deadeye's Forum Posts

  • Well, how does the AppPath thing in Construct work? I would take a look at that and try to... er, copy it .

    Anyway as long as you can change the path at runtime then that would be fine. Then developers can create their own "where do you want to save your screenshots" option in their games themselves.

  • Okay, here you go:

    http://dl.dropbox.com/u/529356/Construc ... ceship.cap

    Hope this helps

  • Since you called me out by name I'm tempted to just ignore this

    But... fine. I will answer. I no longer have that .cap. But it was pretty simple to make the first time so I will try to whip something up real quick...

  • It's probably not the platform behavior messing up, it's coded pretty solidly. It's likely my clumsy fingers just mashing the jump key a split second too long.

    Still, if you gave a little more clearance and a little more room to make small mistakes in the early levels, it would make the game much more approachable to more people. Slowing down the spike wall would be good as well, and you can make it gain speed every few levels or so.

    Like I said before, just allow people time to get used to the game gradually. The first few levels should be challenging, but not necessarily "hard." Since you're an expert at your own game the first few levels might seem like really boring levels for babies, but that's just not the case. Expertise comes with practice. You can't practice if you can't get past the start.

    Another thing that keeps game levels interesting, and will keep players engaged, is a good level flow. Take a look at how other games set up their difficulty within a level. The start is usually somewhat calm, then the action ramps up, then there's a truly difficult bit, then it calms back down again for a moment. It's like a wave. Easy bits followed by hard bits, repeated over and over until the level is done. If it's all hard all the time there is no chance to catch your breath, and people get frustrated more easily and are more likely to put your game down.

    Of course there is always a niche for super-hard games that start off hard and stay that way. And if that's what you're looking to fill then that's cool too. Just keep in mind that not everyone enjoys maso-core games like that. It's just a matter of which audience you're trying to reach.

  • > There's a built in save feature, and i think it's supposed to work quite well, but check the bugtracker. I've had poblems with it in the past.

    >

    In some of my own tests, I've found that it tends to load layouts with very few assets quite well, but when you get into layouts with a lot of on-screen assets it has trouble. In my own case, save and load has actually caused the game to malfunction completely in very strange glitchy ways.

    I haven't ever used the built-in save feature myself (I have used INI's like Jayjay mentioned though), but would it be possible to have a very small, bare-bones save screen layout to save and load from at runtime?

    Like, you hit pause and transition to a separate save/load layout with a simple UI. Hit the save button, and it stores all the globals you need. Hit the load button to load them. Then you can transition to whatever level is stored in your "currentLevel" global or whatever, and populate any scores, powerups, stats, or whatever with your other globals. Would that be one way around the lots-of-assets-to-load problem?

    Edit:

    By the way, if you are using INI's to build levels (by saving the size and position of platforms and enemies, for instance), then it is possible to store those in the game itself with simple hidden text objects by useing the Text Manipulator and the File objects.

    Step 1:

    On level load, you read the INI file information stored in the text object.

    Step 2:

    Use the Text Manipulator to save that text information to a temporary INI file in the game directory.

    Step 3:

    Use the INI object to read the info from the file you just created and do your level building loop.

    Step 4:

    Use the File object to delete the INI file.

    This can all be done in one tick, seamlessly. In fact I'm not even certain that it writes an actual file to the drive because it's being created, stored in memory, used, and deleted all in one fell swoop before Windows has a chance to process the write command. Anyway, this is how I did dynamic level loading for my game Vert, which only uses one layout for the entire game (even though there are only two levels ).

    Of course, with Rojo's new Resource plugin you can just store whatever INI files you want in the .exe itself without any fancy tricks like this, I'm just saying. Well, obviously you can't CHANGE the contents of an INI stored in the exe, but you can save basic level building data.

  • Rojo, since you are now helping to develop Construct Classic, is there any way to incorporate this functionality into the main features of the program? It really seems like this kind of thing should be part of the program itself, and not a separate plugin. Fonts especially, since I believe it was originally planned that you be able to embed font resources anyway, and that feature just fell by the wayside somewhere over the course of development.

  • Welcome

    Just tried out your game, it's very hard right off the bat. It's generally good practice not to murder your players so mercilessly in the first couple of levels, so they can get used to the controls. Then you can start ramping up the difficulty. It's sometimes hard to balance this on your own because you are an expert at your own game . Anyway I didn't even pass the first level. I died like 25 times and gave up.

    One thing I was wondering, are you using your own custom platform movement, or the Platform Behavior? It seems a little off somehow. Like you're not using TimeDelta. It seems like I can make the exact same jump, the exact same way, in the exact same place over and over again, and half the time I hit the spikes with my head and the other half of the time I don't.

    Or maybe your controls are just super-sensitive. Though I am pretty sure I am making the quickest tap possible to make the smallest jump possible, and I hit my head on the low spikes anyway (early on in the first level... you know which part I mean, yes?).

    Anyway not bad, but super-hard games aren't really my thing in general so maybe someone else can give some better feedback...

  • Good luck, man. It's hard enough to get a game done in a month, let alone while you're trying to learn a new tool as well.

    My advice would be to use something you're more familiar with. Don't risk your grade. You're setting too big a task ahead of yourself already. Construct will still be here when you're done, and you can learn it at your own pace

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  • Cool, good luck

    A couple more bits of advice:

    Make your hero weak. Badass guys who can mow down hordes of monsters with a Gatling aren't scary. Having to run and hide from hordes of monsters is.

    Also, make your character clueless. One of the major ways that horror games get under your skin is the simple fact that you don't know what's going on. Like I mentioned before, reveal the story a little bit at a time.

    Finally, make your character a small part of a bigger world. This can help deliver a sense of helplessness or isolation. The Ratman dens I mentioned before are an example of this as well... there is stuff going on around you that you won't necessarily be a part of. Those simple little scribbles on the wall make a HUGE impact on the scope of the game. When you see those for the first time it is suddenly about more than just running around with a portal gun. Another way to do this is have incidental characters getting bumped off. Either onscreen or off. Maybe there are other normal people in the game and the monsters go after them too. Or perhaps you meet a friendly character early on, part ways, and later on you come across their corpse. It gives a sense that there is more story happening outside of your frame of reference, and that the situation is completely out of your control. That kind of stuff.

    Anyway, crafting a really good horror game is a huge undertaking. I wish you luck.

  • My advice:

    Games and movies don't really scare me. "Scary" just isn't scary. Blood, guts, monsters, zombies... none of that is scary. Yes, most good horror games have that kind of stuff in them, but that's not what makes them scary.

    Sudden jump scares and loud noises also aren't scary. They're merely startling. They're cheap tools to cause a moment of adrenaline. Which is fine, if you use them sparingly. If used too much, or if the timing is wrong, it can be really cheesy.

    Go for creepy instead. Don't reveal your entire story at once. Do it with little clues here and there. Lead the player one way with your clues, then give them a twist later on, BUT DON'T LIE TO YOUR PLAYERS. Red herrings are fine, but outright false information is bad.

    Use a "hook." Examples are the children's rhyme in the Nightmare on Elm Street movies. Or the "Ch-ch-ch ah-ah-ah" noise in the Friday the 13th series for when Jason is near. These sorts of things, and other music or sound cues, can be pretty effective when used right. The Ratman murals and crazy writing on the walls are another example of a hook. Those little hidden areas really lend a creepy vibe to the game.

    Silent Hill uses a hook as an actual game mechanic with the radio static noise. Whenever you hear it, you know something is nearby, and if you can't see right away then it then it's all the creepier.

    If you're especially good you can make your hook a clue in itself. The game Deadly Premonition does this all throughout. The main character (York) seems to be speaking to an alternate ego or imaginary friend (Zach) throughout the whole game. And every time he asks "right, Zach?" he taps the side of his head with two fingers. He does this repeatedly throughout the game. I don't want to spoil the meaning for anyone who hasn't played the game so I'll make it real small:

    Tapping on his temple with two fingers isn't just a gesture to indicate that he's talking to an imaginary friend. It turns out that the main character, York, is actually the alternate ego and "imaginary friend," and Zach is the real person who's mind is trapped inside. When he was a kid, Zach saw his father shoot himself in the head and was traumatized. The two fingers tapping the temple is a pantomime of pointing a gun at your head, and the words "right, Zach?" were his father's last words right before he pulled the trigger. When you realize that York has been mimicking Zach's father's suicide through the whole game, it's a really friggin creepy moment.

    Additionally, you should show the consequence of failure before attempting a task. For instance, the zombie munching on the corpse at the beginning of Resident Evil. Or something lurking at the surface of the water for a moment and disappearing before having to cross a lake. Or something falling down a chasm you have to traverse, like you accidentally kick a rock over the edge with your shoe or something. Whether they notice it or not it gives the player a subtle "I don't want that to happen to me" feeling while they're playing, which wouldn't necessarily be there if the consequences weren't made apparent. Again, this is a trick that should be used sparingly or else it gets old.

  • The answer has been specifically stated in this very thread. Twice.

    To clarify, in case the third time is the charm: You don't collide with the 3D object. It can't do collisions. So you have to make sprites or tiles that are solid and put them in the layout to make walls. Make them invisible. It doesn't matter. Just do your collisions with something else.

    Now, pretty please with sugar on top... use the help forum for any future questions

  • I'll say it again in case you didn't hear me the first time:

    If you have questions, USE THE HELP FORUM. Stop asking for help in this thread.

    By the way, your collision question has ALREADY BEEN ANSWERED.

    Thanks

  • I am curious, which of these is the abbreviation in your username?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSP

    It's Garden State Parkway, isn't it?

  • I am conflicted.

    On the one hand, I congratulate you on your cool job opportunity. That's pretty awesome, and I wish you luck

    On the other hand, The Next Game Boss is a totally crap show and IGN is terrible. Especially after Cryptic Sea got bumped out on the first challenge but those lame frat boys who sketched up a dominatrix as their "ultimate boss" skated on through.

    But if you had to be affiliated with any one of those teams then I guess Ethereal is the best of what's left. At least their game looks pretty interesting.

  • Okay. I was a bit confused. I thought that's what you meant at first, but the game you linked doesn't do that. Maybe it's hard to see because the bottom part of the platforms overlap the player.

    Anyway, you could create your own jump mechanics that do what you need with events. With varying degrees of difficulty, depending on how you do it. You might even have an easier time trying to create your own platforming movement with Custom Movement behavior, rather than trying to finagle the Platform behavior into doing something it doesn't want to do.

    If you do make custom jumping it will likely have to be custom gravity as well. I would try making a variable called "VerticalSpeed". When the player just standing there, VerticalSpeed would be at something like 800. When the player hits the Jump button, it sets VerticalSpeed to, say, -400. Or something. Then, every tick you count VerticalSpeed back up towards 800.

    Then you can do an Always event where the player's actual vertical speed is set to the VerticalSpeed variable, and jumping and gravity will be handled for you that way.

    This would allow the sticking to the ceiling effect that you want, because even if the player hits a ceiling, whatever remaining negative speed you have left over from the jump will still need to run it's course. So the player will continue to move towards the ceiling until VerticalSpeed is greater than 0, at which point he will start to fall.

    That's the theory anyway. Good luck