Hello everyone, I'm proud to announce that I am roughly 80% done with my first Construct game! This topic covers roughly the final 20%. This game is by design, supposed to be pretty simple, so I don't want anything too fancy. However, for getting to the end of the game, I decided to give players a treat in the form of a big last boss!

The game is kinda like a shmup, except your ship can't shoot anything. It can dodge though, and that's what you need to do for the boss!

Any and all help will be appreciated, and when this is all done I'll make sure my credits have a nice big SPECIAL THANKS TO SO-N-SO(s) ON SCIRRA CONSTRUCT FORUMS and all that.

Anyhoo, here's the .CAP

http://www.mediafire.com/?x8u5y5az9ulzjtv

The whole deal is in the Layout L5, and the event sheet GranGola.

I have not animated the boss yet, or put in attack patterns etc., because i want to get a basic movement down.

WHAT NEED HELP WITH:

The boss has a variable which will determine when he starts moving, "GO"

If "Go" is equal to 1, this is what I would want to happen:

-I'd like to have the boss kind of float a certain distance behind the player, up and down. Nothing jerky or unnatural, but just kind of floating in place

-I'd like to have it so if the player moves forward, the boss moves ahead with the player

-If the player moves backwards, towards the boss, the boss will stay still, "waiting" for the player

I don't suspect this is all that hard to do, with a little tweaking with Custom Movement, but since I don't know where to start using that, I thought I would ask.

IDEAS ABOUT ENEMY ATTACK:

Does this sound right?

I'd want the boss to shoot a certain pattern of bullets at the player every certain interval-

I'd set the private variable, say, "Attack1" to 5000, and subtract one every millisecond.

-at every certain interval (say, 4500, 3000, etc), have the boss spawn a certain number of bullets from certain spawn points, and differing angles

-when, say, "Attack1" reaches 0, I either go to "Attack2" or just repeat Attack1, I don't know yet.

Does that sound like a good way to go about doing a somewhat regularly-patterned... attack pattern?

Thank you all for the help!

Sexy name. Hope the build itself is as sexy.

When I have an idea, it usually comes out of a song I wrote (check sig for examples), and I start building a world off of that.

I usually start with either a sketch, or some pixelated chunky MS-Paint graphics.

Since my graphical capabilities are limited, I am stuck using the fonts SmallFonts and Atari Classic fonts so any project I make doesn't look amateur- to me, aesthetic and style is very important when making a game, because having photoshop shit with lazy gradients and scribbled graphics is NOT something I want to play.

http://i417.photobucket.com/albums/pp25 ... eview4.jpg

In here i just kinda started out with a simple "Explore a cave" type game idea, game up with a simple MS-Paint visual aesthetic, and went from there. Since i've hit a roadblock with death animation, I have stopped on this project for right now, but all in all it is a good example of starting from a simple concept, and then working to your strengths and being effective with what you have.

Are you not a good artist? Make your graphics simpler (if you can't hire someone else)! Not good at level design? Take cues from your favorite games and see how they get you through them. Are you a music type of guy/girl? Play that strength up, while focusing on a single design route and sticking with it, I'd say. I mean, it's no use having a super-detailed player sprite with a complex and emotive score if all he is going to do is jump around some purple rectangles. When I try to make a game I try to have everything on the same page, so at the least, it's consistent. Right now, that means blocky, Atari-esque graphics, but I'm fine with that.

http://i417.photobucket.com/albums/pp25 ... eview2.jpg

Here i started out with a simple idea: Make a shmup. However, I didn't (and do not) know how to go about doing that, so the project became not possible with my level of skill. So I scaled back, and said "Well, if I can shoot things, how about I just try to avoid them?" So a weird space-ship frogger-esque thing was born, and nearly done. But you can see I kept the same aesthetic and played to my strengths (the enemies are all consistently animated, the music is appropriate, and things are kept simple).

All in all, I think this is important to consider when you want to make a game (and take this as you will, since I've never finished one... yet. I'm close ;o )- - -

1) If you have an idea, see how much your skills can make that idea a reality.

2) if your skills are not able to bring about what you want to do, you do one of three things:

a) learn more programming

b) seek outside help to bring your creation to life

c) scale back your project into a manageable affair

All three are legitimate ways of going about things, but I tend to try and keep my projects as simple as possible so I can actually be able to make them (though I've made enough topics in the help section to show that option b is often necessary, too!).

3) aesthetic is the most valuable assets an indie-laptop game can have. If you have a great game idea, but it's buried under a garbled mess, no one will want to play it. Aesthetic is a way of making your game recognizable, as well as allowing people to enjoy the game as a seamless whole. I've noticed that all "great" games have a singular aesthetic, and we hardly realize it because we're having too much fun playing them.

Just my thoughts.

I'd get Anti-Malware for, well, malware, and Avast! for any virus stuff. With those two you are essentially set. AVG is a hassle, and its description as a virus is not too far off

-A challenging fast-paced platformer in the vein of SMW filled with memorable and wacky boss fights a la Dynamite Headdy

-a 'tower-climb' platformer with a lot of charm and old-school aesthetic with a goofy throwaway plot involving robots

-a Metroidvania set on mars or something, where the hook is that your suit and gun are powered by solar power, so you need to find sun spots if you want to continue deeper into the depths of the planet.

-a rhythm game that blares electronic disco that's kind of like a platformer once again filled with kooky bosses

You're tellin' me, deadeye. That looks pretty good, 7Soul. Hope you make the deadline!

I myself have far less graphical capabilities... Heck, all the graphics for this game I'm posting were made (quite obviously) in MSPaint. But at the least, this project is nearing completion.

--Space Striker Assault: Operation Lance--

It's about 80% done, with the only thing left to really work on is the final level and final 'boss', which I haven't figured out yet (so look out for a topic in help discussion soon, ha ha), as well as some outside contributions for intro and credits art. Other than that, I made the music, designed the levels/enemies, everything.

I'm excited to get it finished, and I've learned so much from making this that I'm confident I can return to my earlier unfinished works with greater gusto:

<img src="http://i417.photobucket.com/albums/pp257/Emperor_Phoenix/Construct%20Previews/SSAPreview1.jpg">

<img src="http://i417.photobucket.com/albums/pp257/Emperor_Phoenix/Construct%20Previews/SSAOLPreview2.jpg">

<img src="http://i417.photobucket.com/albums/pp257/Emperor_Phoenix/Construct%20Previews/SSAOLPreview1.jpg">

EDIT: blargh, the screencaps are all yucky looking

Five levels of high-flying action, pitting you against an evil race of alien space fish determined to wipe out humanity!

Anyone ever play the Darius games?? : )

Just because they are of German ancestry doesn't mean they are of English ancestry as well. The Windsors still in fact find themselves descended from William I. I'd assume anyone with a grasp on English history would know the entire story, but then again who reads these days.

And the problem with that Daily Show clip is that it looked a lot more for sound-bytes than anything, mainly because that's what the DS does and does best, but still it's a shame they paint an overly negative picture of the whole affair.

Considering the fact that they really emphasized that the taxpayers were paying for the wedding, when at most, taxpayers each gave 10 cents each towards the wedding (to pay for the guards or something), which was not a state event, and most of the cost was shored up by the Middletons.

On another forum I go to, this question kinda popped up, and since one smart Aussie political/legal obsessed guy answered it so well, I think I'll just post it for your perusal:

[quote:3l4rkmvw]

The British Monarchy is a curious institution, as it exists in the Commonwealth nations that still have her Majesty as Queen. Strictly speaking, your statement [that the Queen holds no real power in England] is flat wrong. The Queen holds immense official power and exercises it on a daily basis.

I'll discuss the British version first.

Britain has a governmental rule called Parliamentary Sovereignty. This means that it is not the people who have ultimate power, but Parliament. Since Parliament is elected, that means essentially that the people decide who makes up their Parliament, but the Parliament is the one in control.

The Queen is a part of Parliament. She is the font of all executive power in the United Kingdom. She has and holds terrifying powers of criminal sanction, administrative decision, justice, (The Queen cannot be charged with a criminal offence, as criminal sanctions are HER laws), war, and other prerogatives of Kings stretching back to William the Conqueror.

This is embodied in a concept called "The Crown." It's not so important for England and Wales but it gets messy in Australia, which is why it's called "The Crown" and not "The Queen."

"The Crown," along with "The Lords" (Who hold their power from the Magna Carta) and "The Commons" (Not Commoners, but the regions of England) make up the Parliament of the United Kingdom. In order for any law or any executive power to be exercised, PARLIAMENT must agree. That means for the Queen to exercise any power she holds as "The Crown," she has to get Parliament's permission.

Since it is an inviolate rule of the British body politic that the Government is the group of people who control the House of Commons, combined with the concept of Parliamentary sovereignty, means that, in essence, The Queen holds total executive power in the United Kingdom but cannot exercise it without the approval of the democratically elected representatives in the Commons.

Why do they do things like this? So Prime Ministers don't get ideas that they can, themselves, usurp executive power for the sake of some idea that they've been "popularly mandated" to do so. David Cameron can't do whatever the hell he likes, but he's not restricted by a constitution in the way Pres. Obama is; he's restricted by the fact that as First Lord of the Treasury he has no right and no powers to do anything other than through Parliament. He officially has no powers. Neither can her Majesty, because she needs Parliament's permission to do anything. That's why she appears powerless. Because we, the people, elect our Parliamentary Representatives, who are the legislature, and are the only people who allow the executive (The Queen) to exercise her executive powers, it just so happens that we "tap into" the power of the Queen and use her executive powers through our elected legislators in Parliament whenever we want to do anything executive.

Australia and Canada have slightly different situations, because in Australia and Canada, the Queen gave her "The Crown" powers to the Governors-General, and further, split the executive and legislative powers of the British Parliament amongst a Federal and "provincial" Parliaments in each country. As a result the Commonwealth Parliament of Australia can't pass certain laws because they don't have "The Crown" power to do so because the Queen didn't give the Federal Government those powers. The States hold those.

In my personal opinion it's the best liberal constitutional system in the world- supreme power is vaguely rested in a person who cannot use those powers without the people's consent. And they're not written down like in the Constitution; each time the executive wants to do something, it has to ask Parliament, because they don't have a right to do ANYTHING otherwise. You know how Obama can make Presidential decrees or directives? Direct the forces of the United States without Congressional Approval? Make Recess Appointments? Doesn't have to answer to anybody except every 4 years?

Yeah, Queen can't do that. She has the power to do it, but she needs Parliamentary approval for each individual action because she has no powers she can unilaterally exercise.

That's something i'd like to know, too. I mean, with my game I'm working on, I have roughly 130 objects on the screen, plus Music and SFX, and my VRAM usually is about 10.33 MB or lower...

I don't know if that's too high, or dandy, or whatever.

Here's what you do

Whenever you destroy an enemy, make a certain private variable, i dunno, LevelGet, increase by 1.

When LevelGet is at a certain number (all the enemies), you use the event Go To Layout.

your dude's walk animation looks really smooth, and I love the multiple scrolling backgrounds.

I wish the forum didn't auto-crop images

: /