lamar's Forum Posts

  • I meant a game like this

    Look at the catapult example on C2 for ideas.

    That is probably using physics for the bullet and that is a more advanced game design skill but you can still learn it pretty fast.

    The rest is just creating sprites that you can move and a fire button.

  • I can post pics to:

    Both of those sprites are set to 50% opacity.

    Sorry for trying to help you and good luck and have a nice day!

  • Sorry, you missunderstand.

    If i make a square sprite and colour it blue and set the objects opacity to 50%, then spawn another one and the two move and overlap, where they overlap each other will appear to be 100% opacity or solid blue, where they arnt overlapping will still appear 50% opacity.

    I'm looking for a way so the opacity is maintained at 50% regardless.

    Thanks.

    I didn't misunderstand.

    I offered you a way to feather the edges so they blend and that would reduce the effect you are seeing.

  • There is very little money in online ads. You need a huge number of visitors to make any significant amount of money. We think getting a few extra sales of Construct helps cover the running costs much better than normal banner ads.

    It's a free service we run - if you don't like the ads you don't have to publish there.

    Ok Ashley!

    It makes no sense to me that you would avoid an obvious money maker for Scirra but it is your business.

  • It might be easier just start your own portal, and offer users here a percent of what they generate.

    I will probably end up doing that if Scirra does not fix the arcade but the whole idea was to create an instant gaming website with Scirra as the backbone which helps them and creates an entirely new market for Scirrra designers.

    As it stands Scirra games in the arcade do not work at all well for an outside platform and Scirra needs websites like mine and my 85,000 subscribers I bring to the table if they want to grow their market base.

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  • We have lots of ideas for the Arcade but we just don't have the resources to address it right now - we're 100% on Construct 3 at the moment.

    The Arcade is pretty demanding on our servers and we help support that with the ads for Construct. I'm not really convinced the payment model you suggest would work as a substitute.

    Well Ashley, that big advertisement on the load screen makes it so websites like mine can not get interest in games because our viewers just see the same big Scirra ad instead of the game so they have no idea what the game is about.

    You could do a smaller Scirra ad with a pic or better yet animated gif of the game and that would get more people to play the game and notice your advertisement don't you think?

    I know you want to sell C2 and C3 engines but the fact is that most people visit Scirra to see the games and that is how they judge the quality of the engine and after they try the games in the arcade they go and get a free copy or maybe a licensed version.

    Those people that consider a licensed version are interested in making a little money to offset the cost of the license and if you provide that in the arcade so they can include 3rd party advertising then that is a big selling point for them to get a license AND you would be making the extra revenue by offering that perk which would cover your expenses for maintaining the arcade server and probably a lot more.

    You have tons of new people visiting the arcade every day and that is where you get your customers for your other Scirra products and that is what motivates people to get a license to try and make some money so it just makes sense I think to invest some time in getting that arcade working (CAPX downloads still not functioning) and get it set up with a search feature and animated gifs like you have for the Scirra store and then divide it into licensed games with advertising and free games with no advertising.

    That is a big incentive for those people just using the free version to make the investment in a C2 or C3 license so you would benefit in all ways.

    Just my opinion but I really hope you guys will consider it and run the numbers of visitors to the arcade compared to how many have shown an interest in buying a C3 license.

    ADDED: I am in the process of setting up my arcade website right now and I would be more than happy to put a banner saying games created with Scirra on my website to help my viewers find your product BUT I want the games on my arcade to show the game screen with just a small Scirra ad so my viewers will actually try the games.

  • I am pretty sure opacity applies to the entire sprite so any edges that overlap would have that same opacity setting.

    You could try a mask effect for a smoother blend or you could fade your sprite edges in the editor so they blend closer to what you want.

    I fade the edges in my masks using the eraser in the editor set to something like 10 so it leaves just a hint of the sprite color and then decrease that to 1 as you move to the inner edge where the color should be full.

  • Hi

    I am making a game where the main sprite has 6 thrusters - 3 on top and 3 on bottom. Depending on certain variables, they can be on in a variety of combinations. Is there a way I can link sprites together so they can effectively layer on top of each other switching on and off as needed, rather than needing to create a series of if statements that accounts for every possible combo (front down + back up + mid down or front-down + mid up) etc.

    Thanks!

    Shinkan gave you the right answer and Pin should work for that. You can also use physics joints but that is more for objects you want to move using physics commands requiring gravity and other settings.

  • Tom & Ashley

    I believe the arcade is in major need of an overhaul and Scirra could be making extra revenue from the arcade and it would encourage many more game designers to get a C2 or C3 license so they can produce games that make some revenue.

    Divide the arcade into games made by license holders that allow 3rd party advertising and those that are made with the free version into different categories and only allow paid advertising in the licensed games section.

    Charge a monthly fee and $10 a month to put games with advertising in the licensed section and get rid of that big advertisement you have on the load screen so we can use the games on our own websites.

    Keep the free unlicensed game section limited to only 5 games or less per person and games that are not played after 30 days get deleted. If a game in the free section goes viral encourage them to get a license.

    Many good game designers would flock to get a licensed version if they know they can offset the cost by including advertising in their games on the Scirra arcade and $10 a month at a minimum of 1000 game designers would bring in a nice $10K a month to Scirra. My guess is you would have ten times that many game designers using that service.

    I would happily pay $10 a month to be allowed to have advertising in my games and use the uploads from Scirra on my own website without that huge ass Scirra advertisement that does not encourage our users to play the games. I think if you do the math based on reception of C3 in the comments you would make alot more by investing time into the arcade that encourages designers to get a license.

    You also need to be hosting game Jams every month to attract new designers. They love competition and you should give away some licenses to C2 and C3 as prizes and other cheap prizes like Scirra T-shirts etc.

    Thoughts?

  • You "I have the angle working, but I have no idea how I can stop the object "rotating" towards the mouse. My character has a gun and it rotates towards the mouse and the gun flips and the character gets mirrored when the mouse is either side of the character."

    The thing is, I do not want the gun to keep rotating past a certain degree, as at the moment it will clip inside the player. I want to try and have it so it only rotates along an arc of about 80° .

    Does anyone know how to do this?"

    Link that was on your post:

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/mpg218kbwwx6zf1/Problemaiming.capx?dl=0

    Picture of the character:

    Now if that isn't yours who's is it and it fits your OP perfectly and I wasn't following any one else's post that had that problem?

    Never mind- It was BobbyNeal and your post was asking the same question describing the same character and aiming probs.

    Sure you aren't using two accounts?

    Anyway, that is the solution for that aiming problem.

  • First you need some tank sprites and you can make your own or here are some free sprites:

    Once you have your tank sprites set up you need to add the 8 direction movement to the tanks.

    The arrow keys will work to drive the tank without any events needed.

    Then you need a bullet for them to fire. You can use that bullet sprite or make your own.

    Give the bullet the Bullet behavior.

    The bullet only fires at the angle it is set to so you have to set the angle to the angle the tank is facing.

    On Key Pressed: Create bullet at position Tank X and Y. Set Bullet Angle to Tank Facing Angle, Enable bullet.

    That is pretty much all you need to make a tank move and fire.

    Once you get one tank working you can start creating an enemy tank and that will use the In Line Of Sight and Follow Path Behaviors so study the tutorials on those Behaviors.

  • —

    lamar

    I was mostly confused on what At( ) meant in XAt( ).

    The Manual refereed to "At" Expression as Absolute and I didn't realize "At" meant Absolute.

    I looked it up on the Touch Page of the Manual because of Lamar.

    It makes me assume Touch.X would be relative if a layer was rotated, I didn't even think of that possibility until then.

    I was only familiar with Abs() as Absolute.

    Abs() of course makes any value positive.

    abs( 5 - 10) will return 5 instead of -5

    -Abs() will make any value negative.

    -abs( 10 - 5) will return -5 instead of 5

    It is used to keep any math in the abs() expression to always have positive or negative results.

    These are of course different Absolutes, just tossing it in to help some readers.

    I only tried to find/search for "XAt".

    I thought trying to search for At would have been difficult, since it is a common word.

    I missed the quote below, because it was under AbsoluteX in the manual.

    "The At expressions can return the absolute position of any touch given its zero-based index, and the ForID expressions return the position of a touch with a specific ID."

    Some Examples for the above Quote:

    XAt(index)

    XAt(index, "layer")

    XForID(index)

    XForID(id, "layer")

    After finding Absolute in the Manual, I read the At expression returned the Absolute position.

    I then noticed this.

    AbsoluteXAt(index)

    What is the need for Absolute if At expression does Absolute?

    Does AbsoluteX do the same as XAt?

    Absolutes in touch can be used for drawing lines and creating shapes which is I think it's primary purpose. I haven't found any use for it but other people might.

  • I seemingly have a basic understanding of it. I read it in the manual, but I am not 100% sure.

    I don't want to accidentally confuse someone else learning about it too.

    I understand

    Touch.XAt(0),Touch.YAt(0)

    is getting the location of a touch, what is the At(0) part?

    Would

    Touch.X,Touch.Y

    Do the same?

    or would it be Touch.X(0), Touch.Y(0)?

    Is Touch.XAt(0) needed in order to get X of two Touches?

    https://www.scirra.com/manual/119/touch

    You are looking at the values if you want to use Absolute X and Y for coordinates.

    In most cases that is not needed and touch.X and touch.Y gives you the coordinates for the position of the touch on the screen based on 0,0 being top left corner of your layout.

    If you are using different layers with different size layouts or transferring coordinates between layouts or using multiple touches then using Absolute also allows you to specify which layer and on what touch the command is used.

  • So look,

    I had this idea about making a subway surfers like game in C2

    I tried many things, like random values that choose which scene you go to

    My question is:

    How do I get random values and how do I round them (if neccessary)

    Any help would be appreciated

    Thanks!

    Start with the C2 infinite runner example included with C2.

    You can use int() for rounding or floor() if you want it to round down.

  • 99Instances2Go Thanks for explaining!

    lamar I did not include any example of my game, so I'm not sure if you have mixed up 99Instances2Go example to be my work?

    No that is not 99's capx which I never download.

    Are you saying this robot with the head that kept rotating was not yours because I am sure you posted that link?

    Maybe you just like to play games in the forum.