Collision and Flickering in my Turing game [Help a complete noob out please]

[Ins3ktz]

What is it you are trying to achieve?
I'm trying to create a two player asteroid dodging game. So far I've got the menus down, and two sprites taken from the internet.

What is the problem you are having?
I have quite a few:

A) I don't know how I'm going to make the asteroids fall randomly and take the player to a game over screen when the player is hit. Basically I'm a complete Turing noob. But I'm a noob that's willing to learn

B) My characters disappear when they're not moving. When they are moving seperately they are fine. When they are moving in unison their movement speeds are very slow and they flicker enough to give blind people epilepsy.

Describe what you have tried to solve this problem
Well for A I just don't understand. For B, I've tried View.Updates, cls, etc. but it doesn't work (Though I'm pretty sure it's a human error).


Post any relevant code (You may choose to attach the file instead of posting the code if it is too long)
Here's my game code

Turing:

setscreen ("Graphics:641;420") colourback (255) var picMENU: int:= Pic.FileNew ("Galaxy.jpg") if picMENU=0 then     put "Unable to load the JPEG: ",Error.LastMsg     return     end if Pic.Draw (picMENU,0,0,picCopy) var chars : array char of boolean var i: int var pichumanMENU: int:= Pic.FileNew ("HumanMenu.jpg") if pichumanMENU=0 then     put "Unable to load the JPEG: ",Error.LastMsg     return     end if var picMENUs: int:= Pic.FileNew ("Galaxy3.jpg") if picMENUs=0 then     put "Unable to load the JPEG: ",Error.LastMsg     return     end if var picMENU2: int:= Pic.FileNew ("Galaxy4.jpg") if picMENU2=0 then     put "Unable to load the JPEG: ",Error.LastMsg     return     end if var picMENUC: int:= Pic.FileNew ("Credits.jpg") if picMENUC=0 then     put "Unable to load the JPEG: ",Error.LastMsg     return     end if var picGAME: int:= Pic.FileNew ("PlanetSurface.jpg") if picGAME=0 then     put "Unable to load the JPEG: ", Error.LastMsg     return     end if var picALIEN: int:= Pic.FileNew ("elite.jpg") if picALIEN=0 then     put "Unable to load the JPEG: ", Error.LastMsg     return     end if var picHUMAN: int:= Pic.FileNew ("human.jpg") if picHUMAN=0 then     put "Unable to load the JPEG: ",Error.LastMsg     return     end if var picASTEROID: int:= Pic.FileNew ("188.jpg") if picASTEROID=0 then     put "Unable to load the JPEG: ",Error.LastMsg     return     end if var x, y : int x := 0 y := 0 var a, b : int a := 0 b := 0 loop Input.KeyDown (chars) locate (1, 1) if chars (KEY_ENTER) then cls Pic.Draw (picGAME, 0, 0, picCopy) loop     Input.KeyDown (chars)     Pic.Draw (picGAME, 0, 0, picCopy)     if chars ('d') then         a := a + 10         Pic.Draw (picALIEN, a, b, picCopy)         View.Update         Pic.Draw (picGAME, 0, 0, picCopy)                Pic.Draw (picALIEN, a, b, picCopy)         View.Update         delay (25)         View.Update                Pic.Draw (picALIEN, a, b, picCopy)         View.Update     end if     if chars ('a') then         a := a - 10         Pic.Draw (picALIEN, a, b, picCopy)         View.Update         Pic.Draw (picGAME, 0, 0, picCopy)                Pic.Draw (picALIEN, a, b, picCopy)         View.Update         delay (25)         View.Update                Pic.Draw (picALIEN, a, b, picCopy)         View.Update     end if     View.Update     Input.KeyDown (chars)     if chars (KEY_RIGHT_ARROW) then         x := x + 10         Pic.Draw (picHUMAN, x, y, picCopy)         View.Update         Pic.Draw (picGAME, 0, 0, picCopy)                Pic.Draw (picHUMAN, x, y, picCopy)         View.Update         delay (25)         View.Update         Pic.Draw (picGAME, 0, 0, picCopy)         Pic.Draw (picHUMAN, x, y, picCopy)         View.Update     end if     if chars (KEY_LEFT_ARROW) then         x := x - 10         Pic.Draw (picHUMAN, x, y, picCopy)         View.Update         Pic.Draw (picGAME, 0, 0, picCopy)                Pic.Draw (picHUMAN, x, y, picCopy)         View.Update         delay (25)         View.Update         Pic.Draw (picGAME, 0, 0, picCopy)         Pic.Draw (picHUMAN, x, y, picCopy)         View.Update     end if end loop end if if chars (KEY_BACKSPACE) then cls Pic.Draw (picMENUs, 0, 0, picCopy) end if if chars (KEY_SHIFT) then cls Pic.Draw (pichumanMENU,0,0,picCopy) end if if chars (KEY_ALT) then cls Pic.Draw (picMENU, 0, 0, picCopy) end if if chars (KEY_CTRL) then cls Pic.Draw (picMENU2, 0, 0, picCopy) end if if chars (KEY_TAB) then cls Pic.Draw (picMENUC, 0, 0, picCopy) end if end loop

Please specify what version of Turing you are using
I am currently using Turing 4.1.1.

Also, may I request that whoever would be kind enough to answer please explain it to me? I'd like to understand, not just blatantly copy off someone. And yes, I've looked at the guides, but either I'm doing something wrong while I'm implementing what I've learned, or I'm just not understanding.

Appreciate the help

[Amarylis]

For the flickering, it's a simple solution:

You tried View.Update, but you haven't followed it up with the command that tells it to not update the screen until View.Update. That's placed in the setscreen string. Just make it look like this:

Turing:

setscreen ("graphics:641;420,offscreenonly")    % Or View.Set ("graphics:641;420, offscreenonly")

And the second one I'd have to actually take a closer look at your code than just scrolling through it, so I'll get back to you in a bit

[Ins3ktz]

Thanks for the reply!

I get it!

So I should delete all the extra View.Updates I put in?

Appreciate the help!

[Amarylis]

Okay, so I took a look at the code, and I find that a lot of the stuff in your if statements for handling pressing the keys is, well... Irrelevant.

A few tips:
If no coordinates have changed, drawing two identical copies of the same picture will do nothing for the user, and will only make the program slower

Since we do not have access to the pictures you are using for the game, I'm going with the assumption of you wanting the picture of the game and of the players to blend in pretty well. Take a look at things such as picMerge for the picture effects.

For the asteroids, consider using the Rand module to make the coordinates for the asteroids.

Question: Are the asteroids falling straight down, or at an angle?

[Ins3ktz]

Straight down.

[Amarylis]

Oh, whoops, wrong link for the Rand module


This is the right one

[Ins3ktz]

Thank you!

I'm sorry but I have to go offline for today. I greatly appreciate your help, and if you would continue to do so in my absence I would be extremely grateful.

Thanks again!

[Amarylis]

Okay, a few tips on that then...

You'll probably be wanting to box off the area that the character occupies (i.e. the size of the character pictures), making sure that the the asteroid's (assuming they'll just be red circles drawn with the Draw.Oval or FillOval procedures) edges don't touch the box, as opposed to not allowing the circle's center to touch the box.

Make sure to always stop drawing the circles after they hit the "floor" of the game- less things to draw, less chances it'll lang.

Timers would be effective here- they can be used to randomize the frequency of falling asteroids.

Consider how many asteroids you want on the screen at any given time, that will influence how much coding you'll have to do for them, and how long it'll take Turing to draw all the pictures you want on screen at once

[Raknarg]

This is how your code should be set up, to be faster and cleaner

Turing:

loop      Update positions, statuses and such      Draw stuff      View.Update      cls end loop

Notice how I only viewupdate ONCE. If you do it multiple times, it actually doesnt make it any better; the point of that thing is so that you can just draw everything once, instead of everything separately. In fact, you can use View.UpdateArea (0, 0, max, maxy) to make it even faster.