Nice effort to show what Corona is capable of.
yes
@Horacebury and @everyone,
What classic arcade game uses path following as shown?
It is a frequently requested ‘how do I make it’ question.
Tip: The enemies move this way.
@roaming. I am old enough to have played this game when it originally came out.
I know they use to dive in Galaxian what I don’t remember is if they use to circle in during Galaxian or the sequel Galaga. Since you are probably younger than me, I think you are probably referring to the sequel: Galaga.
the pattern is reminiscent of galaga, though not how galaga would have done it - galaga was pattern-driven, very little cpu or memory needed.
fe, imagine as a starting point a “pattern language” (think: turtle graphics) where:
L means turn left by 1/32 full rotation
R means turn right by 1/32 full rotation
F means move forward at given speed
assume that multiple opcodes can be packed into a single per-frame command (comma separates them below)
then a “bump out to the right, then descend with a loop, then continue off left” might look roughly like
– go right and forward until facing downward-left
RF,RF,RF,RF,RF,
– continue down downward-left a bit
F,F,F,F,F,F,
– do a full turn-right tight (double turn speed) loop
RRF, (x16)
– again facing down-left, run last command til off screen
F,
same “script” could then be repurposed as mirrored left-hand variant with a bit-inversion for the R/L coding.
(btw, i’m not saying that’s exactly how galaga did it, but something along those lines, just fwiw)
Pretty sure R-Type used one like that.
Right now that path is followed via calculations, but your ‘fixed steps’ is something I’m also considering because of the reasons you mentioned:
-
low cpu impact
-
reflection is easy
also, the discrete path approach also enables:
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weighted addition and subtraction
-
stitching
-
scaling
The whole thing is actually pretty fascinating to experiment on.
Yes!
This is looking like it will be a go, but before I start, let me get some additional input from you guys.
Initial Plan
I plan to:
- Handle each topic/mechanic in a series of bite-sized (5-10 min) videos.
- Provide one or more executable examples demonstrating topics and sub-topics.
- Provide a final module and/or sample in some form (may cost a few $)
- Implement as much code as possible w/o using SSK2, but if I need it I’ll use it (especially: extensions, math2d, …).
Initial Mechanics: Three
- Galaxian/Galaga Style Pathed Enemy-Movement - Definite and what the video (above) shows.
- Space Invaders Side-to-Side S-Enemy Movement - Pretty sure unless you guys down vote it.
- ??? - Help me choose this.
After doing three topics, I’ll evaluate the series and see where it should go from there.
Need Your Input
I need your input on selecting the third mechanic. It can be any game mechanic as long as it meets these criteria.
- Must be classic arcade game enemy or player or weapon movement mechanic.
- There must exist at least one YouTube video of the game and mechanic in action.
- It SHOULD be well known.
To help your brainstorming, here are some ideas the come to mind:
- Frogger Player + Logs, etc.
- Choplifter Player + Main Cannon
- Centipede Main Enemy
- Sokoban - No everything has to be a shooter.
- Lode Runner - Movement and ladders (not digging)
- QBert - Level layout and movement
- …
I think to be scalable/portable then a mini-scripting language (as Dave hinted at) would be the way forward - nice and lite.
This covers most retro game types in an easy to script format.
I can see mileage in the following plugin…
local alien = plugin.init(x,y) -- WHERE TO SPAWN alien.frame = 300 -- MS BETWEEN ANIMATIONS alien.path = "FFRRFFLLFFRRFFRR" -- PATTERN alien.delay= 1000 -- SPAWN DELAY etc...I actually used to have a module in SSK that did something like that.
I’ll dig it up and add it to the discussion/series.
How about combining the first example(enemy movement) with the player movement from Volfied(to make Volfied 
)?
This is an excellent idea!
I am looking forward to the videos.
For the third topic, I have a few ideas:
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Pacman maze traversal
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Asteroids ship movement and firing
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Dig Dug
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A Crazy one would be NES Pro Wrestling (getting two characters to interact). Maybe your grand finale lol
I also vote for the Centipede and Lode Runner suggestions
This could be a fantastic series and I for one would be more than happy to pay a few $ for the final module/sample to help fund this!