controls:
CURSOR KEYS to move
CONTROL to pick up / throw object
SHIFT to jump / UP + SHIFT to jump higher
press DOWN while you land on top of an enemy to disable it.
I introduce a game engine called the Blox Game Engine and a game. This game (still in development stage) is a demo of the capabilities of the Blox Game Engine. So far the engine and the demo have been developed by me (Marco Christis) without a third party involvement. I would like to focus on this game engine a little closer in detail.
- The Blox Game Engine
The Blox Game Engine is programmed in Director Lingo. You can create 2D games with this engine that run optimal as a Shockwave movie on the web. There are two important components in this game engine.
The first component is the 2D tile-based scroll engine. This component renders a dynamic background image (the 2D World) and is responsible for the smooth and free scrolling in any angle. It took a lot of energy optimising this scroll engine and I am proud to say that it runs at a steady 45 fps on a Pentium III 450 Mhz. I think that's as fast as it gets using Director Lingo.
The second component is the World Object Controller. It takes care of all the objects that exist in the virtual world. This component animates the world objects and is responsible for the physics like velocity, collision detection, gravity, friction etc.
- Object oriented
The Blox Game Engine is built in a robust object oriented way and can be adapted and expanded. It is designed such way it can be easily extended with new behaviour/gameplay graphics and sound. This means that the heavy programming has already been done in the game engine. One can really focus on the gameplay now.
- Strong points
This Blox Game Engine can run behind many different game types but is specially fit for action games. The strength of this game engine is speed. The secret of good gameplay is a high frame rate. A high frame rate means fast reaction and that is what is giving the player the feeling of real control! And that's what I am missing in many of the other web games.
Another strong point of this engine is the use of tile-based graphics. With a relative small set of images (tiles) you can compose an infinitive virtual world. By designing and combining these tiles in a smart way you can generate great looking graphics. This is ideal for the internet because you can create large and beautifull environments without having to wait for downloading. In fact this demo game is only 200k!
Also the Blox Game Engine is programmed time based. This means that you experience the same game independent of the speed of your computer. Graphical objects move from point A to B in a certain amount of time. When your computer is slow then less frames are drawn for the animation than when you've got a fast computer. But the object always goes from point A to B in the same time! This prevents that the game becomes more or less difficult depending on the speed of your computer.
- The Demo Game
I have choosen to do a platformer using a side view with gravity. But it is also possible to use a top view to make for example a shooter, a RPG or an adventure.