Remember Alterable Variables

[AnD4D]

1) I'd like to have a level where I can have hundreds of enemies on screen, and you can destroy them all. Then you can level that part of the level, do something else, and return to the first and have all of the enemies that you already destroyed still gone.

Is this possible through alterable variables? How can I have the active objects remember their own variables outside of the frame, and recall them when it's loaded again (i.e. if bullet hits, then set var to 1 & if var = 1 then destroy).

2) Also, I'm experiencing some severe slow down. At the moment, during testing, I have around 10000 actives in my frame (not all on screen at once). They don't have any behaviours, no movement, no animation. They are 100x100 in size, and I wouldn't have thought they'd cause an issue. It's fine when you load, but as soon as the screen starts scrolling, and more come into view, the game shudders to a halt. Am I missing something?

*2 just solved this before sending. What I needed to do is set the runtime to in-active if too far from frame.

Also spied the "Global Object" checkbox. Is this related to fixing my other problem?

[AnD4D]

2) Now the objects are falling through each other when off screen. Darn...

[AnD4D]

2) Fixed again... just had to change the display mode to Direct3D. Then it's all smooth. I do wonder, however, if anyone has success with this working with iOS.

[KLiK-iT]

It won't work in iOS as far as I know and Flash too. I found this out the hard way. I made a complete game in HWA (Direct3D-9) and thinking that I could convert it to flash, but I was wrong. The game has to be built all over again, because it didn't work in Flash.

[AnD4D]

Ouch, sorry to hear about that. Must've been annoying!

If I can find a solution to point 1, point 2 shouldn't pose a problem. I'm contemplating 2 solutions. One involves creating the terrain based on a bitmap image and grid system, and the other is manually positioning using hundreds of variables... Neither are perfect... where having the system remember global variables of each block is. Does anyone know if this is possible?

[AnD4D]

Oooh, looks like Direct3D DOES work with IOS! What a relief! So that's 2 definitely solved... just the first left. Trying to figure out how to have the system remember which blocks are gone and which aren't.

Is there a way of saving this? Would anybody like a MMF file so they can understand what I'm talking about?

[SolarB]

iOS does have GPU support but as far as I know it's limited, as the GPU probably isn't as good as one that comes with a PC - so care should still be taken.

@KLiK-iT- what was your experience with this?

@AnD4D - I'm not clear on what you want to do with the objects - could you just count them, store their number somewhere (ini, array) then use that number to create as many as are needed when the level is loaded? Or did you want to save all the alts of each object when they are destroyed and load them back in to the same object when it is recreated? If so are these alts different for every object?

[AnD4D]

Hi Solar,

I'd like to try and build a section in the game that is similar to Terraria or gem miner. When they destroy the rock, I want it to stay destroyed forever. So if they quit the game, or leave the frame and come back to it, it's saved its state. The paths the player has carved out will still be as the player left them. Now that the other issue is resolved, I'm looking to make the level 10,000 x 19,000, so I'd like to have a simple way, rather than adding nearly 20,000 global variables for my blocks manually... Need to get myself a MAC methinks so I can test the capabilities...

[KLiK-iT]

SolarB, It was a big mistake on my part. I built a game that is going to go public in a few weeks. It took me 2 mouths to build this game and I built it in Direct3D-9 and my experience with Flash and iOS was none,.so I thought you could just convert it and that was that, but I was wrong. Everything that I did to the game is being redone right now by one of the members here on the site. I don't want to reveal his name,.but if he wants to chime in on this thread to give his experience and to fill you in on what he found, that would be up to him. He's a great guy and knows what he's doing.

What I found after getting the converted file back from him was that just about everything in the game was a mess. You can't use any fades or any effects like Alpha Channels. Scrolling was a mess and really slow. The game slowed down to 1/2 it's speed. Certain objects didn't function correctly either. It was a big let down, but it's coming along very well and will be fixed. I learned a big lesson with this project,..Don't assume anything and build you game and test in the exporter you plan to use right from the start. I am still going to use the original game that was built and put out a PC version also. So, it wasn't a total waste,.it will just have effects that will be different then the Flash and or iOS version.

[AnD4D]

Turns out I need to use the spread value command. Though I'm finding it difficult to make it work the way I want. If I delete an object, and then add a new one, the entire system shifts back one place... so the newest always has the lowest variable. I've followed the tutorial to fix this problem, but it doesn't work as expected.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7yo3nv9coe...InProgress.mfa

Use space bar to create and use ctrl to destory. I want it to destroy in the order it was built.

In retrospect, I've figured out how to make a pretty cool looking centipede animation, but that's not what I'm going for.

The tutorial I'm following is as below:

Appendix 2 - How Spread Value Numbers Stuff
Spread value gives the ID numbers according to the order the objects were created in, starting with the newest.
So if you create 5 objects, and you later create a 6th, then object #1 becomes object #2. Object #2 becomes Object #3, and so on. All the IDs shift along one.
This can be a pain if you have specific conditions that you want to run for a certain object.
One example is a game I made a while ago where there are several signposts. Depending on their ID number, a different message pops up when you touch them (it works the same way as the 'Naming' example we did above).
But if I created a new Signpost, all the IDs for the previous ones shifted and became wrong!
You can get around this using a simple formula when you spread a value. I'll do it in words first, then as you would do it in an expression, then as a whole event:

Number of Signposts - ID of Signpost + Starting Value
-
So if we're spreading a value of '1' in our signposts, the expression would be:

nObjects(Signpost) - ID(Signpost) + 1

-
Wooyay. Now we apply this in our spreading condition like this:

- Start of Frame
--- Spread '1' in ID of Signpost
--- Set ID of Signpost to 'nObjects(Signpost) - ID(Signpost) + 1'

And that successfully reverses the order of your Spread Values, so they don't shift when a new object is added later. Because it spreads a value according to normal rules, and then inverts it straight afterwards with the formula we did.