Arima's Forum Posts

  • I have a good idea for the font splitting app that might be able to take an image and do it all automatically. I'll give it a shot then post back here when I've got something.

  • nobody who uses programs like these, are programmers, there's no programming involved and you're not a programmer by using them, it's like a modder calling himself a developer, or a college student with no real world experience, claiming they know better, it's a bit of a joke, haha

    I have to disagree. I don't think a person needs to use a programming language to program. An if/then statement is the same basic concept in a language as in construct. I can't program in any sort of programming language at all, and yet after learning construct, not only can I talk game programming with professional game programmers, they can and have suggested things to me, without having used construct - and their suggestions work. I can understand what they're talking about most of the time because construct uses so many of the same functions. While construct simplifies the process enormously, it's still essentially the same thing, using a lot of the same concepts.

    Also, as I think you know, you don't need to be at a major company or use a programming language to be a game developer. Honestly, I don't like how you seem to consider us 'bottom of the barrel' developers in your tone with parts of this post. I've been working on my RPG for 10 months, and let me tell you, it is a LOT of work. Construct may not be coding completely from scratch, but really, how different is it from using an engine of some sort that does a lot of the work for you? Engines take years to develop, and if your goal is to make games, I hear even from pro developers, you might as well use some other engine and get to the game.

    [quote:1q8qt7m3]Especially when people run around claiming construct can do everything, when the reality of it is, it can't.

    With the exception of online/gamepad use, I don't think I've found any 2d games that couldn't be made in construct (there are obviously a lot of 2d games I haven't played, though). The only games that I've found that you couldn't remake in their entirety are ones that rely on the speed of code (which is obviously faster than interpreting events), but even those games could be made with a few thousand less spaceships in them, for example.

    Even if there are games out there that you couldn't make in construct, it can still be said that construct can make any TYPE of 2D game.

    [quote:1q8qt7m3]Programmers (e.g. Ashley, David and the plugin creators)

    Developers (people with real commercial experience)

    Modders (people who mod game engines or create TC's)

    Game Makers <-- this is where construct and other apps like it are, along with us, the users.

    I don't think any group should be listed as 'below' or 'above' any other. We're all doing the same thing. Making games. The more I talk to people about it, the more I find people, and developers, most of the time don't care what you make a game with. They care that the game is awesome.

    I disagree about loading the tutorial automatically, but perhaps asking if the user would like a tutorial once would work.

  • The way I do it is by looking at the player's abilities, then coming up with ways the level can make use of those abilities in as many ways that I can. Then I try to make all those pieces work together with the theme of the level.

    Great thread idea!

  • The setup was:

    - switch turned on (private variable sprite set to "1")

    - mouse over 1 of the 4 instances of sprite: they all responded.

    Try reversing the order of the conditions to:

    • if mouse is over sprite
    • private variable sprite is set to 1

    Also make sure that the pv you're checking for is 1, not "1".

    Edit: In the example you mentioned, how many sprites had a pv=1? Each extra condition works as an "and". If there were no sprites with a pv=1, this could have happened:

    If pv=1 (if there are none, construct picks no sprites)

    AND

    mouse is over sprite (there were no sprites chosen from the previous condition - therefore still no sprites chosen because no sprites meet BOTH conditions)

    Then the object list has no picked sprites, so when you tell construct to set the opacity, it sets the opacity of all of them.

  • My game was starting to take a long time to load/save/run, so I replaced all the big background graphics I had with tiny squares, then load the images at runtime instead. It now loads/saves/runs in less than half the time. This works with any object that has no animation, but it does make them harder to place. (Note: if you do this make sure that after replacing the images with tiny squares, make them 1:1. Otherwise construct crashes when loading images to them.)

    Mipey: IIRC, construct freezes while loading assets. You could make a loading screen, but it couldn't have animation.

  • Looks like it's not working because of the bugs mentioned before. I'm not sure why it worked in my .cap and not yours - I couldn't get it to work with a new .cap either. Sorry, but it looks like there isn't any way to take a screenshot until those bugs get fixed.

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  • You can either drag it to the correct layer, or use the move to layer action at runtime.

  • The canvas object does have some bugs, but I tried it in one of my .caps and it worked.

    Put the canvas on the top layer

    Make sure it's always in front of everything

    In the properties, set it to grab the layout before drawing

    On event, imagemanipulator, copy from sprite: canvas

    Then imagemanipulator, save to file

  • I believe you can use a canvas object, have it grab the layout, then send it to the image manipulator, which can save it as a file.

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  • Out of curiosity - would it be possible to make the mouse behavior grab the current mouse position rather than use the one in the event sheet that's being processed (which lags behind a bit)?

  • Gah, Ashley beat me to it.

    (Edits out most of what Ashley said)

    [quote:3oi8iiaa]an to the same, if you have a 512x512texture and make it 1024x1024 will it work faster then an original 1024

    One thing not mentioned is fill rate/overdraw. GPUs can only crank out so many pixels per second (pixel fill rate). If you draw two sprites, and one of them is completely obscured by the sprite in front of it, the gpu will have essentially wasted that time drawing the obscured object. Normally this isn't much of an issue (and there isn't an efficient way to tell if an object is obscured), but it helps to think about when planning a level.

    [quote:3oi8iiaa]is it better to cram everything together in the same for each "object" action or dont worry about it an split it up as much as you want for better overview

    Generally I've found it doesn't matter, but if you're going to do lots of intensive loops, then sticking everything in the same 'for each' might be a good idea. Otherwise you do a lot more loops than you need. You can check how long the event sheet is taking via the debugger, where you can check the ratio of time spent running events/drawing the frame.

    [quote:3oi8iiaa]if you have an area of 10000 by 10000, and there is some activity in places, is there something you can do to make it less cpu intensive or will the extra eventchecking make it more intensive

    You can deactivate behaviors and set the collision mode of offscreen objects to 'off'. This speeds things up dramatically.

    [quote:3oi8iiaa]if you zoom out, very far, more objects are rendered would it be a good thing to exchange the sprite with something smaller or less detailed, set the sprite to frame 2 for example

    , or hide things that arent showing anyway, like particles

    I suggest trying it. Set the FPS to unlimited and experiment.

  • Regardless of the ratio, the vertical resolution will be 480. Find out the ratio of the monitor to determine what to set the horizontal resolution to (I'm not sure of the math). After setting the resolution, put an extra layer above all the others. Put black bars on the left and right covering the area past 0 and 640.

  • Yeah, post a vid, man! There is a 'post videos of what you're working on' thread...

  • Good Advice:

    Do not make an rpg. Not right now, It will only end in disappointment. I'm telling you, it's impossible at this level. I've been doing game development for years and I would still not dare tackle a big FF style rpg, even with a team. If you are making tiles like that, then please do yourself a favor and start with a small game idea to hone your skills. You will soon see that all the behind the scenes coding which goes into even a small game soon becomes a handful. An RPG is by far the most difficult game genre to develop, and even with a team it takes the utmost devotion and planning. I don't want to sound harsh, but I am 211% sure that this game will not get finished, or even to a point of near completion. Come up with a small original design with your team or on your own, and see how tough it is to finish just that.

    There's some solid advice there, except that while it's not impossible, it is VERY VERY hard. My RPG is an 'RPG-lite' for the exact reason that I wanted to try something simple to actually complete a project. It's been 10 MONTHS and I'm barely past the first boss!!! There's the map, battles, saving, inventory, leveling up, equipment, cinemas, stats, menus, towns, npcs, shops, items, etc etc and that's for a 'simple' RPG!

    I don't want to discourage you, but there's a reason most indie RPGs are made with RPG maker - all that stuff that comes built-in is a lot more complex than it seems!

    Make something small, a one area/town/boss 'practice' RPG that has all the features of the other RPG you want to make (I'm using this technique even for a longer RPG - that's why I'm not much further than the first boss). Seriously, it will be way more work than you expect, not to mention that you'll probably have to rewrite portions of it repeatedly to get new features to work with the old ones. The benefits of doing it this way are by getting all the game's systems and features working one one area, it makes it much easier to test everything, and then if after completing it you feel like you'd like to continue, you have a whole engine ready for content, making the development of the next game/area much, much easier.

    Also, development tip: when testing a concept (like your tile system), don't put a whole lot of work into something before making sure it'll work/be feasible. That way you won't have to redo a lot of work if the concept doesn't work.

    And I have to also vote against using BOF screenrips. if you're going to put this much work into a project, I highly recommend making some actual tiles. It will be MUCH more rewarding to have (and easier to work with!) original graphics.