Hi, I started.
………Now what?Looks like everyone is posting a devlog. It seems almost like a competition rule.I've started a few hours ago. I've started making a snow-tile set. I think the hardest is to choose the appropriate color. I just cant white everything, that would look far to simple, white (0xffffff) is the brightest color and I don't want to use it for snow. Think about explosions and other effects. If the snow uses pretty much the brightest color how can I convince the player that explosions are bright and powerful? I can't decide to keep the snow on the trees or to get the snow off the trees. If I keep the snow on it just blends into the scene and at this low resolution you can't really see much of a tree.Screenshot, right:
An empty scene testing a tile-set. I'm deciding if I should build an external editor. The problem is, I want something simple. However game maker's room editor can only place instances and tiles. It just seems to be not enough. How do I know which part of the terrain is passable? How do I know at what height level I'm at?These two seem simple problems however I only put image slices in the tile editor and only instances in the object editor.Sorry for my 
New competition rule. All entrants must post a devlog by the end of today, December 14th (midnight GMT) or they will be disqualified.
Tiles look nice.aw sh-Hmm, and when did you decide that new rule?
1h 10m before midnight (GMT) ??Just making people nervous. God knows it won't work anyway.
Also, you have a few options I suppose. The most common one is laying down the tiles, then setting down various collision objects to match them. Judging by appearances, you could easily just do a bunch of square objects around the edges of the tileset (obviously not where you don't think the player will ever go). And depth is an interesting thing, if you're making a depth-based RPG.Another method is having a special system read tile IDs to check collisions.Height level, you'll have to figure out manually. It's actually a bit challenging to implement.I guess height level could be done by covering areas with tile objects according to "height", then determining collisions and such based on an individual character/object's height variable. Passable sections could be determined by another type of tile that puts characters/objects on an intermediate height level from which they can pass to the level above and the level below.
(just theorizing…never actually done anything like this)Sounds like a lot more effort than it's worth. I'll just simplify. Adding indivitual collision objects on walls might make a bit of a mess. My tiles are 8x8. The cliff is like a few pixels less but I assume they occupy the whole 8x8 tile for simplicity. Having 8x8 tiles is a problem enough. (however they are placed optimally on a bitmaps so I can grab up to 32x32 of pure snow, 16x16 of corner segment and 64x8 8x32 straight wall segments.
if you ctrl right click an object in the room editor, you can set creation code for it. you can use that to set a height variable. but that could take a very long time. alternatively, you could place objects at the threshold for the height, and have them change the player's height variable as they are passed. then the character object checks to see if any blocks it collides with have the same height.
the thing is, you would only really need a height variable when you go over bridges.Those tiles are cool (get it?). They slightly remind me of the Yoda Stories demo.
The problem with the snow on the trees is that the green parts of the tree look like a stick figure. Maybe you can come up with some trick, like having a shadow behind the tree that creates extra contrast?Also, it would be interesting to see a new member win the competition :>Lmao, I didn't realize they look like stick figures. Well they are all green now. Updated blog with a new screen. I'm experimenting with guns. I think they are too small. Need something bigger.
well you could do maybe a faux-exposure effect - darken the screen while overlaying the explosion on TOP of the dimming object, so the explosion can be as bright as ever. (Look in some games where going from a bright area to a dark area makes everything seem super dark - and then adjust (and vice versa for going from dark to light views).