Retro games

[Zoo]

Uh, no offense gan, but I've said this game needed a story and cutscenes before. It's a great idea, and it's something I can help with! Since I can't program to save my life, and I suck at art, I've wanted to help for a long time, but there isn't that much that I can do. I think it's funny how this started out as a remaking retro games project, and no one's bothered to make a new thread.

[Connors]

Yes the name remains the same! But let's keep this thread going so we don't wind up confusing people.
Also I'd like to know more about how you do the pathfinding, it's an interesting problem and I haven't been brave enough to try it on my own. It's even more of a mystery than the raycasting stuff, remember Hacksilver with the limited view? I understand it traces lines radiating out from the player but not how it finds the FIRST thing they intersect with.

[Gan]

Uh, no offense gan, but I've said this game needed a story and cutscenes before. It's a great idea, and it's something I can help with! Since I can't program to save my life, and I suck at art, I've wanted to help for a long time, but there isn't that much that I can do. I think it's funny how this started out as a remaking retro games project, and no one's bothered to make a new thread.

I am offended! 
Just messin. 
Maybe you could start writting te storyline here and we can Yay or Neigh or modify it.

Yes the name remains the same! But let's keep this thread going so we don't wind up confusing people.
Also I'd like to know more about how you do the pathfinding, it's an interesting problem and I haven't been brave enough to try it on my own. It's even more of a mystery than the raycasting stuff, remember Hacksilver with the limited view? I understand it traces lines radiating out from the player but not how it finds the FIRST thing they intersect with.

Pathfinding is easy. I'll patch it up. What's not so easy is raycasting. If someone makes raycasting, I can make the laser and line of sight feature.

[Connors]

Well Gan it seems that in the original the laser just uses a for loop and adds or subtracts from laserx and lasery and it stops if touching a sprite. Very simple detection, I'm not sure it's even real raycasting. I think that would work okay for our purposes as nothing in the game is super thin, although it can occasionally go through the edges of the corners...
Also draw the line from the back end of the gun because in the SC one you can shoot zombies through walls if your sprite's gun overlaps a corner.

[GMG Kurt]

Hey I don't usually keep up with this tread, and I'm not quite sure what the game is that your making. What I can take is that it's a zombie defense game in HTML5 GM, but it started b4 that was out, so.... yeah what is this 

[Connors]

It's been re-named Space Marine, it's more like a top-down game where you run around and shoot zombies and try to reach the teleporter on each level. You can collect ammo, armor, bombs weapons and other power ups. We're basically porting it to GM5, It was originally in Silver Creator so I like to think of that as our "mock-up". But the SC one did not have AI or more than 1 extra gun to find. Also Gan's been improving movement and collision in general.

[Gan]

Pathfinding now works really well.

As for collisions, I really want to make it better. I want the walls to be collision boxes and the characters to be collision circles.
And I want the circles to be able to slide around each other using tangent lines of intersection mixed with direction of movement.

Kinda like how Circuit's awesome siggy works.

[Zoo]

The story would be something like this:
The main character is on a ship headed in to space battle (that's why he has a gun, ammo, and bombs to start out with.) Anyway, this currently unnamed bad guy (who the earth has waged war against) launches a Bio-Rocket that infects the other people on board. The main character's only chance of survival is to kill off the hoards of zombies and reach the core of the ship which has an emergency self destruct button (big and red of course) and some escape pods. The main teleporters  to the core however, is down because of a mole who is digging around under the floor in the circuitry of the ship. So the main character has to take the long way down. On the way, he has to fight a giant demon sent by the enemy, the mole, and finally an evil AI that wants the main character dead like the rest so it can live in peace forever. The AI has a virus sent by the enemy, and the mole joins up with its leader once more in an epic 2-on-1 battle of epicness. As you may have guessed, the mole was created by the evil AI in order to aid in the destruction of the ship.


So, anyway, that's what I came up with on the spot, feel free to make changes and give feedback.

[Gan]

Bad guys:
- Guy that caused the war and sent the bio rocket.(Mysterious figure, what's his goal?)
- The AI turned evil that controls the space station.(How'd the AI go evil? Hard drive corruption?)
- The mole turned Zombie mole that's destroying circuitry, so possibly a science experiment. A mole they were trying to hook to the computer through a digital head piece. Computer took control of the mole. Uses it as it's body.
- The giant demon(where did he come from?)
- The numerous zombies that use to be civilians, scientists, and people of the space station

Good guys:
- Main character(Space marine on the way to a space battle, what kind of space battle? Why? Orders from whom?)
- Other good guys to help the space marine? Survivors of the bio bomb? Or perhaps the generals and commanders from Earth to help and guide him?

Why is it so urgent to destroy the space station? Why did the mysterious bad guy target the space station for the bio bomb instead of Earth? Why is the bad guy trying to destroy the Earth? Why does the space marine want to help? Where is the damsel in distress that the space marine rescues in the end? What's the purpose of the space station, why is it orbiting Earth?

[GMG Kurt]

awesome I'd love to help if you guys need anything, it sounds like a fun time.

[Gan]

I think I got it. A method of collision that will work nicely with path finding.

Instead of Zombies unable to walk on each other, lets just make it difficult. Like, lets say there's a tasty pile of rotting meat in the middle of the floor. Them zombies are gonna be all over it. The first zombies will lumber over to it and dig in, but the second layer of zombies will run into the first layer. Do they stop there?
NO!
The second layer is gonna get feisty and start climbing over the first layer of zombies. Their movement will be slower but eventually they'll push the first layer of zombies deeper and they'll get closer.

So instead of zombie-zombie collision, we're gonna have zombie-zombie tension. So a zombie gets too close within another zombie's personal bubble, and the other zombie will be pushed forward while the zombie behind will be slowed down. Think of it like someone pushing someone else in line.

To make this we're gonna need Circuit's magical circle code. And we'll calculate the line of tangency and the closeness and calculate a push force. A force that pushes the front guy forward and slows the guy doing the pushing.

awesome I'd love to help if you guys need anything, it sounds like a fun time.

Help out with the storyline or play with the game template! We sure could use your help.
On the game template we haven't added in weapons or GUI or even the pickup boosts.
On the storyline we still need to make it more realistic and clear things up.

[Connors]

I'm liking Zoo's storyline, I have a few ways we can clean it up:
First, are you on your way to battle, or on a space station? I think you ought to be a soldier on the space station, which was been under attack. Why? The station was an important defensive outpost near Earth. The attack succeeded and you were hit by the bio-weapon, and few people survived, the rest are zombies. The enemy also hacked your computer and it has been trying to finish destroying the survivors, taking control of multiple dangerous military experiments that were on-board, such as the Mole and the giant demon thing.
This being the case there ought to be other survivors, and where there's still working equipment, you can contact people outside. Destroying the space station and evil AI and escaping are the two main goals.
At some point I threw out an idea about airlocks, and related puzzles...
[EDIT]: Airlocks:
When an airlock is open, you are automatically pulled along the shortest path to an opening. You will constantly lose health from suffocation. If there is no path you must be in a safely sealed area! The solution? Be careful what doors you open without closing the outside openings that lead into space. You can use the doors to your advantage too by closing off an area and opening an airlock to kill zombies there. Heck, you could almost make a whole new game with this. Or a cool puzzle related boss battle.

[Gan]

Haha, me likey.

Where's Eq? We need his input.

[Circuit]

To make this we're gonna need Circuit's magical circle code. And we'll calculate the line of tangency and the closeness and calculate a push force. A force that pushes the front guy forward and slows the guy doing the pushing.

Though I enjoy being complemented for my code, what you're talking about is actually a lot more advanced than anything I've programmed.   I can think of a way to do that, but you can probably find a more efficient way using trigonometry.

Nice job on the pathfinding, by the way!

[Connors]

You'd want to use vectors right? To simply push them away from each other just slightly, which naturally speeds up the one in front. And it's magnitude is related inversely to their distance. That's not the hardest concept. And it would look cool as they pour through the doorway getting in each others way and those in front stumble through with a moment of added push.