New Games in Development - Ongoing Discussion Please

SuperMario'13

Hi everyone, I'm Erik! I'm new here. Been using Gamesalad marginally for about a year, but I'm ready to get serious. Very excited to start creating and collaborating...

I have five games in the works right now, a gardening game, building, diving, bicycling, and a top-down adventure game. Right now I'm mostly having trouble understanding how to make the physics work well.

Specific questions: for the adventure game, is it better to use "move" or "linear velocity" attributes? Right now I'm using move and he doesn't stop when I lift arrow keys or when he hits a wall.

For the garden game, I'm having the issue where I want the user to be able to select a specific plot of ground, select a seed, and then plant the seed and have it grow successively over time, or whither if you don't take good care of it. Also I'm hoping to make certain pests appear in the day and the night. Problem: selecting one instance of the plot of ground selects one, but when I do "change 'seed planted' attribute to 'true,' all nine plots of ground change.

Bicycling game is a side-scroller, trying to make the movement happen in .25 second increments to kind of give it the look of a game-and-watch, that kind of thing It's got three lanes of traffic, and the movement left and right is working fine, but I can't seem to make him move up and down in exact amounts...possibly because of the timer. What do I do?

Anyhow, that's what I've got right now. Builder is also in process, grid-based but we can get to that later. Right now, if anybody has answers or knows where I can get them please let me know.

If these questions have already been asked and you can direct me to the right thread, this would also be much appreciated.

Thanks, and looking forward to a bright future!
Erik

frd

Hello, I'll have a go at some answers...

Top down - I use move, but I don't have those problems. You could make a rule that says if all arrow keys are up change linear velocity x and linear velocity y to 0. Have you got a collide behaviour with the walls? They should have fixed rotation checked and moveable unchecked. I also set all friction and bounciness to 0.

Garden - is seed planted a game attribute? If so, you should have a separate attribute for each plot.

Bicycling - you could have the vertical movement represented by a numerical attribute, say the numbers 1-3. When this attribute equals 1 change bicycle position y to the top height, 2 change to middle height and 3 change to lowest height. The arrow keys would change the numerical attribute by saying something like when attribute equals 1 and down key is pressed change attribute to 2. When I do this I also add a game attribute called wait, which is a boolean. Wait turns true for 1 second (or any time) after an event like this, then turns false again. The events are only allowed to happen if wait is false. This stops it from jumping straight from 1 to 3.

Hope something here is of use, good luck!

frd

Hello, I'll have a go at some answers...

Top down - I use move, but I don't have those problems. You could make a rule that says if all arrow keys are up change linear velocity x and linear velocity y to 0. Have you got a collide behaviour with the walls? They should have fixed rotation checked and moveable unchecked. I also set all friction and bounciness to 0.

Garden - is seed planted a game attribute? If so, you should have a separate attribute for each plot.

Bicycling - you could have the vertical movement represented by a numerical attribute, say the numbers 1-3. When this attribute equals 1 change bicycle position y to the top height, 2 change to middle height and 3 change to lowest height. The arrow keys would change the numerical attribute by saying something like when attribute equals 1 and down key is pressed change attribute to 2. When I do this I also add a game attribute called wait, which is a boolean. Wait turns true for 1 second (or any time) after an event like this, then turns false again. The events are only allowed to happen if wait is false. This stops it from jumping straight from 1 to 3.

Hope something here is of use, good luck!