Class 82

                                   Error

I honestly have no idea why the game wont load. I've doubled over my coding now and it's all sound, I just keep receiving this "entering main loop" which is normal, that's what it's supposed to say while your loading your game. And if there is an error in your game somewhere an "error" message pops up and helps you identify the problem. At the moment it wont finish loading but I'm hoping that it might just be that I poorly optimized it and tons of memory is being used. In that case I'm going to leave it loading overnight and hopfully wake up to my game. 

class 81

                        Finished my code

Today I finished adding the collision code so that the player could properly stand on the black tiles without falling through. It outlines how the player should react when in contact with the ground as to look visually pleasing. Learning to do this took me most of class but I was pleased with how it all turned out along with how organized everything into their own sub-sections. However when I ran my first test the loadup took over 10min and even then it wouldn't load. It's telling me that my code is fine and I can't find any errors. But for some reason it stays stuck in this endless loading screen. Tomorrow I'll try to pinpoint the cause of this freeze and fix it so I can test to see if the code works.

Class 80

                           More Coding

Today's class consisted of the same as yesterday, I was looking up how to code what I needed and then inputting it into the code wall for the game. I managed to finish setting a jump key and the gravity, along with the movement keys. (check for not moving) is saying that when neither the left or the right key are being pressed the player speed is set to 0, and if both keys are pressed at the same time, player speed is set to 0. The gravity code is saying that if the players vertical speed (jump) is greater than 10, gravity will pull the player back down to the platform. tomorrow will consist of more coding and perhaps giving me player a face.

Class 79

                        Coding the player

Today I started the coding page for the player that will contain the majority of its properties. I spent most of class looking up guides on how to code a platformer such as this so I could have an idea of where to start with the code. I ended up getting the (key) layout setup to control the player. at the moment the player has no properties allowing him to move but that will change soon. (vk_) is the command that you input into the movement code if you wish to use the arrow keys instead of the A,S,D,W keys. The ( check for ground) section just basically sets the ground one pixel under the player so it looks as if the player is standing on solid ground. And (vspd = 0) is saying that while the player is touching the ground its vertical speed is 0. Tomorrow I will continue studying resource pages for help and continuing on the code for the game.

Class 78

                       Creating the room

Today I created the "room" that the level is housed within and setup a course the player can run through for the first level. I'm making the blocks 32 by 32 just a basic sizing set so I know what to set my coding at and I don't end up with sizing errors further down the road. The black blocks are labeled as (obj_solid) and the white block is the player labeled as (obj_player). I set the background to light blue of which I find quite appealing. tomorrow I will begin my first line of code for this game and hopefully have my player moving by the end of class. This room is labeled as (rm_test) as a shortened name that is easily added into the code later on.

Class 77

                       Little Platformer game


throughout the year I've been trying to create an RPG pixel game and I jumped into expecting it to be easy. But with all reality theres alot of work that goes into creating one of theses games. I found it challenging learning how to code and despite not being a "master coder" at the end of this course I have definitely gained a basic knowledge on what goes into coding more advanced games such as (Terraria). I'm not as far along with my game as I had been hoping to be by this time, but I have become quite interested with making games and plan on continuing work on my game even after school is over. Now with one week left I want to create a small platformer, just so I can have a finished product that I'll be proud of.

Today was a simple study day of watching youtube videos on the platformer basics and creating two placeholder sprites to act as players for now. Along with making them into objects. I know its very basic but I just need a class to study up on how a platformer is made. The white sprite will be used as the player and the black sprite will be used a the platform. Tomorrow I'll be creating the room and laying out the course of which the player will slide.

Class 76

                       Enemies that attack!


Its getting close to the end of the school year and that means my computer course is coming to a end. There are seven days left and I intend on using each one to add something new to the game I've been working on since the course began. Today I fixed myself on adding "Enemy states" to the npc enemies that I already created. This is basically just giving the enemies in-game properties that the player can interact with and the enemy can interact with the player. These properties will finally give our enemies the ability to attack our player. I'm choosing to begin with the enemy states and then work my way to giving the player stats of his own. Giving the enemies stats is a simple process of writing a few new scripts that outline how the enemy sprite will attack, how much damage it will do, how much health it has and other variables.

Class 58

Class 57

Class 56

Class 55

Class 54

class 53

Class 52

Class 51

                             Organizing 

Class 50

                                                   Attack Animation

Today I finished coding the attack animations in correspondence to the four different directions your character can move, it was actually very simple I just needed to do some research and learn how it's done. This really taught me how to assign animations to different sprites through game maker and is a great tool to use later on. I'm glad I learned this, I feel like it'll give me the ability to create better and  more complex animations now that I know how to input them. I know my animations are rough looking at the moment but I will be cleaning them up. Tomorrow I'll probably work on organizing all my files and making them all neater



This box shows the ( if statement ) that is used to revert the player back to a resting position after the animation is complete.


This box shows the ( keyboard_check ) used to assign the rest of the attack animations

Class 49

                             Touching up

Today I worked on making all my player sprites smoother looking and more correct. I also finished the rest of the attack animations today and now I just need to input them into the begin step code. I'll probably do that tomorrow. I just wanted to do some cleaning up today by working on the sprites, they needed to have their perspectives fixed so that your character appears to be looking/facing the right direction.

 
  
                                                       This is just showing that the attack animations are complete and in
                                                       their own folder awaiting input into the game.

Class 48

                                                    Attack Animation

Today I worked on figuring out how to input the swinging/attack animation into code, so that I can make the character swing his sword on command. In an attempt to do this I added a new (keyboard_check) onto the existing movement (Begin step) that I have for the player. This is the first time I've done this so not all the animations are done yet, I wanted to test it out today and see where I need to add the rest of the animations. I'm really enjoying this project am looking forward to learning more. Tomorrow I plan on finishing the rest of the attack animations and setting them to the movement code.


As you can see the sprite is swinging the sword when I hit the ( C ) key. but for some reason this new code has caused the sprite to continuously move his legs up and down without the input of the keyboard. A problem I'll have to fix in time.

Class 47

                                                     Attack Animation

Today I wanted to animate the swinging of my characters sword. this is just the first step in making a damage/killing system for enemies. Making the animation was not a difficult task but tedious as I was required to go through each of the frames, redrawing my characters sword and arm in a swinging motion. The grey streak following behind the sword is simply just some well placed grey arches that give the sword a more "slashing" effect. All that was used to make the animation itself, is the draw tool within the sprite editor. I now have a much better understanding on how animations are created within GML, and will certainly use this skill to animate other sprites and create improved animations.
Tomorrow I plan on coding this animation into the sprite so that by hitting a certain (KEY), he will preform the swinging motion.




                                   

Class 21

Class 20 AI

                                                                        AI                                         

Today I wanted to create an AI system that will be used for the future enemies and NPC's within my game. At the moment its very simple, the objects that represent the enemies have code written into them that tell the enemies to follow the player if he comes within a range of 256. The enemies are coded to only follow the player if he is in the view of that enemy, meaning that if you stay behind the walls you'll be safe. I will eventually make it so the enemies can attack the player, and the player can fight back. today I've learned how create a basic AI system. Tomorrow I plan on finishing the walking animation on the player.   

the collision code that instructs the enemies to follow the player. I can change the speed of which the enemies can move along with the distance they will follow the player to. 


This is an example of how the enemies follow the player while he is in their view.

class 19

                                Leveling

Today I focused on finishing the leveling system, you can now pick up XP off the ground to level up and gain a higher HP. There is still tons of stuff I can add to the leveling such as attack, strength or magic, and I plan on adding these things eventualy but not at the moment. The leveling system itself wasn't that hard to code but it took some time to learn how to do it. I also added a pixal grass background to give it some atmosphere. Tomorrow I plan on finishing the new player model along with a walking animation and maybe a attack animation.

The code below is basically the leveling code each global variable contains a value and when one of the blue dots is picked up it increases the amount of HP, your level, and increases the amount of XP  needed to level up again.


As you can see the player is able to collect XP and the stats chart at the bottom changes to the amount of XP you collect.

Class 18 Leveling

                          Leveling System 
Today I really wanted to create a simple leveling system for my game (RPG). To begin made a global obj and coded in the global values for the player health,XP and how much XP is needed to level up.


Then I created a Draw Event (this part took me a while because I had to look it up on the internet and watch a few videos. Basically the draw event is what is displayed on the screen for the player to see. I was able to input the Level of the player and HP but for some reason when I tried to code in the amount of XP the player needs to level up, that piece of code would the cause the game to crash. I dont know why so I just removed it until I figure it out.

I'm still trying to figure out how to allow the player to collect XP and actually level up but I hope to figure this out by the next day

This is what the display looks like, In the bottom left hand corner. The blue dots are the XP that the player will collect.

class 17 new project

                              New Project

Today I started a new project under the name (RPG). So far all I've done is created a block knight with 4 dimensional movement using 4 sprite models to create the an animation. The game play area at the moment consists of one room with varies walls that the player collides with. The player has been set to be controlled with the arrow keys using the code in the picture below. Today is the first time that I was able to properly create collision with the player and the walls and create smooth player movement. Tomorrow I plan on creating a leveling system that can be used to level up your player.

Movement Code

The Room

class 11- 4 directional movement

                                                              4 directions 

Today I continued on my test game, creating 4 directional movement on the player. To do this I drew a front,back,left,right views of the sprite. Then I coded each sprite to the a,d,w,s keys. I also played around with the physics, trying to create borders the player couldn't go past using collisions. Tomorrow I'm going to work on making the player movement more smooth and not so jumpy.



        

       

class 10

                                  Reading GML Code

At the moment my main struggle is learning GML code, I've never coded before so this is proving to be challenging but I am up to the task. My main source of learning to code is youtube theres tons of videos and tutorials on how to code with GML.so basically im just watching videos and testing out movement code. to test it out I'm not doing anything fancy I'm just making a basic room and placing block sprites in it to test the code out.

class 7 Animation

Today I worked on creating a walking animation for the character I created earlier, started with making a side view of the character. Then I made my first sprite into 3 images (front view,leftside view, rightside view). Then loaded those 3 into an animation but it sorta just turned into him spinning in circles very fast. I need to figure out how to bind each image of the animation onto a key on the keyboard.





 

class 6 Events

Basically I learned how to how to create events today through reading the info files in game maker.
The actions that game maker provides for the objects I create are being very useful but they limit what you can do, I've taken a look at the list of code, which to be honest looks a little overwhelming
but I'm looking forward to studying it and creating my own code in the future.

Tomorrow I will continue to read through the info files and learn more.
I'm starting to understand game maker and plan on starting an actual game of my own next week.

Now I have my own copy of game maker so my progression should speed up seeing as I can work on it a home.

class 5. More Reading

After starting the (side scrolling) GM game I ran into problems with creating scripts to control and interact with my game, so I've dug into the introduction folder of game maker and started reading all the info it has to offer. I am starting to build a better understanding of how to use this program and am confident that by the end of this week I'll be capable of continuing this game without anymore delays.

I also moved all my save data to my dropbox folder so there isn't any chance of it getting deleted.

Tomorrow I will be continuing studying all the functions of game maker.

Reading... Class 4

Today I began one of the GM tutorial games; which puts you through a step by step process and teaches you the basics of making the properties of a game. So far i have set a background and linked it to a new room, the sprites have been made and now im just working on setting their properties to suit my needs. This involves alot of reading to learn how to do.

Tomorrow i will be continuing with my reading and adding more to the tutorial game i have started.

class 3

Today i started my first game (it is yet to be named) at the moment its a learning curve, i was able to code movement and bind it to a key ex: x+=4.
I created a player model and was able to move him around a background.

My plan for today is to watch a couple youtube tutorials on beginner coding and opperating game maker studio.

After I watched an interactive video on building basic games in GameMaker I was able to build a simple background and add it to a room. 

Tomorrow my plan is to make sprite and add movement code to it so i can interact with it in my room.

Class 1

                                  It Begins 
Today is my first official day of infotech 12. I have chosen; with the permission of Mr Bilesky to complete an independent study. This is the beginning of my second semester and I'm looking forward to learning and enhancing my computer skills.
The last time I took a infotech course was in grade 10, so much of my work will have been self taught or learnt with the help of my good friend Jake who is doing independent study along with me.
The majority of this blog will consist of me learning how to code with the program (GameMaker-Studio).
At the moment all I have done is play around with GameMaker and create organized folders to store all my work.
For tomorrows class I will start my coding and will be posting all my progress on this blog site daily.


(watching youtube tutorials on how to code)