Retro games

[Connors]

Actually we could consider putting a little work into making them seem dumber. XD

Also if they all come at you you can get behind a choke-point like the door you just opened and they're easy targets. Shoot the doorway! BUT we could mix it up and have zombies that wait until you're fairly close or even have a line of sight. Then we occasionally hide them in tight spaces where they will wait for the player to force you to get close or actually enter the room. Basically gameplay is less repetitive if there's different kinds of AI.

[Zoo]

well, I say make green zombies idiots, make blue zombies regular, and make red zombies smart.

I don't remember who said it, but somebody mentioned having the player aim where the mouse is pointing and fire by clicking.

Pros:
Easier to use
Better aiming
More fluid looking game
walking backwards and shooting

Cons:
Gives an unfair advantage to the player because of the top down perspective
Possibly hard to program

Solution:
Making the turning slow and use incriments of 20º or so.


Also,
Will I get my name in the credits? 

[Gan]

Seems like a good idea regarding the zombie intelligence.

As for the aiming idea, that was Connor's. And yeah it should be easy to add in.

As for credits, it's too early to think about that.

[Zoo]

That was quick 

Yeah, I suppose it is a bit early to think about credits.

[Zoo]

The character in the HTML5 version needs to move faster. Also, I suppose I should maybe draw a storyboard thingamabob/write some scripts (not code) because I'm the story dude. Also, in-game dialog would be cool. Like, in the middle of a level, someone gives you hints or say something, or maybe when you go up to a computer a box comes up at the bottom of the screen with an evil message from the AI. I'm not volunteering, but if someone wanted to do the voices of the characters for cutscenes, that would give the game a bit more of a professional feel to it.

Just a thought about screen size:
How big are we gonna make it. I think it should take up the entire window.

And levels:
Do the old levels work in the new code, or do we need someone to translate them? I could do that if you want.

[Gan]

Old level will work with the HTML5 GM.

As for having the game take up the whole window, it'd mean that we need to compensate for window resizing. Which wouldn't be too hard. It'd just make things a bit more work.
You guys up for it?

As for voice, I'm all for it. If anyone remembers Rock, Paper, Scissors Extreme! I voiced it and deepened it. I suppose a deep sinters voice would be nice for an AI. Or a deep robotic voice.
If nothing else, I can record the computer speaking.

[Circuit]

Just a thought about screen size:
How big are we gonna make it. I think it should take up the entire window.

As for having the game take up the whole window, it'd mean that we need to compensate for window resizing. Which wouldn't be too hard. It'd just make things a bit more work.
You guys up for it?

That would be good.  I have a MacBook, and the game is too tall to fit my 1280x800 pixel screen.

[Connors]

Either that or we change the standard size of the window it doesn't have to be too small. I noticed it barely fits on some monitors. Also, this AI reminds me of something I saw in that Gladiator Champion game. The enemies have a recharge time to attack just like you but they can attack immediately when they move next to you. There's no time to react. The game would seem a bit more real if enemies had a slightly varying reaction time. When a path is found they might pause for a random time.

[Gan]

Alright, for the window size problem, we have a solution!

We can dynamically resize the game window to match the window size. So people with big screens and small screens are happy.

And as for the title menu and loading menu, right now they are images that don't resize nicely. So I'm applying a scale on it. Tell me what you think:
http://gamemakersgarage.com/html5/HTML5-ShareGame.php?gameID=156

Scale will not be applied to the game field. Cause that distorts the graphics. So instead, players with large screens see more of the level. Players with small screens see less of the level. The camera will focus on the player's position. So everyone's happy.

Edit:
Of course if this game were to go on Kongregate, this wouldn't be an issue cause the game would be given a default size. Probably 512x384. Which will just make the game scale down by a factor of 2. Still will be playable.

[Gan]

Updated movement to follow the player!
Now we can have really big maps.

http://gamemakersgarage.com/html5/HTML5-ShareGame.php?gameID=156


Only one problem. You see some flickering? That's caused by some funky anti-aliasing. Also it's can be un-smooth sometimes. The way to fix this would be to render the tiles and items once and just move the render around.
Unfortunately I can't. Cause of problems with my making a pixel canvas out of an image. Or drawing an image to a pixel canvas.
I'm still researching into this. If I can have the background rendered once, the game will be a ton smoother.

[Connors]

I didn't really notice flickering.
Also the stock image of a computer at the intro is beginning to bug me it looks to modern-day. Not that interesting. I guess I miss the old text animation too it was cool. Can we try and re-create it? And it's real small. Just saying.

[Gan]

You can try if you want to.

Edit:
I've posted on StackOverflow about rendering the background once.

[Connors]

It's supposed to be variable size now right? I tried it in a window not as wide as the level.

[Gan]

Nice catch!
Fixed.

[Gan]

Alright guys, I've figured it out. How to speed up the game. Quite considerably.

There are gonna be canvas layers. You'll be able to create and destroy layers. The main layer will always be on the bottom. Then you can create layers that get stacked on top of the main layer.

How this would be used:
Draw the background on the main layer.
Make a new layer called ItemsLayer and draw the items on that layer.
Make a new layer called the character layer and draw the characters on that layer.

And bam. That's it. Background needs drawn once. Items layer gets redrawn an item is changed or picked up. The character layer gets drawn 30 times a second. Yup, should definitely make the game smoother and more responsive.

I'm gonna try coding it. Hopefully it won't be too hard.