Leap #

An opinionated toolkit for creating 2D platformers on top of the Flame engine.

Join the #leap channel in the Flame Discord to discuss.

WARNING library under development #

Be aware that this is still under development and is likely to change frequently, every release could introduce breaking changes up until a v1.0.0 release (which may never happen as this is a solo endeavour currently).

Features #

Level creation via Tiled #

Leap uses Tiled tile maps not just for visually rendering the level, but also for imbuing behavior and terrain in the level by creating corresponding Flame components automatically from the map's layers.

Physics #

The crux of this physics engine is based on this post The guide to implementing 2D platformers: https://higherorderfun.com/blog/2012/05/20/the-guide-to-implementing-2d-platformers/

The "Type #2: Tile Based (Smooth)" section outlines the overall algorithm.

Note that Leap doesn't use Flame's collision detection system in favor of one that is more specialized and efficient for tile based platformers where every hitbox is an axis-aligned bounding box, and special handling can be done for tile grid aligned components (such as ground terrain).

Efficient collision detection

Essentially all physical objects (PhsyicalComponent) in the game have axis-aligned bounding boxes (AABBs) for hitboxes, determined by their size and position. The hitbox doesn't necessarily need to match the visual size of the component.

✅ Supported tile platformer features:

• Ground terrain
• One way platforms
• Slopes
• Moving platforms
• Ladders

🚧 Future tile platformer features:

• Friction control for ground tiles (for ice, etc.)
• Interactive ground tiles
• Removable ground tiles
• One way walls

Simple physics designed for 2D platformers

Long story short: physics engines like box2d are great for emulating realistic physics and terrible for implementing retro-style 2d platformers which are not remotely realistic. In order to get the snappy jumps and controls required for a responsive platformer a much more rudimentary physics engine is required.

In Leap, physical entities have a velocity attribute for storing the current x and y velocity, which will automatically update the entity's position. A moving entity colliding with the level terrain will automatically have its velocity set to 0 and position updated to be kept outside the terrain to prevent overlap. There is also a global gravity rate applied to the y velocity every game tick. Static entities will never be moved by velocity or gravity.

Getting started #

Before using Leap, you should be familiar with the following Flame components:

• FlameGame
• CameraComponent
• PositionComponent
• TiledComponent

Usage #

LeapGame #

To use Leap, your game instance must extend LeapGame (which in turn extends FlameGame). It's recommended to use game.loadWorldAndMap to initialize the game's world and map.

LeapWorld #

Accessible via LeapGame.world, this component manages any global logic necessary for the physics engine.

LeapMap #

Accessible via LeapGame.map, this component manages the Tiled map and automatically constructs the tiles with proper collision detection for the ground terrain. See [Tiled map integration](#Tiled map integration) below

Game code snippet #

See the standard_platformer example for complete game code.

void main() {
  runApp(GameWidget(game: MyLeapGame()));
}

class MyLeapGame extends LeapGame with HasTappables, HasKeyboardHandlerComponents {
  late final Player player;

  @override
  Future<void> onLoad() async {
    await super.onLoad();

    // "map.tmx" should be a Tiled map that meets the Leap requirements defined below
    await loadWorldAndMap('map.tmx', 16);
    setFixedViewportInTiles(32, 16);

    player = Player();
    add(player);
    camera.followComponent(player);
  }
}

PhyiscalEntity physics system #

The physics system for Leap requires that every Component that interacts with the game's phyical world extend PhysicalEntity and be added to the LeapWorld component which is accessible via LeapGame.world.

Characters

Character is a PhysicalEntity which is intended to be used as the parent class for players, enemies, and possibly even objects in your game. It has the concept of health and an onDeath function that can be overridden for when health reaches zero (or negative). It's also possible to set removeOnDeath = true to automatically remove the character from the game when it dies.

Entity animations and behaviors

Entities are typically rendered visually as a SpriteAnimation, however most likely there is a different animation for different states of the character. That's where AnchoredAnimationGroup comes in.

A AnchoredAnimationGroup is a specialized SpriteAnimationGroupComponent, so you can set all the animations as map on the component and then update the current animation with the key in the map for the correct animation.

Typically you want to make use of this by making a subclass of AnchoredAnimationGroup so all the logic relevant to picking the current animation is self contained.

For example:

class Player extends JumperCharacter with HasAnimationGroup {
    Player() {
        // Behaviors that run before physics
        ...
        // Physics
        add(GravityAccelerationBehavior());
        add(CollisionDetectionBehavior());
        // Behaviors that run after physics
        ...
        add(ApplyVelocityBehavior());
        // Rendering related behaviors
        add(AnimationVelocityFlipBehavior());

        animationGroup = PlayerAnimation();
    }
}

enum _AnimationState { walk, jump }

class PlayerAnimation extends AnchoredAnimationGroup<_AnimationState, Player> {
    @override
    Future<void> onLoad() async {
        animations = {
            _AnimationState.walk: SpriteAnimation(...),
            _AnimationState.jump: SpriteAnimation(...),
        };
        return super.onLoad();
    }

    @override
    void update(double dt) {
       if (character.isWalking) {
           current = _AnimationState.walking;
       } else if (character.isJumping) {
           current = _AnimationState.jumping;
       }
       super.update(dt);
    }
}

AnchoredAnimationGroup also automatically handles positioning the animation to be centered on the parent's hitbox. The positioning can be changed with the hitboxAnchor property.

AnchoredAnimationGroup must be added via the HasAnimationGroup mixin in a PhysicalEntity component, and typically is set to the animationGroup property as well.

Death animations

The recommended way to handle death animations is to add the RemoveOnDeathBehavior or the RemoveAfterDeathAnimationBehavior. If you depend on the death animation finishing, you will also need to:

1. Have a AnchoredAnimationGroup set on the character, and make sure it sets the current animation to whichever death animation you need.
2. Make sure the death animation has loop = false so it doesn't play forever.
3. Make sure the rest of your game doesn't interact with it as if it is still alive. The recommened approach for this is to add a custom Status to it, possibly with the IgnoredByWorld mixin on it. Or you can other entities interacting with it can check isDead on it.

Status effect system

PhysicalEntity components can have statuses (EntityStatus) which modify their behavior. Statuses affect the component they are added to. For example, you could implement a StarPowerStatus which when added to your player component makes them flash colors become invincible.

Since statuses are themselves components, they can maintain their own state and handle updating themselves or their parent PhysicalEntity components. See OnLadderStatus for an example of this.

There are mixins on EntityStatus which affect the Leap engine's handling of the parent PhysicalEntity. See:

• IgnoredByWorld
• IgnoresVelocity
• IgnoresGravity
• IgnoredByCollisions
• IgnoresAllCollisions
• IgnoresNonSolidCollisions
• IgnoresSolidCollisions

You can implement your own mixins on EntityStatus which control pieces of logic in your own game.

Resetting the map on player death #

It's pretty common want to reset the map when the player dies. The recommended patter is to reload the map in the Game class and add:

class MyGame {
  ...

  Future<void> reloadLevel() async {
    await loadWorldAndMap(
      tiledMapPath: 'map.tmx',
      tiledObjectHandlers: tiledObjectHandlers,
    );

    // Don't let the camera move outside the bounds of the map, inset
    // by half the viewport size to the edge of the camera if flush with the
    // edge of the map.
    final inset = camera.viewport.virtualSize;
    camera.setBounds(
      Rectangle.fromLTWH(
        inset.x / 2,
        inset.y / 2,
        leapMap.width - inset.x,
        leapMap.height - inset.y,
      ),
    );
  }


  @override
  void onMapUnload(LeapMap map) {
    player?.removeFromParent();
  }

  @override
  void onMapLoaded(LeapMap map) {
    if (player != null) {
      world.add(player!);
      player!.resetPosition();
    }
  }
}

And make sure to call game.reloadLevel() from the Player when the player dies.

Tiled map integration #

Leap automatically parses specific features out of specific Tiled layers.

Ground layer

Layer must be a Tile Layer named "Ground", by default all tiles placed in this layer are assumed to be ground terrain in the physics of the game. This means these tiles will be statically positioned and have a hitbox that matches the width and height of the tile.

Specialized ground tiles:

• Slopes for terrain the physical can walk up/down like a hill. These tiles must have two custom int properties LeftTop and RightTop. For example, a 16x16 pixel tile with LeftTop = 0 and RightTop = 8 indicates slope that is ascending when moving from left-to-right. Alternatively the tile can have LeftBottom and RightBottom for pitched (sloped on the bottom) tile.
• One Way Platforms for terrain the physical entities can move up (e.g. jump) through from all but one direction. These are implemented via GroundTileHandler classes, and can therefore use and class you want via passing in a map of custom groundTileHandlers when loading the map (see below). The most used is OneWayTopPlatformHandler which modifies the tile to be phased through from below and the sides, but solid from the top.

Custom ground tile handling

To have complete control over individual tiles in the ground layer, you can use the class property in the Tiled editor tileset to hook into the groundTileHandlers you pass in when loading your map.

In your LeapGame:

await loadWorldAndMap(
  camera: camera,
  tiledMapPath: 'map.tmx',
  groundTileHandlers: {
    'OneWayTopPlatform': OneWayTopPlatformHandler(),
    'MyCustomTile': MyCustomTileHandler(),
  },
);

And your MyCustomTileHandler:

class MyCustomTileHandler implements GroundTileHandler {
  @override
  LeapMapGroundTile handleGroundTile(LeapMapGroundTile groundTile, LeapMap map) {
    tile.tags.add('PowerUpTile');

    // Add some extra rendering on top of your special tile.
    map.add(PowerUpTileAnimationComponent(x: groundTile.x, y: groundTile.y));

    // use the provided tile instance in the map
    return tile;
  }
}

// OR

class MyCustomTileHandler implements GroundTileHandler {
  @override
  LeapMapGroundTile handleGroundTile(LeapMapGroundTile groundTile, LeapMap map) {
    // MyCustomTile constructor must call the super constructor to initialize
    // the the LeapMapGroundTile properties
    return MyCustomTile(
      groundTile,
      myCustomProperty: groundTile.tile.properties.getValue<int>('PowerValue'),
    );
  }
}

Note that the class property is always added to each tile's PhysicalEntity.tags. So, you can check if your player is walking into a special type of wall with something like this:

class Player extends PhysicalEntity {

  @override
  void update(double dt) {
    super.update(dt);

    if (collisionInfo.right && // hitting solid entity on the right
        input.actionButtonPressed && // custom input handling
        collisionInfo.rightCollision!.tags.contains('MySpecialTile')) {
      // right collision has a tag we set from Tiled's tileset `class` property
      // (tag could also be added by your own custom handling)
      specialInteraction(collisionInfo.rightCollision!);
    }
  }

}

Metadata layer

Layer must be an Object Group named "Metadata", used to place any objects to be used in your game like level start/end, enemy spawn points, anything you want.

Object Group layers

Any Object Group layer (including the Metadata layer) can include arbitrary objects in them, if you wish to automatically create Flame Components for some of those objects you can do so based on the Class string in Tiled. All that is required is implementing the TiledObjectFactory interface and mapping each Class string you care about to a factory instance when loading the LeapMap, for example...

In your LeapGame:

await loadWorldAndMap(
  camera: camera,
  tiledMapPath: 'map.tmx',
  tiledObjectHandlers: {
    'Coin': await CoinFactory.createFactory(),
  },
);

Your custom factory:

class CoinFactory implements TiledObjectFactory<Coin> {
  late final SpriteAnimation spriteAnimation;

  CoinFactory(this.spriteAnimation);

  @override
  void handleObject(TiledObject object, Layer layer, LeapMap map) {
    final coin = Coin(object, spriteAnimation);
    map.add(coin);
  }

  static Future<CoinFactory> createFactory() async {
    final tileset = await Flame.images.load('my_animated_coin.png');
    final spriteAnimation = SpriteAnimation.fromFrameData(
      tileset,
      SpriteAnimationData.sequenced(...),
    );
    return CoinFactory(spriteAnimation);
  }
}

class Coin extends PhysicalEntity {
  Coin(TiledObject object, this.animation)
      : super(static: true) {
    anchor = Anchor.center;

    // Use the position from your Tiled map
    position = Vector2(object.x, object.y);

    // Use custom properties from your Tiled object
    value = tiledObject.properties.getValue<int>('CoinValue');
  }

  ...
}

Other layers

Any other layers will be rendered visually but have no impact on the game automatically. You can add additional custom behavior by accessing the layers via LeapGame.map.tiledMap and integrating your own special behavior for tiles or objects.

Moving platforms

To create a moving platform, you need to implement your own component which extends MovingPlatform and provides a Sprite (or some other rendering).

If you choose to implement this component with a Tiled object (recommended), many of the fields can be directly read from the object's custom properties:

• MoveSpeedX (double), speed in tiles per second on the X axis
• MoveSpeedY (double), speed in tiles per second on the y axis
• LoopMode (string), one of resetAndLoop, reverseAndLoop, none
• TilePath (string), a list of grid offsets to define the platforms path of movement. For example, 0,-3;2,0 means the platform will move up 3 tiles and then move right 2 tiles.

Ladders

To create a ladder, you need to implement your own component which extends Ladder and provides a Sprite (or some other rendering).

Ladders also require custom integration with your components which are able to climb the ladder. This is accomplished by adding an OnLadderStatus as a child component, removing the child component will remove the component from the ladder.

For example:

class Player extends PhyiscalEntity {

    void update(double dt) {
        // These booleans are fabricated for this example,
        // implement what makes senes for your own system.
        if (isNearLadder && actionButton.isPressed) {
            add(OnLadderStatus(ladder));
        } else if (hasStatus<OnLadderStatus>() && jumpButton.isPressed) {
            remove(getStatus<OnLadderStatus>());
        }
    }

}

To see a fully working example, see Player in examples/standard_platformer.

Customizing layer names and classes

Even though the structure explained above should always be followed, the developer can ask Leap to use different classes, types, names.

In order to do so, a custom LeapConfiguration can be passed to the game.

Example:

class MyLeapGame extends LeapGame {
  MyLeapGame() : super(
    configuration: LeapConfiguration(
      tiled: const TiledOptions(
        groundLayerName: 'Ground',
        metadataLayerName: 'Metadata',
        playerSpawnClass: 'PlayerSpawn',
        damageProperty: 'Damage',
        platformClass: 'Platform',
        slopeType: 'Slope',
        slopeRightTopProperty: 'RightTop',
        slopeLeftTopProperty: 'LeftTop',
      ),
    ),
  );
}

Debugging #

Slow motion #

LeapWorld includes HasTimeScale, so you can set world.timeScale = 0.5 to slow your whole game down to 50% speed to make it easier to play test nuanced bugs. (You can use this as slow motion for your game too.)

Render hitbox #

PhysicalEntity includes a debugHitbox property you can set to automatically draw a box indicating the exact hitbox the collision detection system is using for your entity.

class MyPlayer extends PhysicalEntity {

  @override
  void update(double dt) {
    // Draw entity's hitbox
    debugHitbox = true;
  }

}

Render collisions #

PhysicalEntity includes a debugCollisions property you can set to automatically draw a box indicating the hitbox of all other entities it is currently colliding with.

class MyPlayer extends PhysicalEntity {

  @override
  void update(double dt) {
    // Draw entity's collisions
    debugCollisions = true;
  }

}

Roadmap 🚧 #

• Improved collision detection API.
  • The current API is fairly awkward, see CollisionInfo.
  • There is no great way to detect collision start or collision end.
• Improved API for PhysicalEntity, addImpulse etc.
• Lots of code clean-up to make usage of Leap more ergonomic and configurable.

Contributing #

1. Ensure any changes pass:
   • melos format
   • melos analyze
   • melos test
2. Start your PR title with a conventional commit type (feat:, fix: etc).