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I was recently inspired to create a game that (I think) could go over really well. I've already made a sprite sheet for the main character, and I'm working on sprites for enemies. However, I have a small (or huge, I suppose) problem: I'm having a hard time finding tutorials that can help me do exactly what I want to do with this game. If anyone knows where I can find tutorials that can do any or all of the following things, that would incredibly helpful:

1. Upgrades.
In the game, I would like to have the ability to "upgrade" the Virus (see below for game details). This means adding different abilities to it, using upgrade points, etc. I can't seem to find a tutorial that reveals a method of doing something like that, and it's a vital aspect of the game. I didn't think it would be too hard to find a tutorial that covered this information (it's a pretty popular trend in 2D gaming), but apparently it's not a very widely-discussed topic in this forum (unless I'm blind).

2. Actor changes.
I need a way to change actors - every search I sent out for this on the forum page and in Google came up blank and left me empty-handed. When one zombie bites a human, that human needs to become a zombie (having not only its animations, but also its "game logic"). The method of doing this needs to be attached to the victim, not the zombie itself (the idea is to design a game that requires strategy, so if, for example, a zombie bites a pedestrian, there's not much of an advantage. But if the zombie bites a marine there's a much bigger advantage, because now the marine has become a marine-zombie. This can be done much more easily if the logic for how a human transforms is attached to the human actor, not the zombie itself).

3. Punching.
I have yet to find a really good, solid tutorial on "punching". Essentially, most of the zombies will not be "shooting" at other people, just running around biting and clawing them. Are there any good tutorials which cover this? I need an actor to have the ability to *only* turn another actor into a zombie if the zombie itself makes contact with the human while making a claw/biting motion.

4. Random movement.
The innocent civilians in my town need to move randomly, but they can't run into buildings and their movement has to be *very* random (so that it doesn't look like they're all following the same path). They also need to run away when they're near a character that has been "zombified". Does anyone know where I can find a good tutorial that covers this?

5. Lots of levels.
The goal of the game is to zombify the entire world, so there will be all sorts of cities and countries to attack. This would make the file size absolutely massive, so I need a way to combine all of the levels (or, essentially, to "conserve memory"), making the game size as small and compact as possible. Any tips and tutorials on doing this are greatly appreciated.

I'm sure that I have more questions (or will once I've got the basics of the game down), but these are my major concerns at the moment. If anyone knows where I can find any of the tutorials, please let me know and send me a link. Thanks!

The game itself: the basic story is that your main character is a kid that got infected with a "zombie virus". In the game, you get to upgrade the effectiveness of the zombie virus (increase the speed and health of your zombies, increase the chances of "zombifying" other humans, increase the duration of a zombie's existence, add abilities like breaking through obstacles, etc) as you progress using upgrade points (acquired based on how many humans you've "zombified". You'll have all sorts of levels to complete - taking over cities from New York to Baghdad, so the upgrades will be vital. Difficulty will increase as you progress through the levels.

Here is my zombie sprite sheet (just to show that I'm serious about this) and some art work that I created. Feel free to use the sprite sheet, just make sure that you give me credit if you do.

As you've noticed gE doesn't have a great amount of tutorials. Currently a lot of learning gE is to learn how to problem solve in gE. So while people do ask for tutorials, usually by the point they would be asking for more complex things they have already reached the point where they can figure it out on their own. Of course this isn't necessarily optimal for newcomers, but it is helpful as I've seen many users fall into the trap of relying solely on the tutorials of others. Anyway, I briefly explained your five points, but if you need any more help on these ask away.

1. Upgrading should be done through a variable. There aren't too many tutorials on this (though I do remember one) because it tends to depend on what types of abilities you have, and it is mostly knowing what a variable is and how to use it. Essentially the actor has all the code (as if they were fully upgraded) but you prevent some moves/abilities from working via the variable. It depends on how you are implementing the breakthrough ability, but if it is just due to collisions when attacking, the above method would work. As for speed and other stats, that's just another variable to augment the zombie's movement speed and initial hp. In the actual code that determines how fast the zombie is going, you can do something like this.

Code: Select all

directional_velocity=speed+5; // 5 being the initial speed and as you increase speed, the zombie will move faster

2. This should be done with inheritance. Have two actors, or however many you need, that share all the same animation names (in the same order). Then you have one actor with all the events. All you need to do from there is to have the other actor inherit from the one with the events. The only thing you need to watch out for then is view movement. Most people use parenting, which would still work, but if you want to workaround the problems caused by parenting, you'll need something else, I'd suggest an Actor*.

3. I think Bee-Ant made a simple fighting ai that does this. The definition of a good tutorial is rather subjective, as there are plenty of people that thought it was good, but it might not fit what you need.

4. Random movement is rather difficult. To make it simple, you can have them choose a random direction to move in for some period of time, and if they happen to collide with a building they should change direction. The detecting of the zombies depends on how you are setting up your zombies. Worst case you'd have to use a draw event in the civilian actors that tells them to move in the opposite direction (or close to) from the closest zombie.

5. For this you might try loading maps from a file. You can insert all the maps into that, and create the levels as you need them. There are plenty of tutorials on that, but again if you need more targeted help feel free to ask.

I've helped various other users through pms, that way they don't have to reveal the content of their games, among many other reasons. So if you want, I can help you out that way as well.