More progress has been made! Not as much as I'd like, but more than I expected to with everything that went on today and how I was a bit ill in the afternoon.
Again, I'm getting more work on the basic game logic done. I've finally managed to get two particular objects doing exactly what they're supposed to do. One of those things is the level timer. Yes, levels will be timed. They're small levels. They can handle it. As of this morning, I was having a horrible time trying to ensure that the timer restarted every time the level did. For at least an hour, it refused to do so. It was a huge relief when I finally discovered that for it to work properly, I only needed to make one small correction. Which I made. And then rejoiced. Mostly the rejoicing was that I got it working. (Some of the rejoicing was that I now don't have to touch those objects again except for altering the amount of starting time for each level.)
The major progress I made today was on the on-screen display. I had originally set up the screen display of how many lives the player has left (amongst other things) so that it sat at the top of the level. No problem, right? I can see it, it's easy to read, all good. And then the brain kicked in, and asked me how visible it would be when the player is on a larger level, and the screen scrolls down or to the side.
Um... oh. Right.
So, I spent some time getting reacquainted with scripting in RGSS (descended from Ruby and used specifically for this game engine, so I'm told), something I've not done in a few years. I discovered that the basic concepts were easy to understand, since they don't differ too much from other scripting languages. I also discovered that I remembered more of the scripting than I thought. It didn't take me long to get my lovely on-screen display up and running. I mean, it's not pretty. And it's not completely functional, yet. I have a few other bits and pieces I need to make sure I can get working before I finish putting all the extra stuff in. But, it's definitely coming along, and it stays on the screen even if the top of the level does not, so I'm happy!
Unfortunately, there's always a downside somewhere. I had intended to include various power-ups in this game. Most of them I will have no problem implementing - however, one gave me a serious problem. I spent a couple hours on this one power-up alone, tweaking, re-writing, double checking all my scripting, but to no avail. I quite simply cannot make it work without getting a handful of error messages thrown in my face. So one of the power-ups, which would have added to the amount of time left to finish the level, has had to be discarded. Unless I get a brainwave (or somebody who is more skilled at RGSS than me can tell me what I'm doing wrong), it won't be in the game. I'm better off spending my time on things I know I can done, and things that are required for the game to run at all.
No new screens today, as they would look pretty much the same as yesterday's. Hopefully I'll soon have some more interesting things to show.
Side note: It's occurring to me that I haven't the faintest idea who would be interested in reading this. I have no idea if any of you are remotely interested in game design, or game development. I hope you do, since otherwise I would be wondering why you read this far.
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