How do I have timers stack properly?

I have made a "pop the bubbles game" where the player has to tap on balloons that float up from the bottom of the screen. I have created a powerup that temporarily slows the balloons down but it doesn't stack properly.

The way it works is:

• There is a variable BalloonSpeed that controls the velocity of the balloons
• When a player touches a 'slow time' powerup
  • The current BalloonSpeed value is copied to a tmpBalloonSpeed variable
  • The BalloonSpeed value is reduced
  • An external sprite objPowerupTimer with a Timer behavior starts a new 5 second timer tagged 'slowtime'
• When the 'slowtime' timer expires the tmpBalloonSpeed value is copied back to BalloonSpeed to restore the original speed.

This works as intended if the player hits a single 'slowtime' powerup but my problem is if the player hits another one before the speed resets the original speed is never restored. I have debugged the layout and the timer itself does reset but it is as if the On Timer event doesn't fire afterward.

I would recommend limiting how often the player uses the "slowtime" powerup by creating an instance variable that checks to see if power up is active.

when obj_balloon is animation "ID_SlowTime" is playing | (do things) and set "powerup_active" = 1

if obj_powerup on timer "slow time"

and "Powerup_active" = 0

set balloon speed to....

set bullet speed to ....

set powerup active = 0

Give it a go and see if that works

I'll give it a try