Rpg style menus

[DollMaster]

For rpg style menus, like final fantasy and zelda, how are you guys doing menus? I was thinking about moving the view to the menu and leaving everything else behind until the player backs out of it.

If I move the view to a menu, does the rest of the game pause?

Or is it better to move the menu actors to the view? And, how would I make the stuff in the background pause?

[skydereign]

Depending on what you want, you might be able to get away with using PauseGameOn, but in the case of Legend of Zelda, it isn't likely. What I usually do for any of my games is have a variable (gameState) holding the state of the game. So 0 could be the main menu, 1 could be in game, and 2 could be the in game menu. That way the actors that only act when in game have some way of telling if they should be enabled. Also, in more advanced ai systems, I send an activation event to all actors that I want to pause, and that will disable them. When I need to enable them, I send another activation event. If you want any of that further explained just ask.

[DollMaster]

Pausegameon will work for a status screen, but not one I want the player to interact with. So I'll have to take your variable gamestate route it looks like.

I planned on using activation regions for the sections/levels, so that means it will probably be better to bring the menu actors to the view instead of moving the view there.

Thank you.

[Game A Gogo]

A trick on moving everything to the view would be having one actor that is parent to all other menu actors and move only that parent actor!

[DollMaster]

Will that work with activation regions too? I have each zelda like room in an activation region. Would I be able to move it to the view? Would all its children follow?

Or would it better it be better to have an invisible menu system always following with the view...

Keep thinking of new ways of doing it, cause I don't completely know how engine works yet.

[skydereign]

The activation regions have been known to mess it up. Oddly though this is not always the case. I've worked on some projects that had no problems, and others that only some of the children follow. Maybe others have had more consistent results, but might as well try just moving the parented actor. If it doesn't work, then you will have to move each one.