So I have a technical issue with the mechanics of my dogfight style game. Since the game scrolls from top to bottom I can bring enemies in from the sides and those enemies are safe from being shot up when the person is just laying down fire for the sake of just pushing the button... But that gets predictable and boring, and affects the flow state negatively. One idea I had was stage them on either side of the screen and have them shoot in real fast and hit a transformer logic that then brings them top down space invaders style and that might be the solution... I would just have to work on making that right but I also wanted to get your opinions on what some other options might be. The problem is enemies that are above the screen before they come on the screen can be shot and destroyed... The character's bullets travel to the delete threshold killing things on the way... Could adjusting the delete threshold be a solution? Or how do I make the enemies invincible until they are on the screen and visible?
How about a logic board the width of the screen just beyond sight that will redirect all bullets directly at 90 degrees at increased speed so they don't travel any further than that point. Then match its speed to your scroll speed? You can just connect it to something moving to stay at a constant speed, this will 'protect' enemies until just before they come onto the screen. I don't know if this will solve all the issues, but might help.
@calmackay79 This works very well... until I die... then if i start at a checkpoint (which the "back to: World 1" will do for now until they fix start checkpoint) it isn't there because I have it start in the start scene... I tied that transform (replace position -1000 on the x axis) to the bullet absorber object... set the object to decoration, and found that 4.5 in Y variable of the linear velocity keeps it at game speed... so it scrolls indefinitely... I just don't know how to make it work with a checkpoint start...
Nice work man - I'll have a think on the check point issue, but this might be a bit of a harder fix this one.
@calmackay79 ok... queue crazy rambling brainstorming madness... What about...staging multiple absorbers at every checkpoint off screen left or right and triggering something when you start from a checkpoint that moves it to the top like the original... so like it would normally miss the transform logic to move directly to the top of the screen... it would never touch this transform logic unless you're starting at the checkpoint... and when you trigger whatever "it" is, it causes the abosrber to hit the logic and move to the top of the screen... and duplicate this whole setup at every checkpoint... this spark any ideas? @trudnai any thoughts? @VectologyGames any thoughts?
My initial thought was that predictable is not necessarily a bad thing. It needs to be challenging and with the combination of predictable it can be a true skill game -- I would make an analogue to how you play music: First it is hard, then you get better with the first notes and go further. Except this is not a music and you need to place something in your game that drives players to go further and further
Real solution is that buildbox has to add a new feature for that. It should be "Bullet distance" and then we can adjust distance of the bullet.
Pe How about we place it near checkpoints. when you come near it at a certain distance it triggers a wake up component and starts moving. The distance would be precisely to how far the character is to the edge of the vertical screen.
