The terrifying Block spritesheet.

[Fyll]

@DivFord:

How many signs (like the start and quit ones) are going to be in the game? If it's just those two, making them a special type of block which has those signs on the relevant bits of the spritesheet would probably make that lot of code a lot easier.

Also, the point of the title, is the way the spritesheet is done really the best way to do it? There are several repeated blocks and by my count, there're ~200 missing tile possibilities. Also also, why aren't they all on one line?

[DivFord]

Are we counting weapon icons in there (i.e. the ones that display in the top corner)? If so, there are quite a lot of different signs.

It's definitely not optimal, though I'm not sure I quite follow you. Firstly, which sprite-sheet are we talking about?

[Fyll]

Nah, weapon icons handle themselves. This is just for signs stuck (statically) on walls.

The Block spritesheet (stone, dirt, water, ice).

[DivFord]

Firstly, there aren't any repeated blocks. There are ones that look quite similar, but they're all different.

Secondly, conventional wisdom is to keep the texture dimensions in powers of two, so that's what I was trying to do. Admittedly, it does waste a fair bit of space. One thing I was considering was adding some variant versions of the existing tiles. That would require extra coding though, so it may not be worthwhile.

[Fyll]

Fair enough. I had to zoom in a hell of a lot, but I spotted the corners eventually. Nicely done.

I think a power-of-two texture is probably worse than a not-power-of-two texture if it's mostly full of blank space, but we're not exactly pressed for space.

But yeah, back to the main point: everything is all good now, except those two signs. Are there any objections to making them their own block type?

(Also, your parallax backgrounds should be a lot easier once I push this lot).

[DivFord]

I'm not sure 27% qualifies as 'mostly', but fair point. I wonder where the point of diminishing returns is…

No objections as such. We should probably nail down exactly what signs we want. By my reckoning:

• Start
• Quit
• Retry (assuming we're replacing the balloons)
• Score Panel (which will probably be 4-5 times wider than the others…)

[Fyll]

I thought the retry screen had been scrapped altogether, in favour of just showing the "You're dead!" screen and booting you back to the start menu.

Also, I was picturing the score panel as just being drawn over the top of the blocks behind it.

EDIT: Actually, having multiple signs is okay, as long as they're on different shaped blocks. e.g. One is on the: * * X * _ block (marked by X), and another is on the:

* * X _ * \ block.