Hey,

there is a death animation and the final frame looks like this.

As you can see, it would look good on a straight surface. What could I do to make it universal and look good every time? Does anyone have some simple solutions apart from using something like bones?

Perform a check for collision and slowly shift your sprite as you perform the fall animation, so that its center is at the center of the tile as opposed to the end.

That way, your body would fit entirely on that tile, and because this happens during the body "falling to death", and progressively, it wouldn't be apparent and clunky.

Hmm, I don't think that shifting will work fine, because death animation is quick. Also, would really work on this one:

redo the death animation so that it falls toward the screen? Or have the collision geometry (capsule, sphere, AABB) move with the animation, so they would fall to the next floor?

You will probably need an additional animation where the character bends over the edge. You would have to detect when the animation would put them hanging over the edge, and play the other animation in that case. As Orymus suggested, you would have to shift the position of the animation slowly to line up correctly. However, there really isn't a correct answer in this case. It really comes down to how much time you want to put into polishing details like this. Overhanging death animations is fairly common in video games and players aren't going to care that much, but those little details can add up to really improve the experience.

Potential solution: Make a second image for the final frame, but make it drawn *under* the terrain.

This way, when the character dies on the edge, half the "under" image is visible and lines up with the regular image:

Here'd be the full "under" image, as well as the regular image:

And so here's how he'd look if he died facing the other direction:

Or you could just have his entire body always be visible, even if it looks like it is sunk into the ground:

Have to point out though, this probably belongs in art, but I'm not sure this fits game design?

Yes, this is not game design. Moving.

@Servant of the Lord, thanks, I had the same idea at first, but poor explanation for my artist, your drawings helped to get it :).

@Tom Sloper, thanks, I didn't find this category at first.

How about you check if the whole bounding box of the sprite lands on collision geometry, if not, you let it fall through until it meets the next platform, same test, until you find a platform where the bounding box collides along its full length?

Don't think this would look off, given that is what a guy knocked out on a ledge would do anyway (fall down, that is), and given your platform design is not too rigid (for example if there is some kind of "pseudo depth" to it), it might not even look off even if the character falls down in a straight line