Learning by doing. Simple Game project.

[Sweetgebus]

Hello all, in my attempt to learn scripting in Leadwerks 5, I figured I could start a thread here and update my progress.  I have a small understanding of some things so far. I’ve been working on a learning project for the past week. The idea is a Flappy Bird-style game, or an old-school helicopter game if any of you are old enough to remember that game. The player, “Cube,” flies forward at a constant velocity without player input. When the player hits the space key, the cube will jump. If the player hits the ground or any object, they reset to the beginning.

 

Learns goals for this project include

• Storing the distance traveled by the player.
• Saving the highest distance traveled as a high score.
• Adding power-ups, such as momentarily slowed movement, that the player can use for difficult sections.
• Said power-ups, when collided with, would be stored rather than immediately executed, so the player can use them when they need them.

 

I figured this would be a good starting point for learning. I will post screenshots and code throughout the game's progress, along with the current goal I’m working on. Any help and advice would be greatly appreciated. I’ve always wanted to learn scripting, and once I found Leadwerks, I knew it would be my engine of choice.

[Sweetgebus]

So far, I’ve achieved basic player control. The player flies forward at a constant speed. I’ve set the player's starting point via script, and the player successfully resets to that point when it makes contact with the ground or other game objects.

 

I achieved collision detection by checking the struck entity's collision type. This works in this case, but perhaps there is a better way?

 

Utilizing a timer, I’ve successfully added a 3-second delay after opening the game, before the player starts moving forward.  This has caused an issue that I’m currently trying to overcome. Gravity still acts even when the timer is active. I thought maybe setting self:SetGravity(0) from the start and calling self:SetGravity(1) after checking if the game has started would be the key, but this has a logic error. Perhaps someone here can offer some advice?

	
	-- create start timer
	gracetimer = CreateTimer(3000)
	ListenEvent(EVENT_TIMERTICK,gracetimer,OnGraceTimer)
	
    -- Enable physics
    self:SetPhysicsMode(PHYSICS_RIGIDBODY)
    self:SetCollisionType(COLLISION_PLAYER)
    self:SetMass(1)

    -- Create camera
    self.camera = CreateCamera(self.world)
    self.camera:SetPosition(self.entity:GetPosition())
	
	--we need to save the position of the entity so that we can reset to it
	startpos = self:GetPosition()
end

--timer callbacks
function OnGraceTimer()
	Print("timer Worked")
	gracetimer:Stop()
	gamestarted = true
end

function myPlayer:Sound()
	hit = LoadSound("Sound/Music/hit.mp3")
end

	-- collision
function myPlayer:Collide(entity)
	if entity:GetCollisionType() == COLLISION_SCENE then
		hit = LoadSound("Sound/Music/hit.mp3")
		hit:Play()
		Print("Game Over!")
		isgameover = true end
	end 
	
	--player movement
function myPlayer:Update()

		local vel = self:GetVelocity()
		if gamestarted == true then
			vel.z = self.speed end
		vel.x = 0
		self.entity:SetRotation(0,0,0) 
	
	if self.window:KeyDown(KEY_SPACE) then
		vel.y = self.jumpforce end 
    self:SetVelocity(vel)
	
	-- Game is over, so lets reset the player back to the starting position and resume after 3 seconds
	if isgameover == true then
		self:SetPosition(startpos)
		 isgameover = false end

		 
    -- Update camera
    self.camera:SetPosition(self.entity:GetPosition())
    self.camera:Move(0,1,-3)
end

 

Edited 1 hour ago by Sweetgebus