Platform Masters development (July 24, 2011) - Jeremy's House fully finished

Add another world to the done bin - Jeremy's House, world 1. Being the game's first world, this gives a nice first impression to the player. The first 1 1/2 minutes of this video shows what Jeremy's House looked like before the changes. The rest provides a detailed overview of what the remake looks like. At first, there doesn't seem to be much of a change, but there's more that meets the eye.

Traffic and houses dominate the foreground. Traffic flows at a constant 24 mph. Only 4 types of cars can be found though - the ever common family sedan, the somewhat rare truck and minivan, and the one-of-a-kind police car. Each of the 8 lanes has a police car present. Don't worry about speeding though - you're not on the road and the police are well aware of the Platform Masters stuff going on where speeds can get very extreme (on both axes).

The houses are very closely spaced (55 feet on the east-west direction and 100 in the north-south direction) because land is at a premium. Ronnis, to the east, is a monster of a city as far as size goes. Thus, space is at a premium. Each house is also 2 stories as well.

Beyond the houses, making up the middle portion of the background scenery, are a series of hills. They rise up, level off at 600 feet high, then drop back down. This is based on the height of their peaks.

Zipping by at 192 mph above the scene are what are called air taxis. These are essentially a cross between an airplane and a city bus. The interior resembles a city bus, but the exterior resembles an airplane, though without wings. They use magnetic levitation as their power source, though without any tracks. Air taxis also come in a wide variety of sizes as well. The 2 furthest layers of air taxis are very hard to make out unless seen against a cloud or the green hills when far above.

The most distant part of the scenery involves farm fields and the ocean. The shoreline is varied. I slightly darkened the color of the water to really enhance the beauty of this and give a more realistic appearance. In addition to the farm fields, you'll see gravel roads, various ponds, occasional forests (these are so far away that texture doesn't matter), a highway (complete with onramps and offramps), and a small town (the kind that would have 2000 residents). When 4 miles above the ground, the scene is almost photo-realistic. I was stunned as to how nice it looked.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• Platform
• Masters
• game
• development
• Jeremy's
• House
• scenery
• software
• hints

[ZeavoTown]

what determines the colors of the houses? random chance? or did you choose the color of each house one by one?

[ulillillia]

In short, it's a random number generator system I use. I have a video that details this. I think it's called "how building are done" or something. I had to search PM's screenshot archive for the video as it's so old (though still accurate as far as the method goes).  I found the video - it's the second one on the 31-40 page (and consider that I'm now at screenshot 181).

[Dagyo23]

What is the persons name in this video? I mean the person you are controlling?

[ulillillia]

I'll give you a big hint - it's the name in the title of this video. World 1 is where everything starts and world 1 is called "Jeremy's House" because, well, the character you play as is Jeremy. It's one of my favorite male names.

[Flackon]

The levels must be huge but they are mostly empty, it seems. What is there for the player to do in these huge worlds?

Also you should use IS units instead of imperial.

[ulillillia]

The landscape spans 58 1/4 miles horiztonally and 40 miles deep. Each world (setting) has 16 levels typically spaced 3.8 miles apart but span only 1/10 mile. Metrics are used - see the video that covers world 7, air taxi, for details. If you want to learn more, visit PM's site. I just posted screenshots 174 and 175 today, showing an enhancement I made to the timer. Once I finish the ground decals for the Sentus Mountains, I'll post a video of this neat feature.

[somatic77]

Looks great, can't wait to play.

[ulillillia]

The houses are 2 stories each and they are very closely spaced. The farm fields are part of another region, the Yuris region, of which has different laws and regulations than the Ronnisa region. The Yuris region is otherwise only seen in this world. Closer to the city, multi-story apartments come into view, though they are not visible.