Best solution for this type of movement?

[Leander]

Hi.

Do you know Wizard of Wor? The old arcade game? Or let's take Pacman. What I need is a level with monsters. They shouldn't bounce around with 32 directions like I had in an old game.

They should

1) walk around, like on a path. I could create nodes but as there are many monsters I don't want to create so many different paths.

2) walk around with a randomize function.

Info ad 1) and 2) Imagine a spider in the left bottom corner of your monitor. It should run upwards. When it reaches the left upper corner it should turn right and run straight ahead. So it should run in a square path.

My solution is way points.
On the upper left corner there is an active object (invisble). If the spider collides with it and the spider's direction is upwards then the direction right is chosen.
If the spider approaches the upper left corner from the right side (direction is left) then the direction downwards is chosen.

If the spider reaches a special point it can either be set to left, right or whatever. Basically I would have to create waypoints. It's not easy to place them perfectly...so the spiders move rather freely and not within a grid. Not "pixelperfect".

What's the best way of getting a movement like Wizard of Wor, Pacman or Super Bomberman? The monsters should just run around in four directions...some just normally, others can reverse when they reach a wall. And some more evil monsters can suddenly turn around without hitting a wall.

[Paul_Boland]

You could assign Ball Movement to all the enemies and control their movements so they can only move in four directions, up, down, left and right. Then place invisible nodes at all intersection points in your maze. When an enemy reachs a node, do a random calculation to see what direction they go in next.

For enemies that can change direction without cause, every so many seconds, do a random calculation for them and change their direction based on the results.

[Leander]

So I should do it the way I described? Do I have to place many checkpoints, like corners, crossing, t-junction?

[Paul_Boland]

Anywhere where you want an enemy to make a direction decision you should place a check point, so yes, at those postions listed.

[Brandon]

Or you could use detectors and check which ones are overlapping walls and change their directions accordingly.