Puzzle Game and Scrolling Backgrounds

Been a while since I posted but I've got a little bit going on. Nearly a year after starting work on my puzzle game (and my first taste of AndEngine) I finally feel like it is ready for release. It still needs good graphics (the ones I made are terrible MS Paint things) and some sound effects to go with the new graphics. Other than that, all the functionality is there, Scoreloop leaderboards for the 5 game modes, a cool power-up I added, and some pretty cool achievements to earn by doing specific things and playing the additional game modes. I'm pretty excited about how far the game has come. It is somewhat similar to games like Bejeweled so fans of that type of game will enjoy it, but at the same time has elements that make it unlike any puzzle game I've personally seen. I'm pretty happy with how original of a concept it is.

The other project I've just started recently is a top down, vertical scrolling shooter. I haven't done much work on the actual code yet, but Tia and I have spent quite a bit of time hashing out things like characters, a little bit of the storyline, bosses, power-ups, and some of the general look of the game. Going only off of the notes I have in my notebook and the images I have in my head, its looking pretty great.

With this game I'm trying to do a significantly better job of encapsulating code, and I'm off to a pretty good start with the very little I've done so far. I'm starting with the aspects of AndEngine I'm unfamiliar with in an attempt to figure them out before there is a lot of other pieces fit in. So far I've just scratched the surface with some Parallax Background work. Basically a parallax background is set up so you have a main background that slowly scrolls, and then another background layer composed of background objects like clouds, that move at a slightly faster rate, giving a "realistic" appearance to the background. Since the player in this new game will be flying at what is presumably a great height, the ground should appear to be moving underneath them at a slower rate than the closer objects, like the clouds, and then both backgrounds continuously scroll on repeat. AndEngine has a nice Parallax Background class, but for some reason the official stuff only supports horizontal scrolling (not good for a vertical scrolling shooter). Luckily, a quick search of the AndEngine forums turned up some modified code some community members had worked on that fix the issue.

So, I started out by just having a light blue background with a big black X on it so I could tell if it was moving. For the foreground I put some oddly colored triangles pointing out. I don't know why I went with that decision, but it worked out all right. This is what it looks like:

Then, partially to test out my encapsulated background code but more to have a better example of the reasoning behind the parallax background, I made a second set of background that are clouds over a grassy area with a lake, some streams, and what I guess is a road leading up to the lake, again in MS Paint. It turned out surprisingly good for the time I put in:

This second background really illustrates what I'm going for here. The clouds scroll downward at a little over twice the speed of the "ground" under them. I'm really happy with how it turned out and I'm excited with the possibilities for additional "levels". Canyons, cities, some sort of volcano. All good options. I just need to keep myself motivated with this new game. The amount of stuff I have to work on to bring it to where I want it to be is a little daunting to be doing solo, especially given the fact that my most complicated game took a year to finish and probably wont see release for quite some time. We'll see how it all goes.