently has no active maintainer (icculus is rather busy). Feel free to try and help out if you can.
Did you take a look at the games with the highest staff ratings? Rolly the Purple Ball, Ethereal Peace and Chode?
The power is there, just nobody's pushed the kit to its limits yet. It can support maps with millions of animated tiles at full speed (1 frame per monitor refresh or more).