Messing around a little and I got it working better! I finally got the screen to scroll normally in the castle! This will take some time to get down though. Variables are confusing sometimes.

I tried adding Peach in as a playable character...using her Mario 2 sprites and moves. I tried giving her that float ability she has...but...wow...it's not coming out right. I'm not 100% sure about this because I haven't played Mario 2 in a while, but while in the air, if you press and hold the jump button again, Peach will float at that height for about 2 seconds, able to move left and right, but she can only do it once per jump. Would using private variables make that easier? My first attempt at making her float just gives her some kind of uber-float that lets her soar endlessly horizontally, unable to land...

(if you don't know what I mean by Peach's float ability, I could look for a video of some kind to help demonstrate it better)

Oh, it does work better to use the names instead of just the number!

My main problem now is how to make the player appear in a certain place upon switching layouts.

For example, Mario enters the castle by standing in front of it. Then I want him to appear at the castle's inside entrance (different layout) in a specific place. When he walks out of the castle (by walking off screen at a specific point) then I want him to appear at the previous layout in the same place he was before he entered the castle. Does that make any sense? I can't figure out how to do it, and I'm not sure if I should use variables or something to store the X and Y positions, it seems like that might clutter up the variables if I don't know what I'm doing and having too many variables might make things confusing for me. I still haven't figured out all of the Piranha Plants variables you had in the cap, thought messing around a little will probably solve that.

Thanks! I really appreciate it.

First of all, why won't Construct let me copy events from one project to another? Some times I tried it even caused an error that closed Construct! It makes things take a lot longer.

For the Global Variable thing...I was making two mistakes. First of all, I wanted the text to say "Coin Count X" before the actual variable was displayed, which just made a mess of text. I didn't realize you couldn't put text there! That solved that problem. Then I set it to "Start of layout" so it didn't update the variable when I picked up coins. "Always"! Duh.

The piranha plant works great! I copied all the info from your edited cap and then adjusted the speed to suit my liking.

I didn't put the Sniper Joe back into my Mega Man project yet, but what's in the cap looks great.

Private variables, they do a LOT more than I thought they would. All I thought of using them for before was for stats, like HP and attack power and stuff. It's a bit confusing though, it might take me a bit of time to figure them out myself.

I hate to be a bother, but I have another problem. I have no idea how to go from one Layout to another. In my Mario game, Mario appears in a different place based on where I enter the castle from (I lazily set it so pressing up anywhere in front of the castle makes you enter) and sometimes there's two Marios! The screen also feels like not scrolling after going between layouts sometimes. I don't really understand how to go about this. When I tried using events to move the player to a specific place, things got even worse. My first guess now would be to try and use private variables or something, but...I'm stumped at the moment.

Thanks again. I decided to use MediaFire, I didn't feel like downloading another program right now.

I think this should work:

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?jbzugknrtnw

There's three things in there I'd like help with.

1. The Returning Sniper Joe (orange enemy) is supposed to shoot three shots and then go back to it's normal position. Eventually I want the shield to block shots in this position, but that's going ahead of myself. Instead, he lets out a fairly steady stream of shots, which looks sorta cool, but is not what I'm looking for.

2. The Piranha Plant (green enemy) is supposed to move between positions, instead of appearing from one spot to the other. I know how to put it behind the pipe, but I left it in front so you could see what was happening better. I also intend on making it so it won't come out of the pipe if you are too close, but again, that's getting ahead of myself.

3. Notice the coins? Each one increases a global variable when touched, but I can't figure out how to display it. What I've tried before doesn't work.

Thanks in advance for this. Sorry if it's not clear what I need help with or something.

You know what? I'm going to stop whining and complaining about my lack of focus and stuff. I made this topic to ask for help, not to complain about how time-consuming it is to make games.

I wasn't complaining about RPG Maker XP. There are lots of little things about it that bother me, but for making an RPG without knowing complicated scripting and programming stuff, it's good at what it does. I know what you mean about tackling problems until they are fixed...even if I put something off it will still be there, but sometimes it helps to take a break, you know? Think about something else for a while, and the answer just comes to you.

I actually have 2 versions of Construct on my computer right now. The newest version, and the previous most stable version. I wanted to try the Platform School tutorial, but it doesn't work on the newest version so I used the previous one. It really helped, but some things didn't work when I copied them into my project. My computer can't even run the Ghost Shooter tutorial...ha ha ha...

As for a cap...how would I go about uploading one? I've honestly never uploaded anything to the internet besides pictures...

A cap huh? I might whip something up later, I've already thrown in a big chunk of level and some tricky platforming...I should just copy what I need for the timing stuff into a simple cap file, but I don't really have the motivation to do it right now.

Speaking of getting distracted...I'm getting even more distracted. Like I said earlier, Construct seems awesome, and I like how I can do interesting stuff without any real knowledge of scripting. But...it's overwhelming. I don't really need this much freedom at this point. I...think I should finish something with RPG Maker XP first, because it's so simple. Sure, my game's not too unique, sure it's not anything groundbreaking or special, but it's easy to work on and I have enough freedom for the time being. I want to make a platformer, but I don't have the patience or focus right now.

Oh well. I'll probably work on and off with Construct and RPG Maker XP for a while. Both have different advantages for me and both have their disadvantages. I guess I should just work on one until I hit a bump and then switch to the other for a while?

Once again, thanks PixelRebirth. I'll probably whip some caps up if you still want to help...in my Mario project I can't even figure out how to make a Goomba...sad. Maybe I just need more sleep? Making games (or rather, TRYING to make games) makes me lose sleep...

I think I tried something like that, but it wasn't working out. I guess I'll have to look into it further.

By the way, functions, I don't get 'em yet. I had an enemy that is supposed to wait 2 seconds, then fire 3 shots, then go back to guarding (Sniper Joe in case you were wondering). He waits just fine, then lets out an endless stream of shots. It's kinda neat looking, but not really what I was looking for, and not exactly very fair either.

Anyway, I...uh...already started another project. But it's not as focused as this one. This Mega Man game I'm working on has a specific direction and a specific goal. I'm doing some things differently (it's two-players, that won't work well on a keyboard!) but when it comes down to it, it's intended to follow the Mega Man formula very strictly.

I started some bizarre Mario game, to let all of my weird ideas flow out and to experiment with different types of gameplay to get a better hang of things while making some strange, directionless game. I don't know, I think it might help. It doesn't mean I'm not still working on my Mega Man game.

It's so easy to get distracted.

Oh! One of those clever things that you can't use until you add it to the layout editor...you wouldn't believe how long it took me to realize you had to add the Keyboard/Mouse support to make conditions based on button presses...I was so frustrated. Ha ha, oh well.

These Function things look interesting, but I haven't spent much time trying to figure 'em out. I need to be at full capacity to understand some of these things, and it's late.

Anyway, I actually figured out how to make Mega Man shoot and go back to a normal position from standing and in the air, but while running? It was a a nightmare and I still haven't gotten it figured it out. See, Mega Man has three running frames, one with the right arm forward, one with the left arm forward, and one in between. It's the same for shooting while running, the only difference is that his shooting arm is out. In the Mega Man games, when you press the button to shoot, his arms and legs are in the same position as they where before shooting. So, if he's in Frame 1 on running, he'll go to Frame 1 on shooting and running. I can't figure out how to do that. I thought your idea of separating the sprites into two parts might work, but his arms move at the same frames too.

I'm baffled. Maybe I'll put this part on hold for a while, it was giving me a headache.

Once again, thanks for your help.

PixelRebirth:

Thanks again, your reply made me think about things again, and I have a method that works pretty good so far. I copied the event conditions of your example of changing animations when moving from your cap, and added "On Key J released" to the even conditions. J is currently the attack button in my project. It makes him go back to his normal, default stance after shooting, but it's almost instant. I need a way to have some type of time delay in the event actions, and it will help immensely, but I have no no idea how to do that. I've found out how to have time delay as part of the condition, but not the action. Is it possible?

I'm not sure how to display this, but here's what I have for the attack start-up:

Always (every tick)	Mega: Set animation to "Shoot"
On key J pressed	   Mega: Play current animation
			             Mega: Spawn object Buster1 on layer 1(image point "Buster")[/code:flmsmm1h]

And the attack finish:
[code:flmsmm1h]
Player1 is on ground	Mega: Set animation to "Blink"
Player1[Platform]	   Mega: Play current animation
VectorX Equal to 0
On key J released[/code:flmsmm1h]

Does that help, or am I wasting time?

@SuperV:
Good to see more Mega Man fans around here. I appreciate the advice, but I am making progress a lot faster than I thought I would. Maybe I'm being stupid, maybe I'm being arrogant, but I think I can do this the way I have planned so far. Which isn't much planning, but that's how I do things. The more I plan things, the more I put them off...and I usually never start a lot of ideas I have. Often times it's better for me to just jump in and work everything out later. I know it's not the best way, but it works for me. (I'm not planning a BIG Mega Man game, just a normal sized one...mostly...8 boss levels, a 4-stage castle, and I'm considering throwing in 4 optional stages...1 of which is secret. Then again, even a game you can beat in a couple hours...like a Mega Man game...still takes a long time to make.)

P.S.: Magnet Man's not even my favorite robot master, I just decided to use him as my avatar and his weapon as my username. I don't know who my favorite robot master is.

Like I mentioned there, I am trying to make a Mega Man fangame. Funny thing is, I don't even know if I'm going to put Magnet Man in it. Since you recognized Magnet Man, I'm going to assume you are familiar with Mega Man.

Mega Man...shoots to attack. I've figured out how to make him shoot, but I can't figure out to make him go back to his normal position after firing a shot. I'm not sure how long it is between pressing the attack button and returning back to normal, but nothing I try ends up even remotely how it should.

If you don't mind me asking (anybody can answer) how would I go about doing this? Is this enough info to work with?

(I intentionally made the topic title somewhat vague to give me space to ask more than question because I don't want to clutter up the board, I hope that's okay)

(oh, one last thing, I'm using version 0.99.42, if that makes any difference)

Thanks! I can't believe I didn't notice that other topic you mentioned, it was on the first page! I even used the search, but I only tried "Running animation" because I was thinking about it in terms of running...sorry.

It honestly took me several minutes to figure out how to get things working based on your demo, but when I finally got it to work, it started to make sense. Finally getting my sprite (well, it's not really my sprite to be honest) to actually run is actually a large stepping stone to getting things started with my project. Thanks for that.

Thanks! I guess I should have read this before making a help topic...

I just asked a question without a cap file...but...it might have helped...oh well.