Multiple levels in one scene or a level a scene?

SteakSauce

so im thinking of creating a game with gamesalad, similar to Plants Vs. Zombies, but i'm not sure how i should make the scenes. I've seen videos by tshirtbooth on how to make multiple levels in a scene. Should i make it like that? considering that each level there will be different rules and different monsters. Or should i work the traditional way of every level has its own scene.

If i were to work with multiple levels in one scene, how would i go controlling the spawn of the monsters?

Cheers

JustMe74

You're much better off making one scene for all levels; otherwise you will have a load time after each level. You can accomplish this with tables to store the position of actors and values for attributes.

UtopianGames

I would go for one scene when possible but sometimes its too much work and a lot easier to make separate levels.

I don't think the loading is as much of an issue as it once was and you could always give the player a bit of text to read at level complete so they don't notice it loading for so long.

Darren.

gyroscope

Hi @SteakSauce

Ditto to what Darren @UtopianGames said, my opinion is to go with multiple scenes.

Trying to jam every level into one scene can become confusing, and time-consuming trying to track through a wedge of Rules. A small pause between scenes "never hurt anyone" as they say, plus adding as many scenes is nicely implemented in GSC, not to mention ease of Previewing, by easily jumping to any scene, etc, etc.

If you did go the multiple scene route, then copying Scenes, with scene and self attributes, not to mention GUI and actors/images/rules, etc can be done in a second by alt dragging it in the Home window > Scenes of GSC, if you didn't know.

Having said all that, if you want to go "all-in-one" as @JustMe74 says, then that's fine too - there's no right or wrong way here, just a working preference - but be aware of the extra work involved.

BBEnk

I think it depends on type of game if its a scroller like Mario I would use many scenes like I'm doing on my current project but before this I made a pool variant type game that has 3 levels of play "easy,medium,hard" with 90 boards each for a total of 270 all on one scene using tables to build each board.

JustMe74

Well, I made the mistake of making an individual scene for each level.. and guess what the #1 complaint from reviewers and end users is? Loading times. It's definitely easier to create a game that way, but does not necessarily create the best experience for the end user. Going forward, I plan (when possible) to make the gameplay exist on one scene.

For the storybook app I'm creating now, I have the entire book on one scene; I also have an actor called "StoryController" that dynamically loads all of the required actors based on the page number.

gyroscope

All sounding good stuff, @JustMe74 & @BBEnk

For certain, if all levels are similar layout throughout and some loading advantage is made by putting the lot in one, that's great (although with extra considerations about the possibility of ream of Rules in one level, possible glitches introduced, etc). But with other types of apps, it would be nigh on impossible. The interactive multimedia app I'm working on needs separate scenes and I couldn't do without that, worse loading times or not, for instance. I'd get in a tangled mess in no time...

So @SteakSauce - I reckon @BBEnk comment says it all:

I think it depends on type of game ...

...and personal preference.... :-)

PS @JustMe74 When the GS team have finally done away with the Lua engine, loading times between scenes might be a thing of the past, fingers crossed!

SteakSauce

@justme74 what if my levels are long, do you think it'll be different?

@UtopianGames hm i might go for a level a scene, but then, what will be the best of implementing in text after each level?

@Gyroscope yeah maybe it will be a bit confusing, yeah maybe ill go for a level a scene

@BBEnk oh wow! tables really are powerful. what if i went for a scene for each world?

@everyone will creating a lot of scenes make the game incredibly bigger?
and if i do make it multiple levels in a scene, then having a level selector would be possible right?

gyroscope

Hi @SteakSauce , to answer your last question, adding scenes - even 100 or more, in itself doesn't make the game bigger at all - (nor re-using graphics you've already got in your Image bank/inspector in GSC). It's new graphics/sounds/rules & behaviours that add to the file size.

Try a little experiment, if you like: make a test game file, set it to an iPad size as a suggestion, bring in a whole background pic and a couple of other images/sounds if you want, just dump them anywhere on the first scene. Note the Project Size, bottom right of GSC.

Now go to the Home window > Scenes and alt drag this scene as many times as you like. Check on the Project Size and you'll notice it doesn't changed, no matter how many duplicate scenes you add. :-)

SteakSauce

@gyroscope oh wow thats cool as, i didn't know that thanks
god i hope the lua free engine comes out soon as well, it loads like a total beast