I'm implementing perks into my game and was wondering whether the should be handled by an instance variable, local or global variable.

Players earn points which they can spend on perks between levels. Atm, when player picks a perk, an instance variable (boolean) gets toggled on the player object. On restart (after death or on new game) the IV's get reset to false.

Is this the best way? Would it be better to handle perks with LV/GV's? would it even make a difference at all?

Just curious!

Thanks!

Ok. I´m ashamed to say I don´t fully understand lerp yet. I´ve used it for my camera movement, but fail to see how it would work with sound. Would you/anyone mind explaining lerp in noobish?

Thanks

Ah, that´s good to know. Still wondering about syncopation though.....

Dear all, I'm trying to get my music tracks to fade in and out, depending on the situation. I could use some help conceptualizing it.

The game: sneak around and don't get seen. Hide in shadows and evade guards/cameras.

The wanted effect: imagine a 80's funk baseline track playing in the background. This loops for as long as the player remains unseen. As soon as the player is within a guard's/camera's LOS the music fades out and a timer "detection" starts running for 3 seconds. When "detection" runs >/= 0, another funk track (james brownish trumpets) already running in the background fades in (increase volume from 0 to the desired volume, 100 by default), changing the background music to a more upbeat loop. This continues until the player is hiden again. The trumpets fade out to mute and the base fades back up.

Am I on the right track?

As always, thank's for reading

Simple question, how do I stop shadows from casting through solid objects?

See capx: [attachment=0:2ov5t53q][/attachment:2ov5t53q]

Ps: Control playercollbox with w,a,s,d

Thanks!

Quick response, simple, effective, sausage!

You have earned the position of my favourite person for the next hour sir. Thank you!

Dear all,

I have been working on game dialogue (non-interactive, i.e. the player gets no choice in how to respond).

The way I have been working so far is by creating a separate invisible object (Stgwhsp, as in stage whisperer) that caries the necessary variables (which dialogue to fire off, where to place the text object etc). This allows me to call dialogue between characters, as well as banter between player 1 and two, as they overlap with the "Stghsp" object.

Here's the question though. I would like for the banter to fade out on its own. The player won't have time to manually further the dialogue, as the game doesn't stop for banter, only for "cinematic" dialogue sections.

So, I'm familiar with the fade behaviour, but I would like for short text ("hey you!") to fade out faster than long text ("When I was a boy, my dad used to say: "Hold ma drink boay!").

Idea:

Have the words/characters in the text object counted and set text object's fade out to a lenght of time it would take to read each word/character.

Any ideas how to do this / alternative approach?

Thanks!

Dear Constructtwoeans,

My on couch co-op platform game is nearing its first Alpha stage after working hard for almost a year. At the moment, I'm implementing some of the final mechanics to make it a fully working build, representing all the core elements of the game.

One of which is a mechanic that allows the players to pick up different weapons (swords, bows, guns etc) and items (shields, bombs, passive buff items etc) and steal them from one another. I'm struggling to implement this mechanic and would like to see how you would go about it.

Let me first line out what the general idea is before giving you all a blow by blow.

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Each player may hold, at any time, only ONE weapon and ONE item. Each weapon may be used to perform attacks or, if it is a melee weapon, be thrown at a 4 direction angle (up,down,left and right). Same goes for items, they may be used (shields block, bombs are placed and buffs are cast) or thrown for an alternative effect.

Weapons and items can be stolen from enemies and other players by jumping on top of them (mario style). When jumped on from the front (i.e. the player is looking in the opposite direction that the enemy is looking) the enemy will drop its current weapon, which is vectorY'ed upwards. If jumped on from the back (i.e. the player is looking in the same direction as the enemy) the enemy will drop its current item which is vectorY'ed upwards.

So here is the blow by blow and the problem I'm having

1) Player has no weapon/item

2) Player overlaps with weapon/item and presses "DownArrow" (for example)

3) Weapon is "picked up", meaning it is set to the player sprite's "hand" image point and its angle adjusted etc

So far so good...

But here is where I get in trouble and would like some help:

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4) Player ownes weapon/item

5) Player overlaps with weapon/item and presses "DownArrow" again.

6) The weapon held is "discarded" (vectored back and upwards, fade out into destroy in x seconds)

7) The weapon on the floor is picked up, insert step 3, rinse repeat.

In short: I would like for each player to be able to cycle from 1)no weapon 2)weapon 3)new weapon using only one pick up key.

As always, thank you all ever so much for reading and I look forward to your input.

Dear all,

The situation:

An x amount (lets say 10 for the example's sake) of chests_spawn points are dotted around the level. Each spawn point is randomly selected every x seconds and spawns a chest of some designation to be looted by the player, at which point the chest is destroyed, making the spawn point available to be randomly selected again.

The time in between spawning chests is regulated by subtracting dt from a Global variable "ChestSpawn_Time": which chooses a random Chest_Spawn instance on = 1, and then creates a new "Chest" on 0, after which the counter is reset.

As I said, spawn points that have an unopened chest on them (check overlap) will not be selected when "ChestSpawn_Time" reaches 1.

So far so good.

The Problem

When all 10 spawn points are overlapping with chests there is no Spawn point instance to be randomly selected anymore. Naturally, "ChestSpawn_Time" will keep decrementing by dt into the -.

So, I was wondering if it would be wise to have the game count the amount of ChestSpawns on start of layout, save the number to a GV, say "ActiveSpawn_points", subtract 1 after every spawn, and simply stop the subtraction of "ChestSpawn_Time" once "ActiveSpawn_Points" reaches 0, and resetting it when it reaches >0.

If so, what would be the best way to count object instances?

Thanks!

Ah yes, this is what I thought too. However, what happens when player 1 wants to play on keyboard2 and player 2 wants to play with the xbox controller? I could write out all four control schemes out for all four players. I am looking for a more time-efficient way to do this.

Neat explanation though!

Oh, Constructtwonians a question burns deep within my loins!

I'm trying to figure out what the best way is to facilitate different controlling options for different players:

Player1 on keyboard1 (wasd, gyh)

Player2 on keyboard2 (Arrows, shft, ret, ctrl)

Player3 on Controller1 (controller 1....)

Player4 on Controller2 (A banana.......... eh, I mean controller 2)

So, how can i set this up to easily switch the different sets of controls to different players in the option screen?

I liked how Spelunky HD did it, but perhaps there are other, better ways?

As always, I thank you!

Dear Constructtwoians,

I started frivolously messing around with Construct 2 almost six months ago out of sheer boredom (and a secret hope I would one day call myself a game-dev of course ). Looking back at what I have learned in these months from reading tutorials, taking suggestions from forum posts, copying capxs and forcing myself to make a prototype a week, I have hope that I might actually be able to publish a game in the semi-near future.

This realisation raises new questions regarding other, non programming/design related, issues.

Making music to accompany the game is an issue that makes me particularly nervous. I have no musical talent or ability whatsoever. Although sitting myself down with a stack of internet literature , lock the door for another six months and studying up on fruity-loops, musagi etc does have a certain appeal to it, but I fear that in the end, it would be too much allegorical hay on my proverbial pitchfork.

I would like to get a musician involved in the project, problem is: I don't know anyone who is able and/or willing to do so. TO THE INTERNET!

But how? Where can I find someone to make the music for my game? And what's more, what is a reasonable type of compensation for a musical artist?

I aim to produce this game low-budget (read: no-budget). I have cut down on my work-hours, washing dishes at a local restaurant, to work on the game which leaves me with little expendable cash. At this stage, it is probably to early to start worrying about the music but the thought of it is distracting me so it would be great to get some suggestions so that it can go on the board.

So my question is: what do I have to offer as a low budget solo dev? Why would anyone get involved?