Turing Assistance

[adrianr2z]

Hey guys,

I just need some assisstance as to what I should do. So for my final assignment, we are suppose to create a game and i want to create a game very similar to this :
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/games/falldown2
however i am struggling because I really have no clue where I have to start. What should I do? Would someone please give me some guidance as to what steps I should take? Thanks

[Insectoid]

Start by making a ball you can control with the keyboard.

[adrianr2z]

Ok I did, but my two biggest questions are:

Can I randomly place the blocks and have a little space for the ball to escape from?

Also, How would I make the screen keep going up and making it a never ending until the screen reaches the ball?

[Panphobia]

I would probably make 30-40 different arrangement of blocks and randomly pick then to be placed on screen, and also making the game finish when the ball hits the top is a simple if statement.

[Raknarg]

Instead of arrangements Panphobia, you can do something like this:

Turing:

var space : int := Rand.Int (50, maxx - 50) loop      game ()      drawblock_to_space ()      drawblock_from_space_plus50 ()      if character_is_in_space () then           drop_character ()      end if end loop

[jr5000pwp]

My approach would be to make a gravity/collision simulation engine without screen movement first, then add it in afterwards. As for the blocks, I would do tiles. Have an array of booleans representing tiles from left to right, and make holes by setting tiles to false. You can have a generator that makes it more likely to have more holes the sooner into the game you are, thus making the movement harder even without the constantly increasing screen speed.
As for infinite-ness, I would use an approach similar to that of any other infinite game and generate as you go, adding elements to your row collection and removing them when they leave the screen.
As I mentioned, to avoid confusion, you should probably do screen movement last.

[Raknarg]

There's no point in adding and removing elements, that's needlessly costly. Just recycle elements instead.

[adrianr2z]

This is turning out to be such a PAIN IN THE BEHIND! I worked on it and i've gotten this far however it like feels weird and not right. Goes through the bricks even with collision checks and just doesn't seem right. Could someone take a look at the code and give me some feedback?

*Note** A lot of the coding was done with the help of my teacher. I mean alot of help. He told me that I'm on my own and that he can't do the project for me so I really need more assistance how I should proceed.

Turing:

View.Set ("graphics:max;max,nobuttonbar, offscreenonly") %Introducing variables var ballx, bally : int var ballradius : int := 20 ballx := maxx div 2 bally := maxy - ballradius var blockx1, blockx2, blocky1, blocky2 : int blockx1 := 100 blockx2 := maxx div 2 blocky1 := 0 blocky2 := 50 var space : int := Rand.Int (50, maxx - 50) var chars : array char of boolean var spots : array 1 .. 500, 1 .. 2 of int var newspot : boolean := false var xvalue, width : int := 0 var numSpots : int % create one spot and place on screen numSpots := 1 loop     randint (width, 0, 150)   % sets the x location     xvalue := xvalue + 20 + width     spots (numSpots, 2) := 0     spots (numSpots, 1) := xvalue     exit when xvalue >= maxx     numSpots := numSpots + 1 end loop put numSpots loop     Draw.FillOval (ballx, bally, ballradius, ballradius, brightgreen)     bally := bally - 1     if bally - 1 = 0 then     bally := maxy - ballradius     end if     for i : 1 .. numSpots         Draw.FillBox (spots (i, 1), spots (i, 2), spots (i, 1) + 100, spots (i, 2) + 20, black)     end for     for i : 1 .. numSpots         spots (i, 2) := spots (i, 2) + 1         if spots (i, 2) = maxx div 10 then             newspot := true         end if     end for     if newspot = true then         xvalue := 0         loop             numSpots := numSpots + 1             randint (width, 0, 150)     % sets the x location             xvalue := xvalue + 20 + width             spots (numSpots, 2) := 0             spots (numSpots, 1) := xvalue             exit when xvalue >= maxx         end loop         newspot:= false     end if     %Checks for collision between ball and block     for i : 1 .. numSpots         if bally - ballradius >= spots (i, 2) and bally - ballradius <= spots (i, 2) + 20 and ballx - ballradius <= spots (i, 1) + 100 and ballx + ballradius >= spots (i, 1) then             bally := bally + 2         end if     end for     Input.KeyDown (chars)     if chars (KEY_RIGHT_ARROW) and ballx + ballradius <= maxx then         ballx := ballx + 2     elsif chars (KEY_LEFT_ARROW) and ballx - ballradius >= 0 then         ballx := ballx - 2     end if     View.Update     cls     exit when bally - ballradius > maxy end loop

[adrianr2z]

any help?

[Dreadnought]

Well the game slows down the longer you play and eventually crashes, so you could always try to fix that. You're being pretty inefficient in some places (ex: keeping blocks you don't need) so you could also look into that.

[Zren]

You might want to guarantee all the open spots are larger than the ball.

[adrianr2z]

Ok thanks.... So basically to finish my game off, I want to make levels. Easy,Medium and hard. How do i do it so that it goes to a main menu and they select the difficulty and it takes them to that? How do I do a main screen?

Also, How do i guarantee the spaces are enough for the ball?

[Raknarg]

Think about it logically. What factors change how difficult this game is? Is there something you can use to keep track of it, an integer perhaps?

Also think of the menu screen. What goes on a menu screen?

For your spaces, make the minimum the radius of the ball. If the ball is 10 pixels acros, the space can't be less than ten pixels.