CPU Maze Movement

I was thinking about a movement but me and the SDK don't yet understand each other so I will post it here in case someone wants to make this. (Or tell me its a crap idea)

I would describe it as a CPU controlled 8 direction movenet or a simple maze movement.

- Restricts object to specified directions

- When the object collides with a backdrop set as obstacle it tries the other specified directions in sequence for a clear way to move.

- a method for a choice of directions.
So at maze intersections you can trigger the object to select (randomly) a new direction to try move.

- Perhaps it can also to try to move towards a player action at the maze intersections. So it mindlessly tries to take the first clear direction that appears to head in the players direction.

It does not seem that complex but I don't see me having time to understand the movement SDK here shortly to make it work.

That is a great idea. Would like to see more CPU controlled movements in general.

I think this would work better if the maze junctions where not defined by objects as that gets messy with overlaps, missed collisions etc. Rather something similar the the path movement setup allowing the user to define the maze by laying out junctions points and joining them with lines.

I don't know how easy / hard it is to interact with the frame editor from the movement SDK though. The path movement of course is inbuilt but is something like that possible from the SDK? I am not sure.

The problem in general with CPU movements are making something generic enough that it works in most cases and not just for the one game type the creator had in mind, while keeping it featured enough to cope with more complex demands. Also I think the properties of movements have to be simple to understand for new users, too many options and you may scare people away from using the movement altogether!

So, for example, Pacman ghosts do their thing based on a movement being set alone?

If that is the basic intention, then yes, that would be another way to make a whole bunch of games very, very easy to create.

I would also like to see a player-controlled movement, (see rail movement) as well. That way, instead of using paths and other methods, the "Pacman" would only move in restricted, yet precise ways.

It would be far more intuitive and a whole genre of games would be quick-start. Create maze graphic background(s) w/ specific and consistent width, set Pacman to movement and set it's properties, set ghosts to movement and set it's properties ... tweak.

This would allow focusing on effects, graphics for each level, power-ups/lives/bonuses, etc.

I like this direction for MMF2 and wish we could use CM's to conquer various game types, over time. I especially see this coming to a peak when movements have direct access from the event editor without a special extension.

It may be possible to automate quite a few, rather common game movements and types this way, making less skill and events necessary to create them: Galaga, Centipede, Dig-Dug, Sonic, etc.

I wish someone adapted the easy grid extension to support all the features of the isometric grid extension. I'm talking of all the movement and file features. It's nice to have it for isometric games, but for top down games it is still missing.

If we also finally had a working pathfinding extension again all sorts of grid based movements would be easy and quick to do.


Speaking of easy and quick (this is an offtopic rant :/) - my biggest issue with MMF is that basically you can do anything you want - but the price you pay is "readability". Everything you want to do has to be achieved by using workarounds. And workarounds are hard to read. So if you don't touch an application for a month it will take you hours and hours to get into it again.
Having more comments than actual code doesn't make it better either. At university I was told that if code is written properly (and the language allows to write properly), no comments are nescessary to quickly read it.
So there are a few things that MMF really needs to comply with that demand (variable names displayed for qualifiers, qualifiers renameable, behaviors for qualifiers, comments attached to events, integrated OR/XOR and CASE statements that are not spread over several lines, etc. etc.). But most of this is not doable with extensions. So I guess this is the wrong place for this and I better go to bed now. Good night.

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Originally Posted by Random

Speaking of easy and quick (this is an offtopic rant :/) - my biggest issue with MMF is that basically you can do anything you want - but the price you pay is "readability". Everything you want to do has to be achieved by using workarounds. And workarounds are hard to read. So if you don't touch an application for a month it will take you hours and hours to get into it again.
Having more comments than actual code doesn't make it better either.

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I would like to see the Commenter Object in MMF2. I miss that object.

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Originally Posted by Random

At university I was told that if code is written properly (and the language allows to write properly), no comments are nescessary to quickly read it.

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I done programming for a long time and reviewed many languages syntaxes etc and all need comments to make them more readable. Its ok for basic code not to comment but complex code needs a roadmap and an explaination. A few of the extensions don't display everthing that is entered so that can make it really hard to read when you can't see the variables.

I would also like to see a text based script for MMF where instead of the graphic being displayed the object is replaced by its extension name found in the dialog insert object. I suggest using different brackets for object name and extension name.

Hmmm my thread seems to have turned into something else :)

There are many walls in MMF that authors constantly (are forced to) run into. I think it is good to discuss what extensions can do to get people over those walls.

Do you remember how fast loops revolutionized MMF's capabilities? In my opinion a lot more work has to be put into that department. And even some extensions should be integrated into MMF itself because they are so vital (Select Object Extension or Direction Calculator).

Sorry for off-topicifying your thread Jeff :/

In my oppinion one of the most important areas is how objects are dealt with at the most basic levels: How they can be referenced, using qualifiers in global events, dealing with multiple instances of an object, etc.

Back on topic: Simple AI movements would be cool.

As far as AI movements go they would be interesting, however in a way I kind of dislike them.

My reasoning behind this is that many people like to have complete control over their games. If there is a bug in the movement then they can't fix it or they have to wait months to get it fixed. If they need more power or something to work a different way then they have to start from scratch as there is no way to just tweak the movements.

While more movements would get newbies up and running quicker, they could result in a slew of poorly made games which will make MMF 2 look weak compared to the competition.

While movements are nice, I believe that more work needs to be put into empowering the users to create such movements for themselves through extensions that make the "harder" parts simpler, and with more examples on how such things are created.

So I would rather see objects to help with graphs and state agents then precanned movements, especially since AI is an area where MMF 2 could greatly improve.