My IGE or In Game Editor Sucks

Maybe i am being a bit harsh on my editor. Maybe it is in fact not too bad. Then again maybe it really does suck and i am not as good a designer of IGEs as i am game design. Still it appears it might not all be useless, or that is my current hope haha!

Let me tell ya what happened.

So i have spent some time writing this editor, as previously mentioned in this blog. Then last night was my big night to actually use it to create a level. To create a wonderful masterpiece in moments was my desire. Only... well... the level was coming along well, but not particularly quickly. I was having a couple of issues. The main one being i had decided to separate the scrolling of the level into it's own mode, so when working with the elements that make the level (platforms etc), it would be stationary and easy to work inside. The main reason it was separated though was so i could have this nice proportional scrolling while in the level scrolling mode. I needed all the screen for that and so placing something if i had mixed modes would make the game screen move while i was trying hard to place something. Unless i came up with more modes or partial modes. Grrrr..

 Another issue with the scrolling is that even when in that mode the screen scrolls the wrong bloody way. Now this could be a subjective view of course, i am not certain. However i made the screen scroll the way it would whilst playing the game, only it doesn't freakin make sense when in the editor. In the editor ya feel (I feel) that the screen should be pushed away, not drawn in like it is in the game mode. So first up i switched that. It now feels pretty natural, even if my brain thinks it Should work better the other way. Next up is a solution to the scrolling Whilst placing platforms etc. Oh, yes. I haven't actually stated the reason moving and placing is a chore when separate is the fact you can see so little of the game screen, and it can take only a few seconds to need the game screen scrolled a bit again. So here i am changing modes way too often.  bah!

So next up is for me to put game screen scrolling in whilst in the element placing mode. I might go with some up,down,left, right buttons, or maybe i can sense the edges of the screen to push it. I am not sure which to do at the moment.

Tip:
Make any editor you use as friendly as possible. You will enjoy (or not hate) the time you then spend in using it. Which will in turn enable you to make and tweak much better levels, and also most likely more of them.

Now i am off to play my existing 5 levels on my Kindle fire, the editor can wait till tomorrow ha!

Laters
Da Voodoochief