I hate Scenes, Does Table Works?

creativeapps

Hello,

I am working on physics game like cut the rope, Spin The Nuts and I have around 10 different obstacles divided into 50 levels & 3 different backgrounds with level complete & game over screens. Because of scene it takes more time in loading so I am thinking about moving into tables. Does Table works with this type of game? And increase the loading time? Please clear my confusions.

Thanks,
John

creativeapps

anyone?

creativeapps

Is tsb table video works with what I am talking about?

Braydon_SFX

It should, yes. However, it will take a while to load into that one scene.

POM

Hey ,
i dont recommend it , editing the levels for bug fixes and such is going to be a big headache .
Instead , i say stick to the scenes method , optimise as much as you can to reduce loading time , or even wait for the LUA drop..
Thats my thoughts .
Best of luck John!

Cheers
Roy.

creativeapps

@Braydon_SFX Thanks for that

@P-O-M How you doing? Happy to see you after long time. And thanks for your comment & suggestions.

Thanks,
John

SingleSparq

I'm currently working on a game that HAD 48 scenes (levels) but now I've change it to use tables to create the scenes - so I will have 4 scenes (1 per world) and each scene will have 12 levels in it all generated by the tables I set up.

It takes about 10 seconds for the level to 'create' itself covering an area of 1152 x1088 - so less area =less time (I have a instruction image in the foreground so you don't see the scene being made). This equates to a table of 18 columns 17 rows - each cell equals a 64x64 square.

As the creator block moves across the scene, it reads the cell it is correlating with, and will spawn an actor into place based on what I have in the table cell. So 0= nothing 1=block 2=breaking block 3= enemy etc.

The beauty of this is not having to manual line things up - just build your level in an excel sheet and add it in. This may not work for every situation of game building but if based on block pattern it's great.

I've also been successful in adding the reset for instant replay of a scene (actors that disappear are simply moved off to the side and can be called back) and to create a new level each actor has a destroy rule before a new level is made. I also managed to get the level end scene (score and stars) in there too so there is very little need to go outside the single scene. (a little tricky cause the camera rotates in the game)

IRONICALLY my problem now is a major one where I CANNOT leave the scene - it just freezes on me. Not sure why - I have to go back a few saved versions where it works fine and try and figure that out but other than that very happy with how its working.

Heres a typical level as a table (colour coded so I can easily know whats what in my mind)

POM

@Braydon_SFX Thanks for that

@P-O-M How you doing? Happy to see you after long time. And thanks for your comment & suggestions.

Thanks,
John

Hey thanks John
Happy to see you too!
Yeah I've been away from the forum lately, working a lot on my major project, near finishing, (and it's astonishing IMO)
Are you makIng a Puzzle game? How far are you in the development?

Roy

gurechan

@SingleSparq I recently made a game using camera rotation and had the issue of the game freezing on "change scene" I found that it is because the camera is set to rotate it is causing this issue.

I fixed it by having a game level attribute like: changeScene, and when I want to change scene I would change this to 1.

Then put the camera control inside a rule if changeScene = 0

This way, when the game level attribute is triggered for change scene, the camera control is no longer active, and the change scene function works as it should.

SingleSparq

@SingleSparq I recently made a game using camera rotation and had the issue of the game freezing on "change scene" I found that it is because the camera is set to rotate it is causing this issue.

I fixed it by having a game level attribute like: changeScene, and when I want to change scene I would change this to 1.

Then put the camera control inside a rule if changeScene = 0

This way, when the game level attribute is triggered for change scene, the camera control is no longer active, and the change scene function works as it should.

Thank! - good info, I shall give it a try.

SingleSparq

@gurechan Well tried that. Put controller into a rule that it can only be used if game.changescene = 0 . When I click the menu button change game.changescene to 1. If game.changescene = 1 change scene to menu. Still freezes. Thing is I don't have this problem on a previous version of the game and it's virtually the same. Will keep looking.

creativeapps

@P-O-M Yes just started working puzzle game. Concept and objective of the game is ready. Its not like cut the rope & Spin the nuts but different game play. I hate those looking and because of that asking for tables. Good luck for your project.

@SingleSparq Thanks for providing useful information its really helpful and I can see you are stuck somewhere because of tables is that correct?

Thanks,
John

SingleSparq

Sorry did not see your reply, no tables are not an issue. The freezing bug turned out to be my main camera actor. On testing it was set to visible. When I set it to invisible (under graphics) and reached the game over screen then tried to leave the scene it would freeze up. I'll just use alpha change to make it invisible instead.