Hoards of Enemies

[DaveC]

Hey everyone.. so I'm trying to figure out a way (or, the best way) to create a horde of enemies like in the Arcade classic Gauntlet. The enemies can't walk through each other.. and they tend to pile up in small rooms and corridors etc. I've seen this (kind of) done once before in a MMF game, it was a zombie game that used the physics object as a way to easily give collision detection to all the enemies.. I've been thinking this might be a viable option with MMF 2.5 coming out.. but who knows when that will be, can anyone with the beta confirm I'd be able to do this? can I get any indication of what kind of a performance hit this would give the iOS/Android exporters? I'd only be looking at like.. a max of 20 enemies at a time.

Does anyone have a way of doing this without using box2D?

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, the attached screenshot gives a bit of an Idea, or you can watch a video of Gauntlet on youtube.

gfs_36949_2_9.jpg

[gkinfinity]

You can definitely do this without box2D, and I don't really understand why you'd want to use box2D in the first place.

Is your game grid based?

[happygreenfrog]

DaveC, it has been mentioned several times that there is a non-disclosure agreement for MMF2.5 that means that the beta testers for it can't share the release date, if they have been informed about it internally unless it has publicly been shared already.

However...

Well...

Look at this. http://store.steampowered.com/app/248170/

[DaveC]

Thanks guys.. I'd rather not use box2D and I'd rather not make it grid based (even though gauntlet was) I suggest box 2d because mmf has some annoying limitations when it comes to collisions.. if I could make it fairly smooth (8 directions) grid based might be ok.. any ideas?

[SolarB]

The flocking object is perfect for this, but is only for windows and iOS run times. That said, I have a similar thing going with around 100 enemies and no slowdown on an iPhone 4S. Could be worth a shot and if Anders is willing to port it to Android then so much the better. Otherwise waiting until 2.5 would be your other option because of the built-in multiplatform physics.

[Caesar]

I've made a good Gauntlet engine complete with enemy spawns in the past, but I've since lost the file(probably backed up somewhere.) I'm not great at programming, but the "best" method I've used to keep enemies separate, like in gauntlet, involves having sensors around each instance. Its main problem is that it's inefficient - so it probably wouldn't do so well on other run-times.

I'm not sure if it will be useful to someone of your skills, but a sloppy example, using less refined methods to the gauntlet I made, is here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/382al9pxu3...%20example.mfa

[DaveC]

thanks Caesar! yeah I'm hopefully going to avoid using fastloops and detectors because the Android runtime for sure won't handle all that. I'll have to look into this flocking object as well.. If thats a dead end I guess in the meantime I can work on other parts of my project and see what's up with Fusion 2.5 and box2D.