Progress continues...
buttcrumbs
released <a href="http://cid-e4805aca7fcc8959.skydrive.live.com/
embedrowdetail.aspx/.Public/CrazySpace%20v0.1.zip">here </a>
At that time, I began porting the project into Silverlight. I then
sat on the project for a few months and then found interest in it
again a couple weeks ago. You can see my initial game port at
http://jayndan.blogspot.com (very little to see except that it is
running in Silverlight now). I have made further progress since then,
but I haven't published my newest changes yet. I'm posting today
because I'd like to bounce some ideas off of everyone.
I will be developing a space RPG. If any of you ever played
WingCommander Privateer, then you will know (basically) what kind of
game I am going for. My current hurdle has to do with how I
transition between maps. Let me describe what I mean:
I will have maps and regions of space. A region will consist of
either a solar system, or a cluster of solar systems. A map will be a
unit of space in a region which will possibly contain a planet,
multiple planets, a star, etc. Each map entails its own physics2d.net
engine, so when a player arrives at a map, or when the player leaves a
space station, a physics engine will be initialized with pertinent
data. I have yet to decide how large each map will be in relation to
the screen. Currently my pixel-to-physics engine unit scaling is 1:1,
but I might scale that out.
Here is my dilemma: How should I handle transitions between maps?
Should I make them appear seamless (no visible change occurs when
player moves past a map's edge and into a new map) or should I do a
fade in/out type of transition? Also, I'm wondering how I should
persist other ships. If I make the transition seamless, then it would
be strange if enemy ships that were following the player just
disappeared. I could pull enemies that are in pursuit from the
previous map and put them into the current map. I have not thought
that process out thoroughly though.
Region transitions won't be an issue. I have already decided that
transitioning between regions will be done with a fade in/out
transition. These will consist of some kind of jump gate that a
player moves into or I might forgo jump gates and have a map UI the
player opens up to pick a region to warp to.
Anyway, that is what I will leave everyone with. Tell me what you
think!
D. Moonfire
> Here is my dilemma: How should I handle transitions between maps?
> Should I make them appear seamless (no visible change occurs when
> player moves past a map's edge and into a new map) or should I do a
> fade in/out type of transition? Also, I'm wondering how I should
> persist other ships. If I make the transition seamless, then it would
> be strange if enemy ships that were following the player just
> disappeared. I could pull enemies that are in pursuit from the
> previous map and put them into the current map. I have not thought
> that process out thoroughly though.
http://svn.mfgames.com/runningbomb/trunk/
For Running Bomb, a game I wrote for a procedural content contest, I
did something close to that. I used a Physics2D engine, but I added
and removed elements as the player moved down the tunnels. Each node
had X tunnels out of it. The next node would start at the end of the
tunnel. So, I would keep a node loaded (with appropriate physics),
then switched at the half-way point. The tunnel itself was shared
between the two nodes, so when I switched, the tunnel remained the
same but there was data in front of them.
You could do something like that for your idea. Basically load/unload
things within range and use the same physics engine. That way, you can
remove them as they move off the screen and load them right before
they come on screen.
Since you have each map separate, you would have both maps loaded but
only part of them in the actual physics engine.