Lighting

Lighting

Release type: TBA
Latest build date: March 13, 2013
Levels: TBA
Author: Alan Caudel
Website: Dummy Duck
Related games: Man Game, Man Game RPG, Man Game Stairs, Bionic ComMANd, Man Game Fire, FallDownGoBoom

THIS GAME IS A WORK IN PROGRESS
ALL INFORMATION IS TENTATIVE

Lighting is one of a few notable spin-offs of Alan Caudel's Man Game series. This game is an experiment with dynamic lighting. The character carries a torch through a darkened cavern, and as he walks the torch casts light on all surfaces within a short range.

Alan Caudel:

How this was done: First, obviously the background blocks are all solid black. The character is black with yellow highlights. The character's idle animation shoots out yellow circles that move randomly (to act as torch light). Here's the magic part... (almost) all of the solid edges are lined with invisible monsters. When these edge monsters are touched by either the character or one of the torch-light monsters, it starts a thin highlight animation which shows where the solid edge is, then disappears. What's cool about this is that the torch can show you what's around you before you even step on the blocks around you. I don't think that had been done before in Game-Maker.

A version of this game also appears in Caudel's Advanced Techniques Demo package.

A more precise discussion of the techniques at play will follow.

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Man Game Fire	Lighting	FallDownGoBoom
Man Game series

Links

Braving the depths in Alan Caudel's Lighting

• The Game-Maker Story: Infoboxes (Gamasutra)
• Alan's Bold Experiments in RSD Game-Maker

Downloads

• Lighting (81 KB)