G.A.C.K on tablets: A couple questions

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sanctusiacob

Hello!

First of all congratulations, you guys are doing an oustanding job taking these authorware apps to the tablet market, I bought G.A.C.K for both iOS and Android tablets and they work pretty nice so far.  As mentioned on the other topics it's a matter of keep practicing and understanding the logics behind by try and error.  However I have some issues, I'm not sure if it's only me but the app crashes sometimes on iOS, specially when testing the game after working on some Waves tests.  I do understand when the game doesn't run due to wrong parameters but when it crashes there's no way to detect the technical reasons behind it.  On the other hand it seems the app doesn't recognizes the Portrait-Landscape view modes on Android (I have an Xperia Tablet S) and keeps tilting.  Long story short, in order to improve the user experience around this I have a few questions that could help to create some nice features for the next releases.  Here they are:

1.  Is there a way to get kinda Output messages anytime the game doesn't run due to missing dependencies or something?

2.  Could you provide more detailed information (maybe a couple visual aids or a video) to explain the Waves settings and how to manage Wave based sprites on the game frame?

3. Let's say I have a game already programmed on a tablet and I want to export it somewhere to continue polishing or publishing it, how do I export this game outside the tablet?

Thanks!

gernot66

i know in the very beginning i had the same question: HOW DO I CREATE THE WAVES?

i guess first one has to forget any own imagination how it could be,
it's such easy to do...
a picture or two and the apropriate project should clarify this, i guess.

the project "Kit-Man" is ment as a sort of tutorial,
i used in this little game far less sprites and animations as i usually do.
thus one can concentrate on things like attack waves when examining the project in the editor.

i combined three typical scroll modes in one game:

vertical "automatic" scrolling (for a typical shoot 'em up, i.e. "1941")
horizontally "push" scrolling with gravity (for a typical jump 'n run)
static screen (for a classic shoot 'em up, i.e. "Invaders")

all three have own characteristics which are to respect when creating a attack wave,
but in general it's always the same procedure.

the picture below shows the first wave in the first level which is a vertical scrolling screen.
i started the wave in the lower left as you can see and simply made a zig zag course
almost over the complete length of the level. while the screen scrolls downwards this "alien"
will move slowly upwards, scroll speed and speed of the attacker must be in tune of course,
this needs a little experience until you know how fast a attacker can move at a certain scrollspeed,
though he won't move out the screen on top or bottom (which happens occasionally to some aliens in this demo).
the blue crosses you can see are the spawn positions, that means for this attacker it will appear three times,
one after the other depending on scrollspeed.
the first spawn positions is a little outside of the screens initial size, in this case 10x10 blocks,
it's ment that the attacker shouldn't appear in the very first moment when the level starts.




a different movement, this alien will first attack downwards from the right to the left turns at the "bottom" the direction to upwards and
moves out of the screen. in this case he will repeat this path until he's shot (set "repeat path" in "details").
with a moderate scroll speed this attacker will repeat it's path often until he vanishes at the bottom.
it's of course possible to let him perform the path only one time (disable "repeat path" in "details"),
therefore a attacker has to be moved best left or right of the screens border and then complete the path to underneath the bottom
(or bottom line of actual visible blocks).




finally the static screen which is really different to handle, because the screen didn't scrolls.
all spawn positions are in the screen from strat on, if i would simply create the path over the screen
all attacker would appear at the same time, of course we don't like this.
thus you have to use up the time until the attacker should appear from any of the screens borders.
in other words, simply use a long path outside the screen, how you do this, in zig zag or moving around the screen
is up to you, it needs experience and not for every enemy is the same method useful.
of course each enemy must be placed seperately, each has only one spawn position.
as you can see for every following enemy the path is one block shorter, this means the last one in row
will be the first which appears on the screen.




i guess this should cover most of the questions.
for horizontally (auto)scrolling screens it's mostly the same as for vertically, only turned by 90°.


in scroll mode "push" you can set spawn positions in a way that the attacker appears lately.
means, start the path early but set the spawn position late.
if you would set the spawn position more to the right as in this picture shown (right in front of the map editor),
the attacker would appear if you passed his position, such can be used for a sort of trap.



i attached the little tutorial "Kit-Man", if you examine it in GACK you will certainly quickly understand how it works.

(there is a issue with this project, if you test the game level2 won't start, i have no idea why and it only happens
in the new releases of GACK. but if you distribute the game it works as it's ment to be)
in hoc signo vinces