Infinite Runner Devlog #1 – Starting the new libGDX Project

nelson · Posted on

This is a first in a series of Devlogs for my next game project – an infinite runner. In keeping in line with my last published title, the working title for this game is “HappyGo Runner”. But I haven’t quite determined the tone or story of this game so the Happy part could change in the future. That’s what a working title is for I suppose šŸ™‚

Defining the Game’s Scope

Even if the name remains open, thereĀ are however, several things I am determined to put into the game. Some are aesthetics, the others are arbitrary, and the others bubbled up during development of HappyGo Fishing, but I simply had to leave them out of that game.

Here are my restrictions for the game’s scope which I will consider unchangeable.

  • The game will be anĀ infinite runner played in landscape mode
  • The game will have parallax scrolling effects
  • The game will not have microtransactions
  • The game will not be story driven, but can contain story

That’s all pretty general, it’s important for me at least to document this here, because after developing HappyGo Fishing, I know first-hand how crazy things can get out of hand. I’m going to try and avoid that this time.

Starting the New Project in libGDX

With that I went about starting the libGDX project. The game will be developed with Java inĀ Android Studio. For those who are interested, libGDX is a free and open source framework, that does little more than draw things on screen and help interface with devices. It’s cross-platform as well so you can choose where you want to build to. I’ll probably do another post on libGDX and why I chose it for those interested. I have gripes with Unity3D after the Global Game Jam this year, which I’ll explore in that post…

Anyway, the setup is as below, for those following at home. This creates the standard libGDX project, which I then imported in Android Studio then away I went.

The First Hours of Development

After about a couple of hours and some rather finicky trial and error, I got an OrthographicCamera in landscape mode to zoom in and out depending on the character’s elevation.

Here is the resulting short demo.

Next Steps

The next steps will be to achieve a simple game loop consisting of running, jumping, collecting coins, dying -> restarting.

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