Okay, I've hit a road block... let me tell you what I'm trying to get. I have a missile object that flies towards enemies. It flies very fast (I've limited the bullet setting for speed for 2000, so yeah, that's the max speed). I want a bright trail to stay temporarily in the path that the missile flew. You know that kind of effect right?

I tried having an event Always set a particle object to the missile's (X,Y). I set up the particles object to just create a particle at no speed, no movement or anything, with no variation. More or less it was set just to spit out a uniform block at its emitting spot... which would theoretically make a line by the end. So I tried that but the missile was going so fast that the particles wouldn't emit fast enough to make a consistent line, even when I pumped up the particle rate to insane levels. There were a few skips and gaps in the line. It was --ALMOST-- what I was looking for, but the line drawn didn't have that solid, clean look that I was looking for. There were a few spaces and gaps in the line and the particle object in general seemed, well, more like particles than an actual curvy line (how about that, uk yuk!). It's not exactly the effect I'm looking for.

I'm willing to use particles if I can't figure out a different method... but ... *whines*

Is this possible to get this effect? Again, I'm looking for something that essentially that would draw a thin trail behind the missile that would disappear after a second or two, and I've tried a couple different things but couldn't get it to work right.

Something tells me that a particle object is the way to go, but I can't seem to get it to emit properly if it is.

Help me, oh gurus of Construct.

hehe, this is the angriest I've ever seen this forum. Chill everyone.

Thanks everyone.

That initial camera zoom looked a little silly until I made the background's zoom ratio -20%, so you get that real depth of field , zoom out while moving forward kind of deal.

You know I honestly haven't thought about the movement power ups. I'll have to think it over. Could be interesting.

I can't wait to get some kind of an alpha online one day soon.

Here is the video of my side scrolling shooter. Space has been colonized and now the colonies are at war with the Earth. Oh noez! This level is supposed to be an epic space battle... think Gundam or Macross style.

Video shows basic movement, camera zooms, shooting, barrel rolling (dodge enemy fire), and a pursuit mode (which shifts the area that the player can move, forcing the player to avoid attacking enemies from behind without being able to fire at them).

The player ship is not final (it is just a scanned pencil sketch).

The goal is a dynamic side scrolling shooter that has more play options than just shoot the enemies in front of you.

All graphics, music, and sound are original (though the video didn't seem to record the audio).

Uploading video as I type.

Working on a little horizontally side scrolling shooter about a war between colonies in outer space and the Earth. Watched Gundam a little too much as a kid, I think. As you can see in the pics, there are cities on the moon.

Resolution is set for 720P right now. THE SHIP IS NOT FINAL. That's the shape I want, but it's just a pencil sketch I scanned in and cut up. The ship will have more refined graphics... I promise.

<img src="http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/3168/1232009.jpg">

<img src="http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/83/12320092.jpg">

<img src="http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/169/12320093.jpg">

Do a Barrel Roll, plus dramatic camera zoom & shield.

<img src="http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/7753/12320094.jpg">

After posting it, it looks a little empty. It looks so much better in motion (there are explosions going off in the background). All the wings and pieces of the ship are individual and move according to the direction the player goes in. Explosions are hand animated the old fashioned way, all the graphics I drew up in photoshop, and haven't got around to finalizing the player's ship's graphics. Really though, the animation of the ship moving I'm really proud of.

Also, besides shooting, you can do barrel rolls, which is animated, and the camera will zoom in dynamically and stuff. All the other layers have different Zoom rates, so it's really dramatic.... and cool.

No enemies yet, but... they're coming. And battleships in the background too. I just hope I can program enemy movements.... which I suck at. >_< But yeah, almost all of the player craft movement and shooting is in there. I find myself working on the background and the ambiance more than the actual gameplay though. lol. haha.

New version up!

http://www.jasonkoohi.com/blue__11-12-09.zip

Controls so far:

draw a circle with the mouse - Make a storm

press K - Kite flies by

Press B - Birds fly by

press A - airplane flies by

Numbers 1-9 do different atmosphere colors (1-4 go from daytime to nighttime sequentially)

These are just pieces of the game. Now I need to assemble them into something that is fun. For instance, i need to have a new gesture to make the plane fly by, or something. The environment is looking how i want it to, but it needs gameplay to work. That's next on my to-do list.

Thanks. Yeah, I was having trouble getting the volume to work how I wanted it to. I wanted it to fade away quickly, and not have a harsh on/off effect, but I just couldn't get it working right. Still messing with it.

I can't take full credit for the mouse gestures because cow_trix suggested a system in the help thread. I tried it and it worked and I added in a few extra checks to make sure a circle was drawn exactly.

It's really simple.

<img src="http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/8218/diagram.gif">

Basically, a group of invisible sprites follow the mouse cursor, that look like that diagram. When the mouse button is held down, the group sets into position and will no longer move where the cursor goes. When the mouse button is released the group pops back into position following the cursor.

The little sprites in a circle path can be turned on if the mouse cursor touches them. They will turn off if they touch any of the blue sprites. When all the waypoint sprites are turned on it initiates an event. The player MUST draw some semblance of a circle in order for all the waypoint sprites to be turned on at the same time. See easy?

So now, theoretically, I could make a square or a triangle or any other shape I want with this same premise. Or I could even have smaller circles cause different events.

Something I thought about implementing (but didn't do) was to try scaling. So that the size of the invisible sprite group would change according to how far the mouse is moved, so that a circle could be drawn at any size, so long as it was a circle. It was about 2 or 3 events too much work for me, though. haha. It could be done like that too though.

Oh man, this is really cool. I might have to give this a try.

Thanks everyone. Here's a little peek at the things I've been working on since i posted last. The perspective is a little different. It was from the side, but I have it set up now as if you're lyingon the ground, looking up. The picture doesn't adequately show the movements and animations of the trees from the storm, or the rain effects, but you can kind of see the leaves coming off the trees.

I also added rain effects that are different from the old rain effects. Droplets land on the camera now, trees (that blow in the wind when its raining), leaves blow off away from the trees when high wind is occurring, and a passenger jet flies by. I also have a lot of sound effects now, for ambiance, the rain, wind blowing, etc. It's much more immersive.

I personally like the new view. It's like you're lying down in the grass, looking up at the sky. Now that I have the concept solidified I'm going to keep adding new things for people to discover. Hey, I might have a full fledged game by the end of it!

I'm going to need to do a little optimizing though, the particle effects can get heavy, so I'm going to need to set up some limits, and drops the particle counts, particularly on the clouds that the player can make.

Anytime you click the mouse to make a cloud, there is a medium sized white rotating circle that pops up. It's kind of like a guide... if you draw a circle where that little guide was at, then it should initiate the rain cloud.

Thanks for the kind words everyone.

EDIT (11-12-2009) -

New Version is online!

http://www.jasonkoohi.com/blue__11-12-09.zip

SIZE : 19.4 MB

BLUE

<img src="http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/5989/screen2re.jpg">

Controls so far:

draw a circle with the mouse - Make a storm

press K - Kite flies by

Press B - Birds fly by

press A - airplane flies by

Numbers 1-9 do different atmosphere colors (1-4 go from daytime to nighttime sequentially)

These are just pieces of the game. Now I need to assemble them into something that is fun. For instance, i need to have a new gesture to make the plane fly by, or something. The environment is looking how i want it to, but it needs gameplay to work. That's next on my to-do list.

----

This is a little something I've been playing with. It's more of a sandbox toy than a game, but perhaps you'll find it interesting.

I was really stressed yesterday, so I made this and the game really relaxed me.

You can make clouds by dragging your mouse. You get small puffy clouds with the left button and more wispy ones with the right button. You can draw pictures in the sky, which is fun for a while, and you can also cause a rain storm (and makes the sky gray and cloudier), and make the sun come out. By drawing a circle you can cause the rain storm. I want to keep adding interactions like that though, and perhaps even add objectives (or things to collect). Drawing things and having them show up is half of the fun of this game. Right now you can just mess around with it, but that's pretty much it. It's more a proof of concept than anything else.

I want to add a distant airplane flying by, maybe some birds, and a night time scene with stars and shooting stars.

I made all the graphics in Photoshop. The music is not mine, I got it off of Soundsnap, but I plan on composing something myself.

Also, after you get bored, you can hit 1,2, and 3, to change the sky's color. They were just test buttons that changed colors, just to make sure they were working properly.