my drifting game

ktfright

i made a beta of my drifting game D.R.F.T, and the controls are pretty good on my part, but now i want to know, is there any way i can have the user change the color of the car, or pause the game, or start menu? also, tell me what you guys think.

Geolion1

How do we see the game?

ktfright

go to the games, and click the recent ones

Unknown

Cool game.

Currently, the only way to pause the game is to click outside of the game area.
For a start menu, you would need to make different scenes and use the Change Scene behavior.
http://gamesalad.com/wiki/how_to_gsc_change_scene_button

As for changing the color of the car, I made a quick wiki and demo game using your car as the model.
http://gamesalad.com/wiki/how_to_gsc_change_image_color_midgame

Hope that helped.

CodeMonkey

Cool game.

Currently, the only way to pause the game is to click outside of the game area.
For a start menu, you would need to make different scenes and use the Change Scene behavior.
http://gamesalad.com/wiki/how_to_gsc_change_scene_button

As for changing the color of the car, I made a quick wiki and demo game using your car as the model.
http://gamesalad.com/wiki/how_to_gsc_change_image_color_midgame

Hope that helped.

ktfright

is it possible to drift over an actor (no collide) and get points for every second I'm on it?

CodeMonkey

Technically yes, but its not perfect.
One way you can do this is if your car's centerpoint (it's x/y coordinates) is within a range defined by the centerpoint of your target with offsets of half its width and height. Or vice versa.

I've created a wiki that may help:
http://gamesalad.com/wiki/how_to_gsc_track_if_actor_is_over_another

ktfright

first, does this apply to he car actor, or the actor the car drives over, and how can i make it where the points are continuous, not once every time Im on it? also, can the score text scroll with the camera and car?

CodeMonkey

In my How-to the car is the actor going over the target.
Instead of the 'Display Text' behavior that says "I'm on target" you can replace it with a 'Timer' behavior that increments a global attribute.
Have another actor that has the 'Display Text' behavior that displays that global attribute.

And to have the score scroll with the camera, put it in a different layer.
See http://gamesalad.com/wiki/scene_layers

ktfright

idk, it just crashes gamesalad every time... is it possible to(or if it is an easier way), to have points added to the score for how much i drift, instead of drifting in a certain area. and also, what do you guys think i should do about scoring?

Boinkology

Thanks for the Wiki post on tracking actors. I have been using this method for an AI pathfinding solution. The wiki is a nice resource.

CodeMonkey

Hey ktfright,
Do you know what specifically was added that is crashing GameSalad? Do you only have one area that is updating the score?

ktfright

The problem might be that I use a darker road square as a target for the actor to drift over. Every time I put that actor in the scene and press play, my car does not move at all and slows gamesalad down unless I take out the road actor. It might also because I put those constrain attributes in my car actor instead of my road actor. Another thing might be that I had way too many actors at once, like those boxes, but it could be that the road was in the wrong layer, but I have since changed that, but the problem arises

Right now, I only had one area, but I was planning to put that road actor on corners of tracks for points, but now, I'm kind of lost.

ktfright

also, since it is a drifting game, should it even have points, or should it be something else?

CodeMonkey

You could have a score increment every time you spawn the tire burn smoke. But its up to you if you want to have points or not.
Perhaps something that just tells you how long it takes to run the course.

ktfright

thats a good idea, but how the car actor is set up, it can only spawn a new actor every time I press up; it won't let me set it to more than one button, but Thank you for your help so far. its good to know that gamesalad is there to help you out when there is a problem.

ktfright

cool, i sort of got the core gameplay in, but now,what do I do about drawing levels, or does the level look good how it is now?

CodeMonkey

If you take a look at the Piryx Man game, that has a few layers on it. The road and grass is the furthest back actor. Then there is a layer of invisible "obstacles" where the buildings are situated. Then there is a layer for the checkmarks and the super hero, then the buildings overlay is above all of those, then the scores/HUD/logos are in a layer above those.

You probably know about layers already, but it was an example of what you can do to make levels look neat.

ktfright

cool, i'll try that. thanks

ktfright

also i need some help converting car sounds to ogg, audacity is kinda hard to understand

CodeMonkey

I think if you can open your audio file in audacity, you go to the File menu and select Export as Ogg Vorbis. and that's all you need to do to make an ogg file.

ktfright

Cool, i got the ogg in, but for some reason, the car engine noise moves around the level with the car actor when it plays... how could i center the engine sound? Is it because i have a large level and I have the control camera in place?

I dont know, that starfire game has the bullet sounds moving depending on where the ship actor moves, but i dont want that for my game.

ktfright

Cool, i got the ogg in, but for some reason, the car engine noise moves around the level with the car actor when it plays... how could i center the engine sound? Is it because i have a large level and I have the control camera in place?

I dont know, that starfire game has the bullet sounds moving depending on where the ship actor moves, but i dont want that for my game.

ktfright

anything?

CodeMonkey

Hi ktfright. As far as I know, the sound is using OpenAL and we currently don't have a way to change the way the audio sounds based on position and have it not sound weird.

I guess you could have a sound actor that would always stay in the center of the camera view and then have it do the audio when those same conditions are met. Copy and paste that rule block with only the Play Sound behavior, turn off the collidable property, and put it in the same layer as the scoreboard.

Hope that helped.

ktfright

Holy shucks!!! It worked!!! CodeMonkey, you and GameSalad are fantastic, and I couldn't do any of this without you guys. thanks for making an extremely great program.

ktfright

another thing, i looked at other games similar to mine for reference, and i noticed that when the car has completely stopped,it is not able to turn around, unless you hit the gas, and then its able to turn. is there any formula reference or something i can look at to have that similar effect?

nulo

make a attribute "gas_on" and set it to 0.
when you press the gas button make it change the attribute to 1.
when you lift the gas button set it back to 0.

now put a condition with your down keys for left and right, and make it only work if gas_on = 1

ktfright

is the gas on attribute a boolean, or integer?

nulo

boolean since its on/off

ktfright

cool, thanx, i got it.how did you know how to do that?