Progressed onto the in-game UI and wanted to solve the problem of showing the profile of the stage. As this game is going to be predominately about strategy, knowing where you are on the stage is very important.
I wanted to have the profile generated automatically from the stage itself, so that I could modify and tweak the stages, and the profile would simply update itself.
The stage artwork uses a tile-set to create the hills and descents. Alongside these tiles are markers (invisible to the player) which mark out the flat areas, the climbs and the descents. The profile is drawn by sampling the stage, looking for markers, and drawing a section of line depending on what the stage is doing. It's a simple solution, but works a treat.
