a confused newbie

[warriorgoel]

Hey everyone,

I'm a new user of Game Editor, and am very confused as to how a game may be created. Can someone knowledgeable recommend what tutorials to do or what resources may help me learn quickly?

One other question- is it possible to create RPGs (not online, but top-down style RPGs)?

In Christ,
~Zac

[Fuzzy]

Sure you can create top down RPGs... the biggest fight would be with the text, as the text handling aspects of GE are still growing.

I'd suggest watching all the tutorials that are built into the help. they are the most useful. Try to create the features of one tutorial in another.

A hint, the Space invaders tutorial contains most of the knowledge you need for a top down. with modifications to the movement, you can allow a character to run around. check out angle and directional_velocity in the documentation.

I'd use the left and right arrow keys to change the player.angle, and up down to mke him move. Use key down [up arrow] to increase the player.directional_velocity, and key up[up arrow] to stop.

[warriorgoel]

Thanks, but my confusion lies mainly with how the actors, "parents", "paths", "regions", and everything work together to form a game. Let's say I'm trying to build a basic side-scroller. My character can walk left and right, jump, swing a sword on either side, possibly climb ladders. I need help understanding how the level joins with the character(s), and how the character adds animations and adds damage to the enemies. How are levels formed? I'm sorry, but the tutorials seem disjointed to me. I see how to add an actor, but how all the tutorials are connected.

Thanks.

In Christ,
~Warrior Goel

[Fuzzy]

well, for the moment, you can forget the paths, and probably the regions...

On your body, your hand would be said to have a parent. its parent would be your fore arm. where ever your fore arm goes, the hand must follow. likewise, the fore arm has a parent, and thats your upper arm. the upper arm is parented by the chest....

Parents dont share variables with their children though. In GE it only refers to location and movement.

you need to form variables for the characters hitpoints, or whatever... and then check for a collision between "player" and "enemy" or perhaps "bullet" and enemy. then use action ...script editor... and do something like this....

enemy.HP = enemy.HP - player.damage;



thats the basics...

my internet connection computer is not the one i have GE on, so I will make you a GED that you can examine, ok?

[warriorgoel]

Sweet. And I'm coming along, things are finally starting to make sense (hurray for answered prayers!), although I would still greatly appreciate that demo ged. My next question is about animations- more specifically, how do I make them? I have Paint, but I don't believe it does the animations GE looks for, and besides, Paint is hard to use anyways. What program should I use for animations (and art in general?)?

Thanks in advance for everything!

Yours In Christ,
~Warrior Goel

[Novice]

You can use paint for the animations, and any other program that can make BMP,JPEG,GIF and PNG files (im not shure does GE suport any other file types). You can make the animatinons frame by frame and save them in separate files or you can lay them out in strips.Look in the caveman folder you will se his run animation that will explain everything. There are programs for compositing frames in strips (you should search the forum for that one), but i just use photoshop and lay them out manualy. To save you from asking the question is there any diference betwen the strips and separate frames, the answer is no it does not afect the performance or the file size so chose wichever you like better.
Conserning the programs you should use as i said i the beginig any program will do. If you have a 3d program like 3d Max, Maya or Lightwawe it will make your life a lot easier just make your object and animate it, render it and save the animation in separate files.

[Fuzzy]

A nice little program to draw animations is graphics gale. http://www.humanbalance.net/gale/us/ is the site.

Did you figure out the how to handle damage and hit points? Its just like using score, except you call it HP or whatever. Use collision events, and scripty editor.

I have a cheesy little demo, but nowhere to host it.

[Game A Gogo]

Try http://www.freewebs.com for a web site, and a place to hast your files!!