Last year I wanted to make this game using polygones. In the end I made a matching game using the technique I wanted to use.
This year the sprites and level design are using different decoding mechanisms.
At the moment it isn’t extremely optimized so I think I can add some more levels to the game.
The game is inspired on the Professor Fizzwizzle games.
Click on image to start
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/22922286/4k/prof4k.gif
Navigate with Arrow Keys and N key for next level if you want to skip one. (P = previous)
ESCape restarts the level.
Basically the sprite decode is like:
chr(nr) = number of sprites … so for each sprite do
chr(nr) = number of polygones … for each polygone do
chr(nr) = polygone palette-color reference
chr(nr) = number of points in the polygone so for each polygone-point do
chr(nr) = modulus of coordinate = polygone-x or polygone-y (sprite width/height determines number of chr)
The level decode is something like this:
chr(nr) = repeat number of objects
chr(nr) = objectnr
The level is still in a multi-dimensional array and I know this can be optimized further using one String technique like the sprites.
So that will be my next task for optimization.
updated link to java4k
I was thinking it’s even possible you could get animation for cheap by blending between polygon vertex positions. Assuming the player graphic is made of n polygons and the polygons preserve their identity and approximate relationship (e.g. 1 for face, 1 for body, 1 for arm, etc.), then you could create a smooth animation quite straightforwardly.