Unnamed Platformer - Devlog 20

Background design is a hell of a lot harder than I thought it would be…also I lost track of time 😭😭

What I did: I got started on background design, and partially implemented a background. I actually had a pretty different idea in mind compared to what I have now: the rest of the planet visible, stretching into the horizon, with mountains and volcanoes etc etc. scattered along its surface. After spending a while implementing that, I realized it a) didn’t look right, since everything was just following the player around at normal cam speed, and b) I didn’t like the idea anymore to begin with.

So after scrapping all those changes, I started researching how to add a scrolling effect so it would look more natural. I found out how to implement a parallax scroll effect, which basicallymeans that objects in the background move along slower than objects closer to the front of the screen. I also restructured my scenes.h file which contains all background-related stuff, and made a couple of other small changes and fixes with certain levels. I know I don’t have much to show for it, but that’s mainly because I spent a lot of time tweaking certain elements and just undoing backgrounds I ended up not liking 😭🥀

Challenges: Deciding what to do visuals-wise cost me some time bcuz I kept going back on my old ideas, but restructuring scenes.h was the hardest part since after deciding what to do for visuals, I had to base the logic in scenes.h off that. Also it took me a while to decide how to add in a parallax scroll system.

Plans for next time: Work on more background stuff. right now I’ve set up a lot of background elements’ structs and whatnot, but I’ve only redrawn the stars and added a rough brightening/dimming effect. Also Im gonna have to start thinking about what I’m going to add on each of the sub-menus accessible from the main menu (credits, handbook, and settings).

K bye guys