Messages

1

Game Ideas / Re: A game called....."DUNGEON DESTROYERS!"

« on: October 03, 2011, 08:02:37 am »

A lot of games are ok.  Play them once or twice then move on.  Ok, but not special.  Special games, one that stand out from the masses - they are hard to write and rare to find.  Maybe one every 2-3 months on Kongregate.  Special enough that I might go out of my way to play them.  DTD. Gemcraft. That match 3 battle game (although it was to short). The Cthulhu card game.  Easter bunny Defense. That looping circuit puzzle.

Most of the games you play, you rate and you forget.  Technically their ok, but they just don't have that spark.

2

Old Bugs (1.x/2.x) / Re: Odd return from getActorValue

« on: October 03, 2011, 07:51:58 am »

Ah, that got it. Hidden away under messages.

3

Archives / Re: Static Attrbutes

« on: October 03, 2011, 07:38:47 am »

Game attributes don't do it - they are global.  I need to be able to set different values on different actor classes (BlueBullet.speed = 10, RedBullet.speed = 15 etc...)

4

Archives / Static Attrbutes

« on: October 03, 2011, 12:01:21 am »

Additional Boolean flag on an attribute for a behavior - static.  Cannot be also be hidden.  Attribute only has a getter - no setter.

Behavior linked to actor or scene, override (or default) value for the attribute set.

Attribute gets built into a static initializer for the class, and you can access it even if you don't have an instance of the class instantiated:  bullet.getStaticValue("speed");  instead of bullet.getActorValue("speed");  Easy in Java, don't know about flash.

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Game Ideas / Re: A game called....."DUNGEON DESTROYERS!"

« on: October 02, 2011, 11:28:17 pm »

Exclusives just work to waste your development effort.  Certainly as a player I'm not going to see any more than one set (Kongregate) unless it's a really, really good game (which it probably won't be).  I've started 1 rating games which appear to be no more than plugs for playing elsewhere or require some sort of 3rd party sign up...

Focus on making the game better for everyone rather than working out how to tick us off...

6

Old Bugs (1.x/2.x) / Re: Odd return from getActorValue

« on: October 02, 2011, 09:38:28 pm »

 So the object is created, but its behaviors aren't fully initialized until the next frame?  i.e. it's still initializing.  Meaning I can't fish attributes off of it because the only way to declare an attribute on an object is to make it a part of a behavior.  Any chance of some static attributes?

 If I set an attribute value on a newly created object,  is there a danger it'll get overwritten as the behaviors assert their default/provided attribute values?

 Using always is ok for a simple case (I can use local attribiutes to cache the values), but gets complicated if I need to create multiple objects (say a number of bullets going in different directions) as I have to remember the details for each one - including a pointer to each actor.

 What I'm trying to set up is player -> bullet, and bullet -> its attributes, so if I want the player to fire different bullets, I just have to change the bulletType attribute on the player to point to the actor for the new type of bullet.  As it is, I seem to have to put some of the bullet attributes on the Player so that behaviors running on the Player can access them when the bullet is fired, which just makes things more complicated than they need to be.

 That still doesn't answer the question of what Number(_bullet.getActorValue("_Speed")) returns if the attribute isn't there or isn't initialized.  What do I put in the if to tell if the call failed so I can provide a default value?

7

Ask a Question / StencylForge - What's the protocol?

« on: October 02, 2011, 09:11:32 pm »

If I've downloaded a behavior from Stencyl Forge and have made some improvement and/or fixes to it what's the protocol for making them available to the community?  Push them back to the original author or publish them myself?  If we take the latter, is there any sort of versioning/delta up on Stencyl forge so we don't end up with umpty different versions of the same thing?

8

Old Bugs (1.x/2.x) / Re: Odd return from getActorValue

« on: October 02, 2011, 06:20:15 am »

Well that's a bugger. Makes OO programming a lot harder. Hmm... Maybe I just need to turn it around...  How long's a frame...

9

Old Bugs (1.x/2.x) / Odd return from getActorValue

« on: October 01, 2011, 11:42:48 pm »

Code:

Code: [Select]

        createActor(_BulletActor, (actor.getXCenter() - _bulletxOffset), (actor.getYCenter() - _bulletyOffset), FRONT);
        x = ((getScreenX() + getMouseX()) - actor.getXCenter());
        y = ((getScreenY() + getMouseY()) - actor.getYCenter());
        angle = Util.toDegrees(Math.atan2(y, x));
        _bullet = getLastCreatedActor();
        _bullet.setAngle(Util.toRadians((angle + initAngle)));
        _speed = Number(_bullet.getActorValue("_Speed"));

        if ((_speed < 1))
        {
            _speed = 1;
        }

        else
            if ((_speed > 60))
            {
                _speed = 60;
            }

        _bullet.setVelocity(angle, _speed);

...crashes  .  If I add an _speed=30 between the getActorValue(...) call and the first if, it works just fine however  .

So what value is _speed getting set to that is >= 1 and <= 60 and yet isn't a valid for setVelocity()?

Speed is a non-hidden attribute of bullet - should I be using Speed or _Speed to get its value?  Neither seems to work

Is it also possible that bullet hasn't finished instantiating itself as it was only created at the start of the code segment?  When is the earliest I should be able to reference its values? (Ideally I'd like to do it in the create call to get the x and y offsets for it, but that's probably a bit much to ask for).

10

Old Bugs (1.x/2.x) / Re: namemap

« on: October 01, 2011, 11:33:40 pm »

Redownloaded and updated - and all working now.  Might be because I had a game open the first time it applied the update.

11

Game Art / Re: What programs do yall use to make yalls art?

« on: September 28, 2011, 12:31:19 am »

Corel Painter - although I was using it back when it was Fractal Designs Painter.

Natural media program with layers, onion skinning, support for geomorphic tiles, etc...

I will say that graphics don't have to be technically sophisticated to be good - they just need to be understandable and consistent.

12

Game Art / Re: What is your opinion on this model?

« on: September 28, 2011, 12:26:54 am »

Nothing to get excited about.  Texturings a bit to clean, lighting is very flat, edges seem a bit soft.  Might be the look they were aiming for though.

Carrerra (or whatever they are calling it now) is surprisingly good for its price - but it's got a pretty small user base and a much smaller support base.  Pity, because it is a good bit of software. 

13

Chit-Chat / Re: Do you play sudoku?

« on: September 28, 2011, 12:08:05 am »

I do a daily Killer puzzle - found regular soduku was putting me to sleep ;-). 

14

Old Bugs (1.x/2.x) / Re: namemap

« on: September 26, 2011, 12:00:21 am »

Reproduced it last night - not that I was trying to.  New game, add 1 actor, add 1 scene, create a behavior specific to the scene, add a global attribute and a hidden local one - and hit the problem with building for test.

15

Old Bugs (1.x/2.x) / Re: Upload Failing - Bad error message

« on: September 22, 2011, 08:58:58 am »

Ok. Last one is pretty clean - open StencylWorks, Open Game, Hit Publish.