It still just has what i typed - currentLevel or timer or etc. Is there a different syntax for the Text object?

I'd like to make an art game, and some of you might want to as well. If so, I think it's important to ask a few questions.

1 - What is art?

2 - How can I convey 'art' through a game?

My answer to 1 is "Something that creates a reaction in the viewer". It can make you think, feel, or anything else if it's well crafted.

2- For me, the issue with games as art is that the art component should come from the gameplay itself - not from the attached visuals/music (although those are hugely important as well). I also think that this is best done subtlely - let the player come to your message, don't shout it at them.

I think that Shadow of the Colossus is a beautiful environmentalist game. To me, it said "We're killing these big, beautiful natural things for our own benefit, and there are consequences." The exquisitely agonizing death sequences of the monsters go a long way towards creating that message for me. Now, I'm not sure if that was intended, but a mark of art is that you can read multiple things into it.

Anyway. In your art game / if you were to hypothetically make an art game, what message would you try to convey, and how would you do it?

Don't I feel silly

Thanks

So I can use timer in calculations, and it'll give me the time since the layout started? That's cool!

I have two questions about text, if that's cool.

1) How can I display variables in a text object? Everything I try just displays the variable name.

2) Is it possible to concatenate variables and nonvariables? I basically want to have a text object read Variable1.Variable2 , so I'd need to have a variable, a text thing, and another variable.

And one question that isn't about text

I want to use that timer that Ashley mentioned, and at the end of every level I'd like to write the value of Timer to a variable so that at the end of the game you can see all your times. Is there a way to dynamically determine what variable is written to (I guess this deals with concatenation as well). Like, if I have a variable called CurrentLevel that is currently set to 3, can I make it so that Construct will write to levelTime3? (or levelTime'CurrentLevel')?

Thanks! Since I've already got a topic here, I'll use it to ask another question instead of creating a new one.

How can I create a timer? I want to increment a variable every 10 ms, and then display that on screen.

Yeah, I plan on having 10-20 levels in the completed version. Level design is hard! The last two levels will definitely be towards the end, they're pretty up there on the difficulty curve.

Thanks! If I sell a game, I'll definitely pass some of it on to you guys.

Hi. I'd like to have a scoreboard for my game Move ( ) in the upper-right, tracking time taken and deaths... died. Is there a way to have something overlaid on the action?

That's actually a point of the gameplay - it's creating a rhythmic experience. At least, I hope it is

Does it feel cool, drumming your fingers on the keyboard? That's what I'm going for.

http://chrisalgoo.com/Move_Beta.exe

The core gameplay is present, but the awesome polish will come later. Basically, everytime the player does something, a random electronica sound will play. The player will be effectively creating a soundtrack while playing the game, and it's gonna be really cool. Problem is, I develop on a Vista laptop, so I can't hear anything.

Game's still fun, just awfully quiet. I suggest you listen to this music while you play

Thoughts? Comments?

Also, thanks to Ashley and co for making this easy-to-use-and-powerful work of majesty. This is definitely my gamedev platform of choice.

thirded

I read a suggestion for a wait x milliseconds action somewhere, and I was going to second it, but I can't find it.

I think two wait actions would be nice. One would be applied to objects (to, say, freeze the player for 2 seconds), and the other is a global wait (not sure what that would be used for, but lots of things have them, and it must be useful for something). But the first wait is far more interesting - you could use it to stop all processing on an object, say for a cutscene or something (I know it's possible to disable input and collisions manually, but it would be much cleaner if there was an action to "remove an object from processing" for a little while.)

Also, I gotta say that this is a totally awesome engine, and I'm really glad that you're letting us use it for free. I should upload my first game in a week or so (incidentally, does anyone know a good guide to using functions in Construct?)