Can Corona Do what I need for my first game?

Getting Started Newbie Questions
#1

I am about to start development on a game and have played around with Corona and I absolutely love it. I have finally decided on the game idea I am going to move forward with.  After watching the WWDC 2014 videos and seeing all of the new features of Sprite Kit combined with SceneKit, I felt that I can absolutely make a game that has 2d characters in 3D space ( with shallow-ish focal length to blur enemies in the background )  The enemies will be paper cut-out characters that need to look like they are flat characters in a 3d space )

The player would be attacking them with a weapon that is sort of FPS style. The game would have to determine whether or not an enemy can be reached by the players weapon (non-projectile).  The scene would be pretty static (save for a mild perspective change upon accelerometer tilt).  

I am also interested in employing physics to simulate a rope to use like a whip to aim at the items in this 2.5D space.  Is this possible with Corona?  I want to find a reason to use Corona SDK, but SpriteKit seems to be calling my name.  

I would release this as an iOS / Mac OS X game if I made it in SpriteKit and would release it for iOS / Android / (and eventually) Windows Phone if I went with Corona SDK.  

I was also toying around with the idea of using Cocos2D-X Lua.  Although the documentation on that is almost nonexistent.  

#2

I think everything you are asking for can be done in Corona SDK with one caveat.   2.5D space, blurring filters and such are premium graphics features which requires a Pro or Enterprise subscription to use.  We use Box2D physics so rope type things should work and that’s available at all tiers. You could also probably fake the 2.5D with art tricks and not actually have to warp rectangles into trapezoids.

Rob

#3

Thanks for the super quick reply Rob!  Yeah the 2.5D is the tricky part.

The enemies are basically paper.  And when they are hit I would like them to bend or warp around the hit point.  

Also the whip should be POV-esque, meaning the back of the whip would be closer to “camera” and the tip, when fully extended should be further from “camera”.  Im not entirely sure but is that something you can fake by using a clever graphic skin on the rope maybe?  I am not sure box2d can simulate rope physics in a view somewhere between POV and orthographic.

I am pretty sure if I did this game in Corona I would be doing it in a Pro package so if there are any solutions there that you can think of it would be much appreciated.  THANKS ROB!!  

#4

I think you could do the ‘folding paper’ thing by using masks to split the gfx into two arbitrary halves and distorting these using 2.5D.

This is a sort of static shooting game with faux 3D right, and you want your ‘whip’ to sort of arbitrarily go into the screen. I’m not sure (as with shahasad) if the physics could do this, as I think it would view it as a collection of different sized 2D objects, e.g. it has no conception of depth. 

It might be possible to have your objects in actual 3D space and map/scale the images to suit, and animate a whip out of lines - you can create arbitrarily moveable lines in Corona with a bit of fiddling :slight_smile: It really depends how many depths you have ; you could animate several different depths and use the nearest or arbitrarily create a whip for each time it is cracked.

#5

That is a really interesting idea about using lines.  If the player flicks the screen I wonder if there is a way to get the whip to accurately move.  I feel like in Sprite Kit (with Scene Kit) there would be a way to just do that in 3D.  It seems like there would be some major tinkering in Corona to make it look the same.  I wish there were some examples of how far people have come with 2.5D simulations.

I love Corona and would love to be able to deploy to iOS AND Android (with Windows just around the corner), I am just a perfectionist who wants his game to look super polished.

#6

Not sure about screen flicking. It would be something you’d have to spend a fair amount of time getting right, as its your basic screen mechanic.

#7

I’m not sure if I understood right, but in my opinion you would be best off with a 3d engine, because there you can do that without any of these tricks to simulate 3d. In these you can use just quads with texture for your sprites and they would look flat as they’re just flat quads. Some 3d engines do also have support for 2d sprites. But that really depends how much 3d-ish it should be. Unreal Engine 4 and Unity 4 support iOS, Android, Windows and more. Both have features for easily implementing 2D elements. Where I know mostly just Unity 4’s features, UE4 has a feature called Paper2D. You can easily mix 2D and 3D elements as you like.

I can not much say about Corona as I just skimmed the features, but I saw strong 2.5D support.

#8

Hey Dominik, thanks for your input.  I think you’re right and it will be best to go with a tool that supports 3D without the hacks.  I will come back to Corona for some other games I have in mind.  

#9

I think everything you are asking for can be done in Corona SDK with one caveat.   2.5D space, blurring filters and such are premium graphics features which requires a Pro or Enterprise subscription to use.  We use Box2D physics so rope type things should work and that’s available at all tiers. You could also probably fake the 2.5D with art tricks and not actually have to warp rectangles into trapezoids.

Rob

#10

Thanks for the super quick reply Rob!  Yeah the 2.5D is the tricky part.

The enemies are basically paper.  And when they are hit I would like them to bend or warp around the hit point.  

Also the whip should be POV-esque, meaning the back of the whip would be closer to “camera” and the tip, when fully extended should be further from “camera”.  Im not entirely sure but is that something you can fake by using a clever graphic skin on the rope maybe?  I am not sure box2d can simulate rope physics in a view somewhere between POV and orthographic.

I am pretty sure if I did this game in Corona I would be doing it in a Pro package so if there are any solutions there that you can think of it would be much appreciated.  THANKS ROB!!  

#11

I think you could do the ‘folding paper’ thing by using masks to split the gfx into two arbitrary halves and distorting these using 2.5D.

This is a sort of static shooting game with faux 3D right, and you want your ‘whip’ to sort of arbitrarily go into the screen. I’m not sure (as with shahasad) if the physics could do this, as I think it would view it as a collection of different sized 2D objects, e.g. it has no conception of depth. 

It might be possible to have your objects in actual 3D space and map/scale the images to suit, and animate a whip out of lines - you can create arbitrarily moveable lines in Corona with a bit of fiddling :slight_smile: It really depends how many depths you have ; you could animate several different depths and use the nearest or arbitrarily create a whip for each time it is cracked.

#12

That is a really interesting idea about using lines.  If the player flicks the screen I wonder if there is a way to get the whip to accurately move.  I feel like in Sprite Kit (with Scene Kit) there would be a way to just do that in 3D.  It seems like there would be some major tinkering in Corona to make it look the same.  I wish there were some examples of how far people have come with 2.5D simulations.

I love Corona and would love to be able to deploy to iOS AND Android (with Windows just around the corner), I am just a perfectionist who wants his game to look super polished.

#13

Not sure about screen flicking. It would be something you’d have to spend a fair amount of time getting right, as its your basic screen mechanic.

#14

I’m not sure if I understood right, but in my opinion you would be best off with a 3d engine, because there you can do that without any of these tricks to simulate 3d. In these you can use just quads with texture for your sprites and they would look flat as they’re just flat quads. Some 3d engines do also have support for 2d sprites. But that really depends how much 3d-ish it should be. Unreal Engine 4 and Unity 4 support iOS, Android, Windows and more. Both have features for easily implementing 2D elements. Where I know mostly just Unity 4’s features, UE4 has a feature called Paper2D. You can easily mix 2D and 3D elements as you like.

I can not much say about Corona as I just skimmed the features, but I saw strong 2.5D support.

#15

Hey Dominik, thanks for your input.  I think you’re right and it will be best to go with a tool that supports 3D without the hacks.  I will come back to Corona for some other games I have in mind.