Year End Review.

Its the end of the year and i would like to review the things i have done. When i got into this class i was originally planning to do some coding. But a group of friends invited me to join their group, using game maker. To start off i had no idea what or how to start on game maker, so i found some tutorials in you tube, and online. Also i got tips from time to time from Howard, which improved some of my knowledge towards game maker. In a few weeks, i learned how to create Pause buttons.  Although it was amateurishly made, i think it still works for the game. That week i had to tweak a few things to actually made it work, which made me pretty interested in game maker then. From then on, i looked through other tutorials, online websites and their main site for more hints/tips for the gml (game maker language).

 In about a month or two, i created other codes to implement the game, save's main menu, and health. The things i could do were limited simply because i was completely new to game maker. Half way through the semester, the game that my group and I tried to create all went down, for some reason some unreasonable corrupted files were present. After this event we all restarted and tried to start from what we have left from the backup. With my knowledge i thought to myself to make a mini-game inside our game. Which i believe was a good choice because that way i could explore other ways to make a game better. Nearly the end of the semester i created many sprites, many objects and learned how to use variables with game maker. I'm confident that if i had to make a really bad game, i can do it.

Day 81

Today i tried to make my character invincible, so far i have made some variables to make this work. Two different variables to make it work, (learned from Howard). Next i tried to make a a few codes to make it work, for instance when i tried to make a code, i make it so that when they die they would be invincible for around 7-8 seconds. So far it hasn't been working so i just created another sprite to show that the object is invincible for a few seconds. To do so, i tried to make two images and made one image the opposite color of the other image. Next time ill try to figure it out how to make it invincible.

Day 80

Today i successfully created two separate the lives for the players, now both die and will make the a "Game Over" font pop up. It took awhile until i found a way to make the two players separate, we played with the codes, me and Howard tried a few things like changing the else and if statements. Although it worked for the most part we didn't particularly get the "Game over" font pop-up until we have to create another object and created the codes. So i made it so that if both of the players were to die, then the Pop-up will come up, and it worked in the end. Tomorrow i will add invincibility for the game.

Day 79

Today I changed how my first shipped looked, some people say that the first ship didn't look cool so it took me awhile to think of another ship to build. Its new, fatter, and it looks pretty strong. Next i fixed some codes for the power ups, sometimes when you use both the power ups, it cancels out and starts to shoot normally, now it shoots 3 different directions and rapid firing. I'm trying to fix the global life problem, so far i changed a the global to a variable and it didn't work as i hoped, so i changed it back to the way it was. Next time ill try again.

Day 78

Today me and Howard played with the random spawn object with my game. We tried multiple ways to create random spawns in the game.Right until later we figured it out, we need to either create a separate object or, use a controller object. Also we made sure that both the players receive the power ups. Next we created the rapid fire power up, and it works as well with the triple shot power up. Next i create a sprite for the rapid fire object so that you could go towards it and receive the benefit. Throughout the class for around half an hour, me and Howard had a little squabble over fixing the little random spawn code. It was a time well spent. Tomorrow i will try to change a few things to make it look a bit better.

Day 77

Today i changed all the names so that i could implement the mini game into the zombie game that my group is currently building. I changed all the e's to 3's which i believe we can still sound out the real word. Next i got a bit of help from Howard to create some power ups, so far we decided to create a 3 bullets in 3 different directions. Also i have to rename all my sprites and rename all codes to satisfy the interaction with the codes and objects. It took awhile but i got it done. Next class i'm planning to create another power up that shoots multiple bullets at one time. Another thing is i have to make the power ups randomly pop up in the game in timed intervals, which i will try next class.

Day 76

Today it took me a bit to figure out how to implement explosions on the game, the sprite i created uses 15 frames, which isn't entirely important. Next i tried the game, but the sprite became continuous when the bullet and the meteorite collided. I tried a few things to fix this little problem but it didn't work until later in the day. What worked was creating an image index which records the sub-images. Then I made it so it gets destroyed after those 15 frames. Which in the end worked. Also i fixed the problem with the continuous bullets, i changed the events to (Key press) only so when you need to shoot, you must press constantly. Tomorrow i will try fix a problem with the lives in multiplayer, because i haven't found a solution just yet

Day 75

Today i made an explosion sprite to place place the interaction between the bullet and the meteorite. So far i haven't created the object codes to replace the two just yet. Also, with multiplayer the second player shoots bullets as if he was holding a rapid-fire gun. I need to fix this problem later and fix the spawn too. furthermore, i think i should test the game in my group eventually. In a few days i will finish and test the game. Tomorrow i will create some codes to replace the interaction with the bullet and the meteorite.

Day 74

Today i successfully finished  creating a two player game, the only problem i have left now is to create another way to implement the global lives. The problem is that although we have two players now we don't have 6 lives, we have 3. Also, when all 3 lives are spent dead, there will be one more player left before the end game starts. So next time i will try to fix this little buggy problem. I also tried to implement some explosives in the game, i have only been getting problems with the multiplayer specifically saying that my step events were wrong, i will try to look into it at another date. Lastly i switched the ships image, because i lost the other one.

Day 73

Today i looked up how to create explosions for the game, i found a few tutorials in which could help me find a way to implement an explosion for the bullets. So far i found three equally different in ways to create explosions, now i must find a way to create the code to work with the bullets in game. Tomorrow i hope to find a way to implement some codes from the tutorials to make it easier for me to work.

Day 72

Today I successfully made the start-up menu go to the multi player. It works for the most part except the second and first player tends to disappear sometimes when you start moving the players. Also player 2 has some glitches, it sometimes doesn't shoot anything and goes on moving around bullet less. So I tried to make a new sprite for the player, next I added some other collision codes. So far I succeeded in creating a separate room and being able to connect to it, next time I will try to make some changes or innovate some codes.

Day 71

Today I created another sprite for multi-player. So far I created an object specification for player 2. I copied the same events and actions from player 1, except I had to make a few tweaks. The tweaks were the key placements, that's about it. Next I placed the object on the room and tried playing. It worked well for the most part but, I'm having problems trying to create a separate room so that the menu would go to that specific room. Tomorrow I will try to fix this problem.

Day 70

Today i created a score board. However it does not work because i cant place any names or scores inside that object. Also it just stays in the background when i started the game. What i tried to do was making a separate room and when the player dies it switches the room. But it gave me many errors with switching which i have no clue why. Next was when i die, it gave me an error specifically saying that my codes overlap each other, so i deleted a few things and innovated some codes. So far i am currently stuck. Tomorrow i might just try to add two player option for the game.

Day 69

Today i tried to add the high score codes in my game. It did not work so far because the problem was that it gave me other object codes and said that some lines require checking. Also sometimes the high score code does not work, sometimes it gave me a line similar to this:
0
0
0
0
 At this point i tried to debug it and created an extra room specified for the high score object. In the end it did not work because i couldn't figure out a way to implement the names into the score board. The tutorials i went with were a few years old, and game maker has improved vastly since then so i will find another way to create a score board.

Day 68

Today i looked into making a score board which will record high scores. I have no experience with this sort of subject so i looked into a few tutorials and decide on which would work on my mini game. So far i haven't decided but i got a general idea on how to create a high score. But i will start on it tomorrow. Also there is a time based score, which i believe would not work for this particular project.