Len's Forum Posts

  • Is there a way to force a stable frame rate, or at least limit frame rate? Frame rate fluctuations can be rather annoying, and a lot of stuff still looks pretty good under 60 FPS.

  • For the "Every X Seconds" event, it says that it's limited by framerate.

    "Specify time, in seconds, between running the actions. Interval is limited by framerate (actions will not run more than once per tick)."

    Does that mean that it can't exceed framerate, or it is not framerate independent?

  • I have an event that spawns objects every 180*dt seconds ("Every X Seconds"). However, at the start of the layout on the mobile version, there's usually a lag period when everything is loading up. During this time, it takes ages to hit 180*dt (about 15 seconds total). The event works normally after this 15 seconds.

    Changed the event to every 3 seconds instead of 180*dt, and the event works normally from the start. If I spam all the events using a keyboard input from the start, there's barely any lag, but for some reason dt is really suffering when I use it with the "Every X Seconds" event.

    I want to keep framerate independence, but dt seems to be hindered pretty badly at the start of the layout. Any suggestions?

    Update: Ran the game with tickcount, seems that the tickcount doesn't suffer as badly as I thought, hits 180 ticks in 4-5 seconds at most. However the spawn every dt seconds event still doesn't work till it hits 15 seconds in.

  • Bump.

  • I have lots of small objects which are supposed to carry out an action when it gets within range of the target.

    Which would be less system intensive?

    A) Create an AoE around the target, set its opacity to 0 and check for collision with the objects.

    or

    B) Use the distance(x1,y1,x2,y2) < AoE formula.

    I normally use method B, but I suspect that method A would be better for performance with a lot of objects around.

  • I want to make a bunch of glowing units in my game (may have 20-30 of them on screen at the time) and I've got two ways to do it.

    The first is straight forward, its just a sprite drawn to have a glow effect when animated.

    The second is to create a copy of the sprite with lower opacity (eg. 60-70), and fade the original sprite on top of it in a loop.

    Just wondering whether 20 animated sprites or 20 fade effects will take more processing power (it's a mobile game).

  • Thanks for sharing Era. I've ended up following our approach for the past few days, makes me feel a lot more productive. I guess that's one of the benefits of making your own games, you can do what you want, when you want it. I wonder if it gets a bit disorganized later on in development because everything seems subject to change / ad hoc.

    I will need to get that story polished up sooner or later though :S

    It seems pretty fun right now, but only time will tell how effective it is. Thanks again :)

  • I've recently completed the a part of the base of my game, basically finishing most of the core mechanics. I could have continued on to design some of the details, but I stopped to think about and try to flesh out my story into more detail. I was hoping to use the story to better inform the characters, game and level design. However, it has taken quite a while for me to think it through and structure everything properly, and at times I've experienced writers block.

    Would it be better to work on the game itself when experiencing some creative down time, or should I stick to the story until it's finished? I keep thinking that I will end up doing unnecessary work if I don't work out all the details of the story (eg. some mechanics may not fit the context of the story), yet there are times where I find myself stuck while writing.

    Just throwing it out there to see how everyone handles this kind of situation.

  • Thanks newt, that was useful :)

  • Hi there, I was wondering if anyone knows how to make something similar to the bound to layout behaviour, except binding something to an object. Basically, if you are not overlapping the object, it will immediately move you back towards the object (not the centre of the object though) and prevent you from stepping out. Another way to think of it is that the whole background is solid and that the object the player is bound to is jump-thru.

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  • Sweet, thanks again.

  • Thanks for the answer Ashley. Does this occur whenever a new layout is loaded, or only just after the initial load?

  • Just checked it, the "Use Loader Layout" is set to no. There are a few events and computations at the start of the layout, but when these reoccur after the initial lag, there doesn't seem to be a problem.

  • I've noticed that when I first run a project, the FPS drops pretty low for the first few seconds, and then it gets back to 59-60 FPS. There aren't that many events running "At Start of Layout".

    I have quite a few objects which are not in use yet, so I just drag them off screen and select the "Destroy outside layout" behaviour. Could this be part of the problem, or does this happen often in larger / complex games?

  • I haven't bought the game yet, I suspect that it'll appear in one of the upcoming Humble Bundles so I'm holding my breath :P

    On a side note how difficult is it to complete the game? I've tried Binding of Isaac, I've gotten to level 6 ish before but I've never managed to complete it :S