So Perry and I are working on the next Best Friends Forever, and it's 90% done. Just a few more bug tests and about a dozen more levels and it's done. Right now I'm working on levels and I thought I would share my method for making levels in Best Friends Forever.
This BFF (Best Friends Forever) is being made in AS3. Unlike the past BFFs I've checked every level for bugs, and I've took on beta testers to make sure every level is beatable. AS3 allowed me to make the levels bigger (Well, rewriting the engine made it so I could make bigger levels), made the code cleaner and is just faster overall. The only problem is that the level editor is in AS2, and this makes some big problems.
See, I've been using the same level editor for about 2 years now. The level editor that's in BFF1 is the same one that I used for BFF2, Crash Landed and Adventure Al. I also have a few more games in the works that use the same level editor. I should probably rewrite it now that I use AS3, but the one I have right now is so damn reusable. I just do a few changes and bam, I have a tile based level editor for any game. Since the level editor exports arrays in basic L = [[0,0,0,],[0,0,0,],[0,0,0]] format, I can use it for anything. It also has support for events (up to a certain amount). But it's in AS2, so there's no way for me to easily test the levels for games made in AS3.
I have to go into the code of each game, put the level in there, and export a version of the game that skips specifically to that level. This means that I can't put the level editor in the game, and I can't really share it with anyone. Whats the point of making levels if you can't play them? I'm also having a hard time trying to find any friends who want to make levels due to this lol.
Not just that, but the level editor also isn't very user friendly. Some things only work if you do them in a certain way, and there are many rules you have to follow to make sure things don't bug out. Even though you can save levels, when the levels load up a few things freak out. You can't put more then 2 boulders in a level even though the editor allows it, sign posts don't show up through ground so you have to give them 5 squares of space above their placement, among other things. This level editor is really only fit for a developer to use.
So yeah. I don't really have much to say past that. Here goes a link to the editor so you can see how horrible it is, but keep in mind I'm not going to use any of the levels you make, you can't test the levels and you won't know what the hell you're doing with it.
Now to get back to what I was doing.
I-smel
how does AS3 allow you to make bigger levels? Like I genuinely want to know.
Skeik (Updated )
Well, AS3 doesn't really "allow" it, it's just that when I remade my platforming engine in AS3 I optimized it. I don't use hitTest much in this, rather I use tile based collision detection. So there's a huge speed boost, along with the speed boost I get from just using AS3. Whereas BFF1 and 2 would lag on older computer this one shouldn't lag until I make ridiculous sized levels.
I guess I just said that to look cool lol.