Using particles to simulate kicking up dust

Even if your game's art style isn't meant to be photorealistic, there are many subtle things you can do to make them more immersive. One such thing is to add environmental cues, such as dust clouds, where your player character moves. Have you ever run down a dirt road? If so, your feet have certainly kicked up quite a bit of dust as you travelled along. Let's add the same effect to your game to give more depth to the environment.

Getting ready

To start with, you'll need the following objects: two separate ground parent objects (obj_grndParent_norm and obj_grndParent_dirt), two separate ground objects (obj_ground_norm and obj_ground_dirt), and a player object (obj_player). Give the two ground objects different sprites and assign their respective parent objects, as we did in Chapter 2, It's Under Control – Exploring Various Control Schemes. Set up a room with a long platform consisting of sections of each type of ground object so that we can see the...