Remembering collected items and/or enemies killed

I am developing a metroidvania-styled game, and looking for an efficient way to track collected items, and enemies killed.

One time collectibles are easy to handle since you only collect them once, thereby you can have a flag determining whether it has been collected or not. However, remembering a repeating collectible that occurs in large quantities across the game is another matter. If a level/area is containing 256 coins, and you collect 86 of them, then leave the frame; when you return to this frame, how do you account for the correct 86 coins collected, and prevent them from reappearing at their respective positions? The same dilemma also applies to previously killed enemies.

I am assuming an array is the answer here, but I have been unable to make it work properly.

If anyone has an effective solution to this, I would be very thankful for sharing it.

Best regards,
Tobias Edvardsen

I made an example that uses an objects Fixed value with an Array recently. It should work with Enemies as well with a few small changes. Let me know if it helps. Check out the attachment from this post.

https://community.clickteam.com/threads/107357-Loading-Destroying-an-active-on-frame-restart

This looks very viable! Thank you very much!

I should be able to store frame value in an Y dimension instead of saving an .array file for each frame, right? Also, is there a way to delete the .array file without the File object? The file object is incompatible with iOS and other platforms.

Best regards,
Tobias Edvardsen

You could store other information in the Y dimension, but I think Fixed Values are only unique to each frame. You could clear the array and then save it again as a workaround until you find a way to delete the file on iOS.

Since Fixed Values are only unique to each frame. Adding the frame to the Y dimension when an object is collected/destroyed would work if you want to only use one array. I made an updated example that includes 3 frames to demonstrate.

Fantastic! This is a great solution!

I have only one concern; as the X dimension is extended by one for each object collected, won't this bloat the array file? If the game has a total of 4000+ coins throughout, on top of 100 frames, for example.

Best regards,
Tobias Edvardsen

I made a test were I added 1200 to the x dimension. The array file was only 10 KB. I did not experience any slow down but it depends on your hardware. You could make multiple arrays and fastloops per object, for example coins.array, enemies.array, etc. instead of one big array or split them up by frame#.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Doverseer

You could make multiple arrays and fastloops per object, for example coins.array, enemies.array, etc. instead of one big array or split them up by frame#.

---

In the case of using a range of multiple arrays; is there a way to embed the .array files into the application? I find having multiple array files as well as ini's to be chaotic for the user, and susceptible to being tampered with.

Best regards,
Tobias Edvardsen

Yes, just add them to the Binary Data Files tab in the Data Elements editor, they'll be included in the EXE. No need to change anything in the events (= still use Apppath$ + "arrayname" for example), and then you can redistribute your EXE alone without these files.

Neat! That's very handy! Does this apply for .ini's as well? Also, when I select the files I want to embed; should I extract them from a specific folder directory?

Best regards,
Tobias Edvardsen