[Resolved] Gold Yard - Isometric Adventure Game

[dnalogic]

Mine was done on difficulty level 'Normal'.
You should make everything more valuable on the 'Hard' difficulty level, so that it is only possible to get the top score by choosing the hardest setting.

How you gonna do the save game?
I done a save game thing on one of my games using cookies, which seems to work quite well. Using cookies stops your server from getting filled up with peoples save-games, but it means that if someone is clever and devious enough, they can probably cheat.

[framais]

---jorosdaman-----
Try to delete the Internet Temporary Files and the history and reload, it should work. Let me know



---dnalogic------
that's a good idea. I have to see how difficult is to implement higher scores for harder difficulty level, but that's definitely something that would increase the re-playability

[Dr_Funfrock]

Hi,
OK praise first yes, a truely great game with graphics to die for. You will certainly be able to reap the rewards!

OK now the technical bits. I worked with several others on making an isometric game and we succeeded in getting an engine running (we have stopped the project since). We used arrays to generate the rooms and levels using pre defined building blocks. There were three arrays, one for texture, one for height and one for width. How did you do your game, similar or differently?

Secondly, we became stuck too in creating transition between screens, eg. you leave a street to go into a shop but we could not do that. We thought maybe each screen would have to be a different scene in the .fla but could not code any actionscripting for this transition. How did you overcome this?

We had a basic inventory which was great for collecting items from streets etc but we could not get those items to be used in game. I gather you have used (this is crude but quick) an onkeypress(spacebar) linked to the inventory to activate an item?

I hope you can enlighten me on your methods as quite frankly, i think your game is brilliant.

Oh one more thing, I could not get used to the controls at all. In our game we used the cursor key controls rotated 90 degrees clockwise, so that UP moved the character NE, LEFT moved him NW. You have it that LEFT moves him NE. Does anyone else find this disorientating??? Other than that well done indeed.

I will feature the game on http://www.gamesandjokes.co.uk, my free website, but I gather you will nt release the .swf for me to host without some licensing fee. So I will just link to your site.

Kind regards,
Dr_Funfrock.
email me dr@funfrock.net if you so wish.

[dnalogic]

I dont care about the arrow keys 'cause I dont use them. But dont get rid of the 'S' 'X' 'J' 'N' keys.
And dont make it so that you turn 90 degress and then go forwards. I hate isometric games like that.

The arrow keys are a bit awkward though. I suggest using the other ones instead.

Just like the Beeb. The way games should be.

[Mad-Sci]

Dr_Funfrock, here is my sugestion..

let say that you want to have about 25 rooms. Each one has evryware between 1 and 4 doors. Ok so you make a grid 5X5 on piece of paper and postion the doors like a maze for example. Then name each room let say using A..Z. Now you make one big MC with 25 keyframes. each frame will be one room give the frames names=room names. Make the doors MC and position them according to your map.. Make it so they run a hitTest() with the hero and return a variable say: exit=true. ok now lets talk about the hero. When it collides with a door for example to the right 2 events should take place at that very time.

1. hero warps to the left.
2. display the room to the right.

here is how you display the rooms with fuction:

A) make and array wich represents 5 x 5 grid:

row[1]="abcde"
row[2]="fghig"

etc..etc..

now the row numbers will be the current row, substrings of that row will represent the collums..so you simply use gotoAndStop() to go to the specific frame name as poited in the substrings.

each time the hero collides with a door. increase the row number if it goes out using UP or Down doors. and look for the substrings if it uses LEFT or RIGHT doors..

mad_sci

PS it seems Im kidnapping the post..

[Dr_Funfrock]

Thanks!
The theory helps a lot but speaking practically I will just have to keep trying different things.

I WILL GET THERE I AM SURE BUT I MAY BE DRAWING MY BLOODY PENSION BEFORE I DO!

Cheers for the help
Dr_Funfrock.

[Dr_Funfrock]

If you want a very easy method of "saving" a game why not place several points around the level (objects that you choose but is very visible to the player) where a password is written on it. it could be a little screen on a sign on a wall? Then, on the main screen (on the play.html page or whatever the extension is) have a password box that if oncheck that the passwords are the same as the ones stored for each "warp point" then it cuts automatically to place arthur on the point adjacent to the warp.
Yes, there would be no money and no objects collected, but that would be the trade off for the player. Do I start again and collect the items and money, or do i start from the warp point i got to?

Anyways, just an idea, basic yes, simple yes but effective, yes too. I looked into making save points ages ago for our game and it was very very difficult indeed.

Dr_Funfrock.

[framais]

---dnalogic-----

I've updated Gold Yard, now the value of the golden items changes according to the difficulty level. These are the new multipliers:

Easy = 0.5x

Normal = 1x

Hard = 2x

Thanks for your suggestion I really think it will make the game more challenging.

[framais]

----Dr. Funfrock-----

Thanks a lot for your compliments, I particularly appreciated them cause I've seen your amazing work on your isometric engine!

Here are some bits of tech info about the Gold Yard engine:

- I have one array only that dictates where the doors and items are placed. This make a room to room transiction faster than using multiple arrays.

- Every Room is a single frame in the main timeline, I didn't use different scenes

- the doors string includes three data:
1) the cell IS a door
2) the destination room number (which is the frame number where the destination room is located in the main timeline)
3) the coordinates where the hero has to be placed once he enters the new room.

- Rooms are "pre-drawn" meaning no array is used to place the graphics. This allows me to have more freedom in the rooms graphics.

-about the inventory I think the trick is to have the main movie and the inventory movie always running at the same time, so that all the variables are always active and you don't have to store them somewhere to retrieve them later when you switch from the inventory to the game.


About the controls, arrow keys are naturally confusing when it comes to isometric games, and I do agree that they may be frustrating if you're not used to it.
I personally feel comfortable with them, but that's only my opinion and I have had plenty of time to get used to them.
This problem had been arised on a Ultrashock forum:

http://forums.ultrashock.com/forums2...7&goto=newpost

the fact (in terms of game controls) is that I don't know what could be considered a standard in an isometric game. If you know of some existing isometric game that can be taken as example, I'd like you to point it out.

About the saving feature: I really like the way you suggested, it's easy and nice, I was thinking about something like that myself (like a password to start from the last reached "checkpoint"), but yours sounds even better.

Thanks again for your feedback (Actually, knowing your work on isometrics, I was a bit surpised you didn't join the thread yet )
and for including a link to Gold Yard on your site. I will list it on http://www.goldyard.net frontpage.


---dnalogic------

Don't worry I'm not gonna change the SXJN controls, I think those are most intuitive cause they're oriented in the correct walking directions



----Mad Sci--------
That's certainly an excellent way of doing it. I'm eager to see your work on the Atic-Atic like game




[Edited by framais on 08-25-2001 at 03:07 PM]

[Mad-Sci]

man im writing my PhD currantly. I have no time for the AticAtac and had to put it on hold for now..I hate writing..

mad_sci

[Dr_Funfrock]

(warning - this is a long post...!)

Thankyou Framais, the feature of your site on mine will go up next saturday, because thats the only day I upload (that domain was a freebie and im stuck with having to pay to dial up to it - the sods have a £94.00 release charge. Man I wish I just bought the domain outright fromt he start!).

I read the things you said about building the actual game from your post above and from your site. I am presuming a few things, please correct me if I am barking in the wrong woods let alone up the wrong tree!

I see you modeled the graphics beforehand and then imported them into flash. You said the rooms are "predrawn". I gather by this you set out a template of the max. area of each room, then add each exterior element (such as north facing wall etc) you want into the frame directly(?) whereas we called them up from the library using many arrays. Then you use one array of co-ordinates to place each door and items?

If that is so, then do you have the character with a long piece of coding setting out the co-ordinates of the room that he CAN walk around in?

The enemies (such as the spiders, the ghosts and the skulls). How did you program them to move as some seem to be on a random path and some seem to use a predefined guide? Is each enemy coded by hand to take different paths?

Each object you pick up - lets take for example a key. The life bar system is quite easy to do I imagine using just the enemies that on collision detection add a negative number to the hero's life bar? Right the key, it stays in the inventory but how did you manage to make it so that on activation the key renders the door open? Is the locked door a MC itself so that onkeypress(spacebar) it goes to frame 2 in itself and that has the coding as a normal door?

Finally, I would be very grateful if you would keep me up to date with any additions you make to the game. Such as if you make a breakthrough with some coding, please tell me so I can play it through and work out what you have done and how you have done it. I strongly believe that the best way to learn is from others you see.

Also would you be interested in some kind of swap scheme where I place a banner advertising your game strategically on the main page but also on the page of games that similar such as puzzlers? Then you add a banner of mine on one/some of your pages. I get quite a number of hits and obviously people will love your game but they need to know that it exists first!

Kind regards, and good luck for the future.
Dr_Funfrock.

[Dr_Funfrock]

sorry just checking previous post went up - net is very slow maybe sircam zapped my connection.

[electricbluemonkey]

Truely incredible. Even runs well (although a bit slow) on my 400Mhz boat anchor. Love the 3d aspect.

[Xpressive]

Wow -this is going to be a long thread... To answer your question

I will, not very soon I'm afraid, but I will. Are you more interested in the isometric graphics or the actionscript programming?

I am very interested in both -especially

1. how to display an isometric 'room' with interactive items like enemies or power-up's.
2. how to move a player/enemy within an isometric world

[framais]

You said the rooms are "predrawn". I gather by this you set out a template of the max. area of each room, then add each exterior element (such as north facing wall etc) you want into the frame directly(?) whereas we called them up from the library using many arrays.

Yeah, that's exactly how I did it

Then you use one array of co-ordinates to place each door and items?

Not exactly, doors and items graphics are still placed manually into the room. The information those "entities" are actually there though is stored in the array.

If that is so, then do you have the character with a long piece of coding setting out the co-ordinates of the room that he CAN walk around in?

The physical limits of the room (the walls) are actually drawn as a shape contained in a movie against which the hero movie performs a hit-test for collisions. This allows to have irregular (even round) walls.

The enemies (such as the spiders, the ghosts and the skulls). How did you program them to move as some seem to be on a random path and some seem to use a predefined guide? Is each enemy coded by hand to take different paths?

Every monster is a quite complex movie that uses a few parameters (variables) to regulate its behavior. A typical parameter is the distance the monster walks before turning back. These parameters are used as clip parameters to make it easier to create new monsters of the same kind. Actually to create a new monster all it's needed to do is to copy it and change its clip parameters as needed.

The life bar system is quite easy to do I imagine using just the enemies that on collision detection add a negative number to the hero's life bar?

Yes, exactly.

Right the key, it stays in the inventory but how did you manage to make it so that on activation the key renders the door open? Is the locked door a MC itself so that onkeypress(spacebar) it goes to frame 2 in itself and that has the coding as a normal door?

In Gold Yard every item is represented by a number. All the items, except for the healing potion, can only be used in the appropriate location. This location is specified by a specific cell value in the grid array, this kind of cells is called "trigger cell". Every trigger cell has a number corresponding to the number of the item that can actually trigger a specific action in that specific spot.
The inventory is made of 4 variables (the inventory slots) that assume the value of the item they contain. When the player tries to use an item by pressing the spacebar, the script performs a check: is the hero in a trigger cell? If so does the trigger cell number corresponds to the number of the item located in the active inventory slot? If so the corresponding action (i.e. opening a door) is triggered, meaning that the movie corresponding to the opening door animation is played.

Finally, I would be very grateful if you would keep me up to date with any additions you make to the game. Such as if you make a breakthrough with some coding, please tell me so I can play it through and work out what you have done and how you have done it. I strongly believe that the best way to learn is from others you see.

Sure, I will.

Also would you be interested in some kind of swap scheme where I place a banner advertising your game strategically on the main page but also on the page of games that similar such as puzzlers? Then you add a banner of mine on one/some of your pages. I get quite a number of hits and obviously people will love your game but they need to know that it exists first!

That sounds great, I'll let you know as soon as I create a banner for GY and make room for a banner in the GY site.

Kind regards, and good luck for the future.

Thank you Dr.Funfrock, good luck to you too!
If I can give you a little advice, don't drop your isometric engine, that's so promising! Try to get to a finished version, even if, for time reasons, you should have to sacrifice more complex features... better to get a room where you can walk, than a whole castle without a floor!

Cheers,

Francesco

[framais]

------electricbluemonkey---------

Thank you. I think Gold Yard should not run so slow if you play at medium resolution...I actually created a good half of the game on a Celeron 433 Mhz laptop ...that gave me the chance to test on a low end machine and to figure out which things actually slowed down the game the most.


------Xpressive-----------------

I am very interested in both -especially

1. how to display an isometric 'room' with interactive items like enemies or power-up's.
2. how to move a player/enemy within an isometric world

1. you may find some explanations on some of my previous posts
2. That's certainly something I would write about willingly as it's a basic aspect of isometric worlds. I'll keep you informed.
[Edited by framais on 08-27-2001 at 12:53 AM]

[Dr_Funfrock]

Thanks framais, your knowledge is really helpful!

I really cant keep the "enchantment" isometric engine going as for a start it was a team effort with everybody's own input and secondly I have such little time now :-(

OK - trigger cells. How did you do these? Is it a isometric square shape simply pasted into the frame, with parameters/coding telling it that it is a trogger cell. Then, this has coding (this is very crude im just getting my thinking of this across!) that

if onhitTest(hero) {check that
[the trigger number assigned to the cell] =
[trigger number in active inventory slot])
and if above=true
{gotoAndplay(2)}
}
[where 2 is the change to the door opening movie clip]

lol i really hope that makes a bit of sense as its been a few months since I last did a flash project and im just trying to get my understanding across. Is that kinda the basis of the cell trigger system. This was the major sticking point of ours - we wanted to have a red square in front of every main item such as door or map edge so that when the hero hit this then it went to scene 2. We couldnt figure it out though.

When you get your banner ready and some space on your site, please email me at gamesandjokes@funfrock.net. Could I be arkward and ask if you could make a special banner that is 400x60 or 410x60 as then it means I have to do little alterations for my site. I designed it with the ethos at first of no banner ads so i created the site with space of only 410 pixels! However now I have made it so that there will be only selected ads on selected pages but the size problem remains....

Keep up the good work framais!
The Doc.

[Dr_Funfrock]

Hey there framais

Just got back from my shift at work and I realised I have a password system on one of my games. It activates a new level - the password to unlock it can only be fpound by getting a score over 3500 so one could say it is a reward.

The point is, it could very very easily be adapted to take you to a specific frame in the game and also, it has capacity for many different passwords so you could have maybe 5 warp points.

The graphics would be very easy to change too.

I am trying to find the .fla all i can find atm is the .swf - get back to me if you wish for me to send you it.

[editing this and I have found it - for a look at what it does go to http://www.funfrock.net/users/spaceshooter and click cheatmenu. To activate type cheat as the username and theweakestlink as the password!]

Regards
The Doc.


[Edited by Dr_Funfrock on 08-27-2001 at 09:44 AM]

[Mad-Sci]

Just a note: in isometric worlds the hero collides with things with its legs only..

mad_sci

[framais]

Originally posted by Dr_Funfrock
Thanks framais, your knowledge is really helpful!

OK - trigger cells. How did you do these? Is it a isometric square shape simply pasted into the frame, with parameters/coding telling it that it is a trogger cell. Then, this has coding (this is very crude im just getting my thinking of this across!) that

if onhitTest(hero) {check that
[the trigger number assigned to the cell] =
[trigger number in active inventory slot])
and if above=true
{gotoAndplay(2)}
}
[where 2 is the change to the door opening movie clip]

lol i really hope that makes a bit of sense as its been a few months since I last did a flash project and im just trying to get my understanding across. Is that kinda the basis of the cell trigger system.

Yeah, that's basically the concept behind it, except that the trigger info is not a shape but it's contained into the array. The string identifying a trigger cell looks like this:

abb

where "a" is the number that identifies a trigger cell and "bb" the number that dictates which item is capable of activate the trigger.

Originally posted by Dr_Funfrock
When you get your banner ready and some space on your site, please email me at gamesandjokes@funfrock.net. Could I be arkward and ask if you could make a special banner that is 400x60 or 410x60 as then it means I have to do little alterations for my site.

No problem

About the save feature, it's not a problem to implement that and I have to tailor it to GY variables. As soons as I finish working on the hi-scores table I'll start to work on that. Thank you anyway for your help!

Francesco