Marble Platformer Starter Kit

My latest asset is available for purchase on my website and the asset store.

For web player demo and purchase information click the link below:
http://www.imperialpenguin.com/marblestarter/

On the asset store:
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/22192

The Marble Platformer Starter Kit features 13 fully textured, game ready models and a wide range of fully scripted prefabs to create a rolling ball game without ever having to write a line of code or create a single model. The web player demo can be created entirely from within the Unity editor. Of course, you can choose to create more complex level geometry with your 3d modeling software of choice.

Controls
The kit comes with a input setup that allows control using the mouse and keyboard, a joystick, virtual joysticks for mobile, or accelerometer for mobile. Please note that mobile controls have less precision than desktop controls so your levels should be designed around the target control system and platform.


Checkpoint system
The kit includes a checkpoint system that most of the object hook into. Upon the player passing a checkpoint, compatible objects will remember their current state and return to that state when the player dies and is returned to that checkpoint.


Object prefabs
The kit provides the following objects, ready to drag and drop into your scene:

Grass - This grass prefab automatically tiles the texture, so you can scale it to any size you want when building your scene. Combine multiple copies of the prefab to create simple, but fun levels with no modeling work.

Cannon - The cannon features a nice looking smoke particle effect and a light to simulate its muzzle flash.

Collapsing block - When the player touches this block, it will shake briefly before falling to the ground. Shake angle and fall delay time are adjustable in the inspector.

Fan - The fan will add force to the player if they get too close. Features a force falloff setting so the force of the fan can be greater when the player is closer to the blades.

Land mine - Explodes when the player touches it. Features a fantastic looking explosion particle effect.

Moving platform - This platform is controlled via empty game objects that serve as waypoints. Have as many waypoints as you want. Includes the option to pause at all waypoints or just the end points, to travel one way or back and forth between the endpoints, and to parent the player to the platform to make it easier to stay on or not.

Rotating platform - This platform rotates around. You can adjust the angle between stops and decide whether or not to parent the player to the platform to help them stay on.

Ramming block - Like the moving platform, this prefab uses empty game objects as waypoints to control its movement. The goal of this prefab though is to push the player rather than transport them.

Catapult - The catapult launches the player into the air. The forward force and upward force are independently adjustable.

Speed up / Slow down pads - These apply an adjustable velocity multiplier to the player

Switch - Switches another of the objects on or off. Most of the objects support switching. The switch can be set to switch an object on, off, to toggle between them, or to act as a momentary toggle.

Teleporter - Teleports the player to another teleporter. These can take an array of target teleporters. The destination can be set manually, in code, or set to random. No destination can be set for receive only teleporters.

Checkpoint - When a player dies, they will return to the last checkpoint crossed. The scene can be set to return them to the most recent checkpoint, the furthest checkpoint reached, or a random checkpoint. Most of the other object will remember their state when a checkpoint is crossed and return to that exact state when the player resumes at that checkpoint.

Finish line - Plays a finish animation and give the player the option to continue to the next level or return to the main menu.

Other prefabs

Scene manager - Holds the list of checkpoints and controls the checkpoint manager.

Game manager - Holds the list of scenes and controls switching between them.

Player rig - Contains the player, player camera, and all player related controls

Main menu rig - Contains the main menu camera and all menu related controls

 

Now available on the asset store at https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/22192

 

Looks great. I am gonna purchase today!!!

 

Can i please have a copy of the manual before i buy?
Do i have to change some physics or something other that do not use the normal starting scene from unity?
I want to use it with some other scripts that use or work with the the normal scene and would behave different with changed physics.

 

What? We can't use other scripts in this kit?!

 

I do not say you can not use other scripts with this.

Because in some other assets i.e. for some game templates, at least in the beginning of the asset store, you have to change the standard physic settings and sometimes other settings too so i ask if this is the same with this asset too?

If so i do not like it because i want to use some other scripts that need the standard physic settings to work at best.

 

ah like you want a scene where the gravity is different then from start scene. Yeah that would be a nice feature but maybe its possible due unity?!

 

I do not want that the gravity is different then the start scene.
I want and hope this asset use the standard gravity from the start scene.
In fact i never understand why someone change the standard gravity settings from the start scene instead of the gameobjects for this kind of games (marblerollgames).

 

Ah is see.

Is this kit mobile-friendly?

 

Wow. I didn't expect so many responses while I slept! If I forget to address something one of you two asked about, let me know.

@RandAIThor, I have uploaded the manual to http://www.imperialpenguin.com/marblestarter/MPSKManual.rtf I apologize if it isn't as clear as it should be. I found it way more difficult than I thought it would be to explain how things work. At some point, I'd like to make a series of video tutorials because I think I can explain things better that way.

To answer your question about physics, you do not have to change anything in Edit->Player Settings-> Physics if that is what you are concerned about.

@Devision4, the only mobile device I tested on was my Droid Razr. It managed to get around 40fps on that old phone even without switching over to mobile friendly shaders. So, performance-wise, I'd say it is mobile friendly. One thing that needed changing though, and I mention this in the manual IIRC, is that the bias of the lights needed to be turned up to .5 instead of .05. At least on Android. I don't know about iOS. For whatever reason, there were a ton of horrible shadow artifacts at the default value. But .5 didn't look good on the desktop, so I didn't make that a permanent change.

One thing about mobile though, is that the controls are different. It has support for using the accelerometer and for using the virtual joysticks found in Unity's standard assets. Both of them give far less precision of control than using a keyboard or a physical joystick on a computer. So you'd need to design your levels around that difference or the user will get frustrated quickly. The demo levels are pretty difficult on mobile. You can adjust the sensitivities, so maybe you can dial in controls that more accurate simulate desktop controls better than I could. But I think lack of precision is pretty much just inherit to mobile virtual joysticks. At some point, I may do a mobile only set of levels. Basically it would just boil down to less narrow passageways and obstacles based further apart.

 

@HemiMG
I just bought your new asset, played a little and will start to read the docu after this post.

What i miss is something like an option menu in game where i can choose if i want to use the mouse and keyboard or a joystick on PC (or Mac) or two (mobile) joysticks or the accelerometer on mobieles.
Please try to add this also with the new uGUI (using Unity 4.6beta20).

I will test the demos soon on ios but have seen that besides that this asset does not use mobile shaders it is not optimized on the drawcall side.
But, i do have such shaders and can optimize the drawcalls too and just hope that this is working on ios but i am sure it will.

Hope to find the place in the docu fast where i can switch everything to mobile to just test it there fast too.

 

@RandAlThor
I'm not at the computer I need to be to check it right now, but on the desktop do the mouse/keyboard and joystick not work at the same time? I seem to remember not having to choose, but being able to use either/or since it's just based on the input manager settings and those are duplicated for keyboard and joystick. You are correct that the user should probably be given the option for mobile, although I'm not sure that the two control styles are similar that it would be a seamless adjustment between the two. The levels may need to be designed with a particular control style in mind. At the very least the developer should be given the option to give the users the option. You can toggle the boolean to determine whether the accelerometer is used in code, so for now you could hack in a UI to do that if it is a pressing feature.

The new UI is something that I really wanted to be out before I released the asset. I was hoping 4.6 would be released before I finished it up. So I will definitely get the new UI in there at some point. But I'd rather wait until the release is official. Just in case for some reason or another something changes that might break things.

Sorry, but I don't have any place to quickly switch to mobile shaders. If there's anything glaringly obvious that I'm doing wrong on the draw call side let me know and I'll see about getting the changes done in an update. I'm frightfully backed up on work for clients right now so I don't know how quickly any non-critical new releases will come. But I most certainly want to keep the asset updated as frequently as possible to ensure that it is the best that I can make it.

 

I have no problem with the drawcalls in general and not every asset has to fit everything all the customers want them for. I just want to say that i am sure it will work on mobile and everyone who wants to make a mobile game with this asset has to optimize it themself by using your prefabs or their owns and use batching, shaders, lod´s and much more to let it run smooth on mobile. At least this is just a starter kit and it work buitifully here.

I am more interested in the the 4 stearing methods and want to use them as a basis for my own idears.
Hope for a simple scene file with the new uGui that let me just stear the ball on desktop or mobiles with stwitchable stearing methods in an option menu so i then can start to test it with multiplayer functions on multiplatforms.
But you wrote you have not so much time at the moment so i try it myself at first

Thank you for making this asset.

 

I would love too see video tutorials soon

 

@Devision4 I just got through making a quick video on how to do the basic setup. I'm stuck on satellite internet so I'll have to wait until midnight when my download cap is lifted to upload it, but I'll update the thread when it is up. I'm not sure when I'll get around to doing one for each of the prefabs but they don't take too long so maybe I can knock out one every couple of days or so while I'm trying to get caught up on work for clients.

 

The first tutorial video is up. It's just a basic getting started video. I'll try to get more in depth videos out as soon as I can find time.

 

great thank you!

 

Could you include a timer (selectable for some scenes) that count down and player need to finish level in X amount of time?

 

A timer is on the todo list. It's one of the things I wanted in the original release, but as I was working on it I kept adding features so I finally had to decide on which features I wanted in for a 1.0 release and which I wanted to add in future updates. Otherwise I would have been working on it forever and never get it released. Feature creep can be a pain. I'll make sure the timer makes it into the next release though. Just as soon as I get caught up on these two projects for clients and a mobile game that I'm a month or so behind schedule on. I don't need to finish those before I can get the timer in, but I do need to get caught up a bit.

 

Being a fan of Marble Blast Ultra this asset looks enticing! Will there be any updates coming this year? I'd also like to see a video showcasing everything you can do in the pack; even if it's a demo scene recorded and uploaded to YouTube.

 

This kit does not work correctly in Unity 2019.4.0f1. It shows many errors and Play does not work. It's time for an update. Thank you.