Stupid Question (still need help)

[Game_Master]

My question is:
What are alterable values, and how do they help?

[Cocodrilo]

Hi!
Alterable values is just like a counter, but instead it's binded to a Active/Object (or "Global", hmm.... Global Values, that is not binded to a Object, but instead a Value that can be returned in any frame).

Alterable values can be used for many good things, like ID handeling, life countering, True(1) or False(0) state (maybe use flags instead), timer/timing. and many other things.

[Game_Master]

Thanks coco

[Game_Master]

Another stupid question:
What are flags, how do they help?
What does it do when you "negate" function on the event editor do, how does it help?

[Jeff]

Flags are like a light switch
It can be on or off

Then you can test if in a condition if its on or off.
Similar to an alterable value but is only on or off.

Negate is negative

So if you had an event
Active collides with Active2

You could negate that and then the event is true when they are not colliding.

[Popcorn]

I hate to correct Jeff, but that specific condition can not be negated, because a collision is only happening at an instant.

You have to say:
Active is overlapping Active2.
This condition can be negated, and that simply translates to:
Active is not overlapping Active2

So you see that [negate] can be very useful.

[Jeff]

hehe yes of course I pick a condition that can't be negated
Nice catch Popcorn.

[Game_Master]

Thanks everyone!

[Random]

A little tip about flags:

I recommend not to use flags at all (unless you need their enumeration for an expression). As you can not give flags a name, it takes roughly between 24 hours and 3 days until you don't have a clue anymore what the flag was for.
Even comments are not a big help, as you constantly have to search for the comments that describe the flags you see (and it is not always obvious if you already use a flag or not).

So the bigger your project is, the bigger is also the "I make your life miserable"-factor of flags.

As you have plenty of alterable values, just use an alterable value and set it to 1 or 0 and you have the same as a flag, but you can give it a name.

And for the person who is going to comment about memory usage or speed now: MMF reserves the memory for flags and values in advance, and the speed difference of access is neglectable. Maintainability is more important than speed.

[JasonDarby]

24 hours and 3 days until you don't have a clue anymore what the flag was for

Does no one write a simple one page game doc these days with information about their game?

If not i would certainly recommend it. Get a A4 or A5 pad, and write your game ideas and important information in them. Thats the best way to remember what you've done, I learnt this from experience of using over 50+ array slots for saving different information, there is no way to remember them manually, and why try.

Jason