Sidescrolling Shoot Em' Up Help

[Megabeard]

Hey all,

Very new to Clickteam fusion and jumping right in after playing around for a few weeks with it. I was hoping someone might be able to point me in the direction of a sidescrolling (eg. Gradius) shoot em up example or tutorial? While I have grasped the basics of movement, I am pretty much lost when it comes to the random generation of enemies/obstacles, and I am unsure whether it's better to give the illusion of movement (Scrolling background, but player doesn't actually move), or actual sidescrolling movement by the player.

Any help would be appreciated!

[andy]

I think you may want to try this. With the player's ship, use the movement that you gave it. If the game will take place in scrolling levels, place invisible walls where the player's could leave the screen, so that the player's ship won't leave the area. In the object properties box for the player's ship, uncheck the "follow the frame" box. Create an invisible object that will move in the direction you want the level to scroll. Now, make an event that always centers the frame on the invisible object. Place objects just outside the invisible walls, and have alterable values be randomize every half a second. Then every 5 seconds or whatever, create an enemy at those objects based upon what their values are. Be sure to uncheck the "follow the frame" box on both the invisible walls and the enemy making objects. I hope this makes sense.

[Megabeard]

Hey Andy, thanks for the response! What you say does make sense, but it does raise the question of how to handle the level ending. From what I can tell there is only one timer in the programming of CTF so I probably shouldn't use it unless I absoluetly have to. Would it make the most sense to just create my own timer with a global variable and have the level end after a certain amount of time?

The alterable values idea is a very good one for the random generation, though I do have one question in regards to that. I am unfamiliar with CTF's expressions at the moment. Is there a way to give certain odds of a random alterable value being something? For instance, 80% odds that Alterable value 1 comes up, 10% for alt value 2 etc.?

[schrodinger]

This is interesting as there are -as usual- loads of ways to approach a shooter
(and Gradius was my first NES game along with Goonies 2 )

I'd say you may better ask yourself a couple (well, at least three) questions like:

1) you need multi scroll levels (both horizontal AND vertical)?
2) you prefer doing complex level design (hollow structures you go inside, landscape scenery..) vs empty space and loads of enemies?
3) you plan doing few (big) stages vs many smaller?

Assign a value of 1 to 10 to each answer and make the average,
if the average is >= 6, I would suggest going with frame editor level design and "real" scrolling
()

otherwise,
you can populate a single frame on-the-fly creating enemies on need and making them move sideways
better not using "timer" for this means,
just setup your value and increment speed (every xxx >> add 1 to global value "level_time")
(so you could even "fast-forward" your levels)

The alterable values idea is a very good one for the random generation, though I do have one question in regards to that. I am unfamiliar with CTF's expressions at the moment. Is there a way to give certain odds of a random alterable value being something? For instance, 80% odds that Alterable value 1 comes up, 10% for alt value 2 etc.?

Sure, you can throw out a random number, a random number out of a range, X chances out of Y of an event occurring, etc. etc.
depending on what you need/prefer

[Megabeard]

Apologies for the long wait of my response, got completely sidetracked! I am actually leaning more towards the random idea just because I plan on making this game mobile. I feel the mobile crowd would more appreciate randomly generated content than the same level designs (Even though that is my favorite part of game design). My only worry is that what I have in mind won't work when randomly generated.

You see, players in this game have obstacles to avoid and targets to hit. The obstacles to avoid can sometimes be a part of the environment (Or in other words, the background) which would be tricky to randomize... or at least I think? But thank you to you both. You've both given me some good advice on how I can go about getting started on this game!