Anima
About the game
Platformer, 8 weeks part-time development
Built on top of 2D rendering library provided by TGA
Some of my contributions include
– Trailer video editing
– Dividing of level into rooms
– Hazards, smoke
– Climbable knobs
– Player ledge snapping and collision bug fixes
My Work & Problems
In Anima I worked on separating levels into rooms, adding hazards. I worked on parallax effects and camera smoothing. A lot of work went into fixing a lot of our collisions as well as playersnapping. A big part of platformers is making navigating the map a smooth experience. Therefore we had to implement a way to help the player jump onto ledges when slightly missing the mark. Because of our very cluttered player class as well as some bugs in the collision detection for the player, this was easier said than done. I put a lot of time into making sure the player used the right informaiton about their environment to crouch when suitable, snap to ledges, and lock certain features to prevent unexpected behaviour in certain situations.
What I learned
This project had a lot more structural planning than what I was used to. We took time as a group to plan out the general flow of the program and where certain data needed to be accessible. This made some of the code a bit slower to rework when needed, but provided a very streamline development process. We were able to create a lot of empty interfaces early on, and the code ended up being free of unnecessary singletons which ultimately benefited our structure.