The next Aeon Demo is here! Updates:
- Level Editor prototype.
- In the debug panel, you have a nice reference list on the right side to help you change things that the level editor can't do yet.
- The latest Aeon artwork, straight from the Graphics 'n stuff topic.
- Along with the new artwork comes the ability to change the appearance of the playable character. Look near the bottom of the Debug's reference list to see what you can use, and as an added convenience it includes the "optimized" dimensional values to use with that sprite. Actually, some of them could use some slight improvements still. I put in jell's two gerbil images AND all of the characters from GF's Interguild comic.
Click here to play the demo!!
Warning: There is no preloader, so you may have to stare at a gray screen for a few seconds until it loads. I'll try to add a preloader soon...
If for some reason, the old demo loads, try clearing your browser's cache and reload.
How to Use the Level Editor
You always have some kind of selected tile, and whenever you click on the grid, you place the tile. To change the selected tile, go up to the top menu under "SELECT TILE" and click on another one.
To change the dimensions, go to Edit > Dimensions.
As a shortcut, you can scroll using the arrow keys on the keyboard, or the W, A, S, D keys.
Another scrolling shortcut: Hold down the space bar, and then click and drag the grid around.
If you want to share your creations, go into the Debug panel and copy everything over and paste it in the forums. It's a ton of text, so if you just edited a few things, then it would be better if you only copied over the tag and its contents, and then tell people which other items you edited in the XML.
How to Use the Debug Panel
You can open/close the debug panel from anywhere by pressing Ctrl+D. The same goes for the Error Log, but that's pretty useless.
The Debug panel lets you edit everything about the level using XML format. As you look through it, how to edit certain items is self-explanatory. But for more confusing stuff, check the right side of the screen for the Reference List, where you can look up all the possible values of some of the more complicated items. Most of the XML is the same as the last demo, and you can find an in-depth description of the meaning behind everything by clicking here
How to Select a Different Character
In the debug panel, look for the tag. Next look for the tag, which is somewhat below it. Then look at the reference list at the right and scroll all the way down to where it lists the possible characters. In the XML, replace "Arrow" inside the tag with the name of the character you want, as written in the reference list. You may also change the dimensions of the character according to the "optimized" dimensions listed next to that character's name in the reference list.
How to Play the Demo
When you click on "Demo", the demo level will load. If the preview map is too big to fit completely on screen, you can move it around using the arrow keys or the WASD keys.
When playing the level, you can move with both arrow and WASD keys. Press space to jump
Press "R" to restart the level, and "Q" to quit. "P will pause it, and "Shift" will also pause it. You can unpause by pressing either of the pause button/keys, or by pressing space.
If you click away from the window while playing, the game will automatically pause itself.
Press Caps-Lock to turn on and off some crazy feature that helps me investigate glitches.
Glitches/Problems/Annoying Stuff/Things to do
- The game opens slowly, so a preloader would be nice.
- It's easy to get killed by spikes when you get near them.
- Make the character big enough, and then have them walk up to a platform, and they'll automatically "cling" on top of it. Put several platforms on top of each other, and it'll send the character rocketing upward to the top. (try this with the Rosabellis character.)
- Jazz (rosabellis) can duck-jump through terrain. Duck under terrain, jump without ducking, and you'll fall through the terrain you're standing on.
- Sometimes it's possible to duck-jump through terrain from its side. Unlike the previous glitch, you travel through terrain horizontally, not vertically.
- The game won't load initially, but if you refresh the page, it'll work.
I've recently begun to rebuild the way the XML is coded, and what I have so far makes the current set up look boring and restrictive. The reason the XML is so important is that that's how all of the game's options are recorded in the game, actually, so it's not just a user-interface thing. I'll probably release another demo when I finish implementing the new XML structure. That's how important it'll be. User Comments (28) | Silver |
Karma: 121 Posts: 3581 Gender: Female pm | email
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How do you select a different character? | | soccerboy13542 |
~*~Soccer~*~
Karma: 450 Posts: 4466 Gender: Male Location: 1945 pm | email
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What is this "Object 3"??? and 2 and 1.
'Livio' said: You know, I was thinking of getting an internship at Microsoft, but I'm not sure I want their lameness to rub off on me. | | Livio |
Age: 31 Karma: 470 Posts: 9620 Gender: Male Location: Arizona, USA pm | email
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sorry I forgot that was kinda confusing. I edited in a section about it into the news post. | | Livio |
Age: 31 Karma: 470 Posts: 9620 Gender: Male Location: Arizona, USA pm | email
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'soccerboy13542' said: What is this "Object 3"??? and 2 and 1. That was first added in the last demo. They are mainly just generic objects that you can use for testing, mostly with the Debug Panel. | | jazz |
Karma: 108 Posts: 3050 pm | email
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'GF4' said: Jazz can duck-jump through terrain too
Just because my character is a ninja doesn't mean you need him to have ninja abilities! Fix that glitch, if you don't mind. | | krotomo |
The Shepherd
Age: 23 Karma: 249 Posts: 4066 Gender: Male Location: My chair pm | email
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Ninjas have ninja abilities, because they're ninjas. If a ninja did not have ninja abilities, he would not be a ninja. | | GF4 |
-X-
Karma: 117 Posts: 850 Gender: Male pm | email
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'krotomo' said: Ninjas have ninja abilities, because they're ninjas. If a ninja did not have ninja abilities, he would not be a ninja.
You should be Captain Obvious.
Check my description for my accounts. | | Livio |
Age: 31 Karma: 470 Posts: 9620 Gender: Male Location: Arizona, USA pm | email
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hmm, does anyone think that whenever you restart a level, it loads slower each time? but it does load slow.. Next I should improve the way levels are reset. | | Isa |
No. I'm an octopus.
Age: 31 Karma: 686 Posts: 7833 Gender: Male Location: Uppsala, Sweden - GMT +1 pm | email
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Why is there no floor spike image?
Edit: Nevermind, I had replaced it with the image "sky". | | Sefro |
Karma: 313 Posts: 1136 Gender: Male Location: Canada pm | email
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Looking very nice so far.
... And did you intentionally put a Water Drain in the bottom left corner of the map? | | Livio |
Age: 31 Karma: 470 Posts: 9620 Gender: Male Location: Arizona, USA pm | email
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yeah, lol. I was actually wondering if anyone would notice it. Krotomo has interpreted it to mean that there really is water in this demo... | | FlashMarsh |
Age: 25 Karma: 99 Posts: 2727 Gender: Male Location: UK pm | email
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If you run across platforms two space wide, you still go across them. I'm assuming that should only happen with one space. | | jellsprout |
Lord of Sprout Tower
Karma: -2147482799 Posts: 6445 Gender: Male pm | email
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That is because the character as it is now drops slower than Hannah, is wider than Hannah and I think moves faster than Hannah, especially in the air. That could all be changed in the Debug menu.
| | Livio |
Age: 31 Karma: 470 Posts: 9620 Gender: Male Location: Arizona, USA pm | email
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The current way the debug menu is set up really is limiting. The new structure that I've been working on will at least let you specify different dimensions for the tile's appearance, and another set of dimensions for the tile's hit regions. The characters don't have this problem because they were programmed differently from tiles, but part of the reason why hitting spikes on the side is so annoying is because if the hit dimensions were any less, the image would get cut off.
Also the new XML structure will give objects multiple "states" in which they may be in at various times. For example, the playable character will have a state for standing, crawling, falling, swimming, and ladder-climbing. And what's great about this approach is that each state has their own version of the standard settings that you have access to now. So for example, you could set the horizontal running speed to be different while standing than while falling. And there will be settings to control when these states can cross over each other. For instance, what variables are prioritized kept when you are crawling and falling at the same time? And are certain states even allowed to intrude on others, like for example, do you want to let people crawl and fall at the same time? And do you want to let them start crawling while falling? Man, there are so many crazy things you'll be able to do with this new structure that I can't wait to finish it. | | Livio |
Age: 31 Karma: 470 Posts: 9620 Gender: Male Location: Arizona, USA pm | email
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It seems that whenever I try to open the game it won't load at all. But if I refresh the page, then it loads.
anyone else get this problem? | | Quirvy |
 Â
Karma: 655 Posts: 7753 Gender: Male pm | email
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Okay, this has been annoying me for a while. Why is it that when you click all of these links that supposedly open Aeon, it leads you to this page? When it says [Click here to open the game], I expect that when I click there, it will open the game in a new window. When I click that link on hatpc levels, it doesn't lead me here
I also think you might want to consider doing a CSD style cave-maker option, as well, because filling a level with terrain is too time consuming if you have to add it one tile at a time.
Other than that, I like the demo, although I have yet to check everything out.
spooky secret | | canadianstickdeath |
Age: 35 Karma: 350 Posts: 2990 Gender: Male pm | email
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The idea was to like, hold down control to fill a region.
I added Aeon to the games database after jell submitted a level for it HATPC or something like that. HATPC is hard-coded that way, but obviously, I couldn't hard-code something for Aeon. | | Livio |
Age: 31 Karma: 470 Posts: 9620 Gender: Male Location: Arizona, USA pm | email
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LOL I just noticed that the background moves in the wrong direction whenever the level scrolls. I think it's fixed now. If it isn't, Ctrl+F5. Edit: For some reason, it's not getting updated..
and Quirvy, I couldn't even get the news post to link straight to the game. I included the javascript and everything, but it still links to a new tab instead of a new window. But I should really fix that...
and yeah the idea is that you can hold shift to draw big squares of tiles.
| | Livio |
Age: 31 Karma: 470 Posts: 9620 Gender: Male Location: Arizona, USA pm | email
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btw, I spent my computer time yesterday working on Aeon. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to best set up all of the player variables in the Debug menu in a way that would allow for the most creativity. I explained some of this before, but there are multiple "states" in which the player can be in: standing, falling, swimming, and ladder climbing. The major breakthrough I made was that crawling is no longer a state, but a sub-state inside every state.
Here is the current idea for how all the player's options will be organized. On the top level, there are the four states. Inside each state there are three categories: animation, collisions, and movement. And inside each of those categories, there is another category for what to do if the player is currently in crawling mode (omit the entire category if you don't want anything to do with crawling in that state). Among other options, there are also categories for what to do when a key is being held down (only the arrow keys and space bar). The whole thing feels similar to a mini-programming language now; it's not just a bunch of options anymore.
AND I also began working on a way for you to take images straight from the internet and use them in the game. I got the part that actually loads the content into Flash working. I just have to make it actually load it all before starting the level-load process so that it could use that content while building the level.
In the future I may or may not improve the options found in the XML so that you may set reactions to keyboard keys other than the arrow keys and space bar, because there is certainly room for such an idea right now. I'm also considering letting people create custom states. However, instead of these states being triggered naturally by in-game events such as entering water or landing on a solid floor, they would be triggered via some kind of option in the debug menu, such as when you press a certain key, or reach a certain horizontal speed, or something like that.
Man this is some cool stuff. | | shos |
~Jack of all trades~
Age: 31 Karma: 389 Posts: 8273 Gender: Male Location: Israel pm | email
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'Livio' said: and Quirvy, I couldn't even get the news post to link straight to the game. I included the javascript and everything, but it still links to a new tab instead of a new window. But I should really fix that... perhaps you can add aeon to the games list on the top of each page, and link to the newest demo from there.
| | canadianstickdeath |
Age: 35 Karma: 350 Posts: 2990 Gender: Male pm | email
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'shos' said: perhaps you can add aeon to the games list on the top of each page, and link to the newest demo from there. I dunno if this is supposed to be sarcasm. | | shos |
~Jack of all trades~
Age: 31 Karma: 389 Posts: 8273 Gender: Male Location: Israel pm | email
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'canadianstickdeath' said: 'shos' said: perhaps you can add aeon to the games list on the top of each page, and link to the newest demo from there. I dunno if this is supposed to be sarcasm. lawl, I seriously have to think before I post, eh.
way too lazy to push the mouse so much to the top of the screen, you know.
shos confusion++;
| | Livio |
Age: 31 Karma: 470 Posts: 9620 Gender: Male Location: Arizona, USA pm | email
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Alright, fixed. Now you can open the demo from this news post and the top games bar. And when you're in the level database, clicking on the link to the top right of the level code box also opens straight to the game. | | DeathBunni X |
Eww, school.
Age: 26 Karma: 87 Posts: 690 Gender: Female Location: Midwest pm | email
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Aeon is doing pretty good. . What about the deranged hamster?
| | dolly2 |
Age: 21 Karma: 0 Posts: 21 Gender: Female pm | email
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Why does level load so fast slow?
I'm Evan (snowman)'s sister. | | |
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