Lime still alive?

rdytmire · December 7, 2012, 4:13pm

Here’s a link to my 2-D game (2 map layers, multiple dynamic objects). There’s a video on this page showing examples of the map in use.

http://scriptgstudio.com/games/munchie

Most of the processing power is going to my A* algorithm. The game can have as many as 80 objects requesting paths at the same time so the A* engine has to load balance and is optimized.

The map drawing portion is very fast (at least 4x faster than Lime). I can’t imagine an isometric engine being much more taxing. Corona should handle it fine. GPU’s are pretty good on newer tablets, especially Android and the Kindle Fire HD.

The game is 100% complete and will be released sometime in Jan / Feb 2013. [import]uid: 141438 topic_id: 31835 reply_id: 134257[/import]

J_A_Whye · December 8, 2012, 2:10pm

This isn’t an “official” word on the subject, but I believe the rumors of the death of Lime have been greatly exaggerated.

I’ll bet we hear something in the near future…

Jay
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ashnor · December 6, 2012, 7:12pm

Looks like it’s completely gone.

http://justaddli.me (the lime website) is just a placeholder now. [import]uid: 87963 topic_id: 31835 reply_id: 134103[/import]

Elliott · December 6, 2012, 7:48pm

It is a shame as it showed promise but I did have some performance issues with it.

I’ve now switched to level director (www.retrofitproductions.com) and it is working great for my needs.
It is not tied to tiles which gives greater flexibility and I’ve been able to replicate some of the functionality of lime by setting user properties on my layers and objects.
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cspence · December 6, 2012, 7:51pm

Elliot you have much luck doing isometic games with Corona?
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Elliott · December 6, 2012, 8:41pm

No, I can see why you want to use tiled and lime now, shame. [import]uid: 158620 topic_id: 31835 reply_id: 134113[/import]

cspence · December 7, 2012, 6:04am

Looks like it is just a technical issue, temp site can be found:

http://www.glitchgames.co.uk/domains/lime/ [import]uid: 160288 topic_id: 31835 reply_id: 134169[/import]

rdytmire · December 7, 2012, 9:26am

Lime is a great idea but it’s currently slow and has several major bugs.

I ended up using Tiled then writing a custom C# app to convert to a JSON file, which I loaded into a table object in Corona. Which worked really nice and performance was top-notch. I’ll be going that route with the next game as well.
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cspence · December 7, 2012, 10:36am

Did you create a C# app to replace Lime? [import]uid: 160288 topic_id: 31835 reply_id: 134202[/import]

rdytmire · December 7, 2012, 12:28pm

I used C# to translate the Tiled data file into a JSON object, which LUA could understand. From there I used the data normally inside Lua / Corona. So basically, I externalized the part where Lime imports Tiled data directly. This actually made my game much more lightweight and my maps much faster to render.

The lua object looked something like this:

result = {
– data is where we load our JSON file…result is the class responsible for working with data
– data contains our map plus all the settings defined in the original Tiled map.
– So the game would have code that looked like: result.data = JSONHelper:load(filename);
– to load in the map AND it’s settings / state.
– You could reverse this process pretty easily to save map and it’s state by serializing result.data
– into a JSON string and saving it.
data = {}

function result:foo(param1)
{
–do something with data here.
}

} [import]uid: 141438 topic_id: 31835 reply_id: 134217[/import]

cspence · December 7, 2012, 1:59pm

I haven’t gotten into isometric games yet, but is what lime does only a translation? How much work is the translation (i.e. to duplicate your C# application)? [import]uid: 160288 topic_id: 31835 reply_id: 134240[/import]

rdytmire · December 7, 2012, 3:01pm

The translation work is going to depend on your app’s complexity. I actually used a sister XML file to define extra properties and tiled to lay out game objects. The C# app took me an afternoon to write…so not much work.

LIME did lots of other things, and IMHO, tried to do too much…and became too complex for the original author to maintain. You should use map data to represent your world and other files as work best for the project.

This is why I *hate* designers like game-maker, they end up trying to do everything for you and thus end up doing a mediocre job at best. See Steam’s game design engine, it’s no where nearly as flexible as Corona’s API.

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Elliott · December 7, 2012, 3:23pm

I have to agree with rdytmire, I would rather add functionality as I need it rather than have a bloated api type system where I only use 10% of it.

That is why I turned to level director as it allows me to create my map, title screen or even HUD elements and just give me the data to use as I wish.

I like to be in control :o) [import]uid: 158620 topic_id: 31835 reply_id: 134248[/import]

cspence · December 7, 2012, 4:04pm

Have you had much success with isometric games in Corona after using those techniques?
I am curious how well Corona can handle it. [import]uid: 160288 topic_id: 31835 reply_id: 134255[/import]

Elliott · December 7, 2012, 4:10pm

No, I haven’t had a need as of yet but it might be worth posting the question on the level director thread to see if they plan to add support for isometric maps.
http://developer.coronalabs.com/forum/2012/09/06/level-director-level-creation-tool-windows

They seem very responsive to questions and updates. [import]uid: 158620 topic_id: 31835 reply_id: 134256[/import]

rdytmire · December 7, 2012, 4:13pm