Book Image

Buildbox 2.x Game Development

By : Ty Audronis
Book Image

Buildbox 2.x Game Development

By: Ty Audronis

Overview of this book

Buildbox is an “any skill level” development platform to develop video games with no coding experience. It also exports these games to be compiled for any platform (from Windows to Mac to iOS to Android and Blackberry) all using the same graphic user interface. Using an example as a tutorial, we will relate the driving principles and you’ll see how you can implement these principles to develop any games on the platform. We begin by setting expectations and providing a brief overview of the software. But it’s not long before you “dive in” to creating your first video game. You will actually have a playable level (“world”) by the end of the second chapter. Later on, you’ll learn everything from basic graphics creation to advanced world design while you refine your first game, called “Ramblin’ Rover.” All along the way, you will see how certain functions could be used in tandem to create other types of games; hoping to spark imagination. We will follow the principles and process of monetization through ads and in-game rewards. Lastly, we will go through the process of exporting, compiling, and preparing your storefront to sell the games you will eventually create.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
Buildbox 2.x Game Development
Credits
Disclaimer
Foreword
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface

Making the rover jump


As we've mentioned before, we're making a hybrid game. That is, it's a combination of a motocross game, a platformer, and a side-scrolling shooter game. Our initial rover will not be able to shoot at anything (we'll save that feature for the next upgraded rover that anyone can buy with in-game currency). But this rover will need to jump in order to make the game more fun.

As we know, NASA has never made a rover for Mars that jumps. But if they did do that, how would they do it? The surface of Mars is a combination of dust and rocks, so the surface conditions vary greatly in both traction and softness. One viable way is to make the rover move in the same way a spacecraft maneuvers (using little gas jets). And since the gravity on Mars is lower than that on Earth, this seems legit enough to include it in our game.

While in our Mars Training Ground world, open the character properties for our Training Rover. Drag the animated PNG sequence located in our Projects/RamblinRover...