I am thinking...

[vollis]

I was thinking about trying to make a game where the power is displayed on the screen like Zelda. I tried making an effect that displayed hearts on the screen with flags to turn each off with each hit, but it didn't work the way I wanted it too. Plus I want to make enemies that walk around and that you can attack and kill, or get hurt by. How do I do any of this?

[Manji]

Re: I am thinking...

How do I do any of this?

with VFX creations and scripting. i couldnt tell you how specifically because i myself have never made those things. visit doanthenado.com, look and search the message boards there, download the zelda games available at this site and look at videos like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtK8flFuEZs

that should give you some inspiration and a start.

[thetruecoolness]

Re: I am thinking...

Easiest way is to make VFX that have a 1F or so wait then create a script which goes through the flags and determine what hearts to show. This script must be

1. an Action Script (or use Nash's Content script anywhere trick)
2. an infinite loop (Script branch repeat Flag (Off) is Off)
3. in the Event command only show once (do not choose 0 making it repeat forever on the command)
4. have the same wait as the VFX length

Now I'm not sure on the last one so you might have to play around with the wait. What will happen if the wait is too long is you'll get flicker (on the health bar), so really it depends on how long it takes to do the logic, but too short and you may get slow down and an eventual crash because there are too many VFX on the screen. But this is certainly doable, and not all that difficult, but requires some planning.

As for your second idea that's damn difficult to pull off right and requires you to know a lot about action scripts and how they interact, basic geometry and trigonometry and a little bit of AI. So I think there are tips around (I believe Nash [neobi] made a few tutorials on this).

[Zeos]

Re: I am thinking...

I've always wanted some sort of out of battle HUD. That would be really cool to have in a game.

[Tsunami]

Re: I am thinking...

For your second idea, you need to create variables that hold the distance between your character and the enemy event. For instance, when I designed my custom battle system, I had a variable that measured the x distance and y distance between the character and the enemy, and then an xy variable that measured the total distance calculated by the x and y variables. You calculate this using a script of course, and you'll need to have different distance scripts and variables for each enemy onscreen at a specific time. I had six, which meant I could have no more than six enemies onscreen at one time, and I just reused those same six scripts and variables for new enemies when the player advanced to the next screen. When either the player or the enemy attacks, you check those distance scripts and if they're under are or under the distance that you want, you subtract the desired amount of damage from the variable that regulates either the player's or the enemy's health.

Check this out for more help.