Final answer:
Technical issues causing the main character in a side scroller game to not appear may involve problems with sprite importation, instantiation, positioning, layering, Z-index, the rendering engine, conditional visibility scripting, or errors in the game console. It's important to systematically check each of these areas.
Step-by-step explanation:
If the main character in a side scroller game is not appearing, there could be multiple technical issues to investigate. The first step is to check whether the character's sprite or model has been properly imported into the game's assets. Additionally, ensure that the character is being instantiated and that its position coordinates are within the visible game world.
Next, you should confirm if the character's layer or Z-index is set correctly; it needs to be on a layer that is rendered on top of the background but not obscured by any foreground or overlay layers. The game's rendering engine might also be failing due to a code bug or a misconfiguration that prevents the character from being drawn onto the screen.
If your game code is supposed to trigger the character's visibility under certain conditions, it’s important to debug that piece of the script to ensure it's working as intended. Lastly, checking the game's console for errors can give you hints towards any issues that are preventing the character from being displayed.