What is a good size scene for scrolling shooter ?

LogoLogic

I am trying to figure out how long a scrolling shooter should be. 6000? 10000? Any suggestions?Also how do you keep the screen moving to "force" your actor along? Also, how do you come to a stop for the big boss battle? Thanks!

TwilightHunter

I use a different actor that scrolls the screen for when I do in between graphics and such, I would do the same here. Just have one invisible actor thats always moving, and if you want it to start moving up and stuff for different parts of your stage, I would use a sort of bumper, but I learned the bumper skill when I was 8 so I'm sure you could figure something else out :P
As for not letting your character leave the screen, have an invisible wall on either side that scrolls at the same speed as the invisible camera.
The size of the scene would depend on how much you've planned out of course!
Have different scenarios planned out for each stage, (helicopter fights randomly, buildings blowing up, etc) I wouldn't just lay a bunch of bricks down and have the player run through gunning, make it interesting

LogoLogic

I have really colorful scenes that I am doing the artwork for. Right now I have the first couple at 6000 pix. They seem a little too short though. Packed with arty actors, but I can scroll through it too fast I think. Should I make them longer. It seems like the scenes might be pretty memory consuming at almost 1mb per scene. I plan on having 15 scenes.
So with my big boss scenes I would make invisible walls when I get to the big boss at the end of the scene? Thanks.

TwilightHunter

Yeah, the scrolling actor would just run into either the boss or another invisible actor that makes it stop moving. I can see your problem with making the scenes xD, almost had the same problem myself. Now, because you don't want to make the stages longer (Obviously) Do some little stalling scenarios. Like the screen stops moving, say in a couple parts of the stage, a horde of enemies keeps coming, and you gotta survive until they stop coming, or until you blow up their spawner. Then the screen starts going again. Stuff like that will make your stages much much longer.

LogoLogic

I like that bit about the screen stopping and starting. How would I do that? Right now my main actor is controlling the camera. Thanks TH.

JamesZeppelin

have you looked at the shooter demo?

It pretty much takes care of your questions.

Shows how to stop for a boss battle, and how to have a 3000x scene and only use about 800x

Its a great demo with a lot of valuable info

LogoLogic

Yeah I have been working from that demo. I will check it out more. Thanks.