TUTORIALS

Platform games are action games that feature jumping, climbing, and running characters who must be guided through many diverse levels.
By the end of this tutorial, you will understand how to:
-Disable a player’s up and down movement
-Create platforms with different heights

Disabling Up and Down Movement
The basic function of a two-dimensional platformer is that the player moves from left to right. Firstly, we will need to disable the player from being able to move up and down, that is, to prevent the player from being able to move along the y-axis.
1. Select Input Scripts from the list on the bottom-left of the screen.
2. Delete the input scripts that control the player’s up and down movement, which should be four in total, including:
-Up control pushed down
-Up control pushed up
-Down control pushed down
-Down control pushed up
3. Once this is done, click Save Input Scripts under File.
Now that we have disabled the function for the player to move the character up and down, we can now continue on in making a side-scroller.

Creating Levels
Most platform games contain different levels, allowing the player to climb up or down. If you have an understanding of Lower Objects in Map001, you will know that you are able to alter the height of these objects so that you may stand on top of them. We will be using Lower Objects in order to create four levels each of different height.
1. Select Tile-Sets from the list on the bottom-left of the screen.
2. Under Lower Objects, create four of the same tile which resembles the ground like in the image below:

3. Under Tile Name, name the top tile Level 4, the second Level 3, the third Level 2 and the last tile Level 1.
4. For all four tiles, set the Tile Layer to Over Floor.
Our next step will be to make these tiles differ in height. This can be done by entering a value into the Height (1/2 tiles) form. If we were to enter 1 into this form, this would mean that the player would appear to be standing in the middle of the platform, although, if we were to enter 2, this would make it appear as though the player is standing on top of the platform, which is exactly what we want. Unfortunately, the maximum height we can set the tile to is 8, hence why we are only using four tiles.
5. Set the top tile’s height to 8, the second to 6, the third to 4 and the last tile to 2.

We now have four tiles, each with a different height, the consecutive being one tile higher than the other. We will now test this out on a map.
6. Name the tile set Platforms, and then click Save Tile Sets under File.
7. Create a new map named Platforms, setting the dimensions to a width of 20 and a height of 10.
8. Select each tile and place them next to each other in height order (Level 1 on the left and Level 4 on the right). It should look something like the image below:

If we were to test it out, and stand on each individual platform, this would be the end result:

It appears as though the character is standing in mid-air when the tiles are higher than 2. To make it appear as if the character is standing on top of something, we will need to create tiles to fill in the empty spaces. We will be using Upper Objects for this.

The Use of Upper Objects
Upper Objects can be used within platform games as what I have previously explained, which is, to fill in the empty spaces, or as scenery, for example, a tree or a fenceline.
1. Select Tile-Sets from the list on the bottom-left of the screen.
2. Under Upper Objects, create one singular tile which will be used to fill in our empty spaces, which resembles the same sort of texture as the Lower Object tiles we have already created, like in the image below:

3. Set the Tile Layer to Over Floor.
4. Name the tile set Platforms, and then click Save Tile Sets under File.
We are now going to insert this into the map to fill in the empty spaces we encountered earlier. The end result should look similar to a staircase, like in the image below:

Now when we test it out and stand on top of each individual platform, the character won’t appear to be standing in mid-air:

You have now successfully learnt how to create platforms with different heights. Feel free to edit the map to make it more appealing to the person playing your game. Add in a background using Floor Tiles and insert scenery with Upper Objects, just like I have below (note: the bottom two rows of tiles are Floor Tiles, in order to take the ground level off the bare bottom of the screen):