I must be doing something wrong...

Like I said earlier, Construct seems awesome, and I like how I can do interesting stuff without any real knowledge of scripting. But...it's overwhelming. I don't really need this much freedom at this point.

Well, I do understand it may become overwhelming, especially if you didn't work with the likes of Click & Create and Multimedia Fusion before.

Oh well. I'll probably work on and off with Construct and RPG Maker XP for a while. Both have different advantages for me and both have their disadvantages. I guess I should just work on one until I hit a bump and then switch to the other for a while?

Hey, there's nothing bad to say about RPG Maker. For a certain kind of game, it works pretty well for sure. And of course you could use both applications at the same time. The thing about hitting bumps though is in my opinion to be a little persistent to overcome them. It may be a pain in the ass at first, but in the long run you will profit a lot.

I would advice you to switch to the older 0.98.9 version of Construct for now. Although 0.99.42 is marked stable, it has some problems 0.98.9 doesn't. And with 0.98.9 you can work through the Platform School tutorial, which should clarify a lot of things for you.

Once again, thanks PixelRebirth. I'll probably whip some caps up if you still want to help...in my Mario project I can't even figure out how to make a Goomba...sad. Maybe I just need more sleep?

Sure I'd help you. Not a problem. Show me your cap and I show you mine, or smt like that.

You know what? I'm going to stop whining and complaining about my lack of focus and stuff. I made this topic to ask for help, not to complain about how time-consuming it is to make games.

I wasn't complaining about RPG Maker XP. There are lots of little things about it that bother me, but for making an RPG without knowing complicated scripting and programming stuff, it's good at what it does. I know what you mean about tackling problems until they are fixed...even if I put something off it will still be there, but sometimes it helps to take a break, you know? Think about something else for a while, and the answer just comes to you.

I actually have 2 versions of Construct on my computer right now. The newest version, and the previous most stable version. I wanted to try the Platform School tutorial, but it doesn't work on the newest version so I used the previous one. It really helped, but some things didn't work when I copied them into my project. My computer can't even run the Ghost Shooter tutorial...ha ha ha...

As for a cap...how would I go about uploading one? I've honestly never uploaded anything to the internet besides pictures...

As for a cap...how would I go about uploading one? I've honestly never uploaded anything to the internet besides pictures...

Well there are quite some free upload sites. Dropbox seems to be pretty popular around here. You could also try Mediafire. It basically works the same like uploading an image.

Thanks again. I decided to use MediaFire, I didn't feel like downloading another program right now.

I think this should work:

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?jbzugknrtnw

There's three things in there I'd like help with.

1. The Returning Sniper Joe (orange enemy) is supposed to shoot three shots and then go back to it's normal position. Eventually I want the shield to block shots in this position, but that's going ahead of myself. Instead, he lets out a fairly steady stream of shots, which looks sorta cool, but is not what I'm looking for.

2. The Piranha Plant (green enemy) is supposed to move between positions, instead of appearing from one spot to the other. I know how to put it behind the pipe, but I left it in front so you could see what was happening better. I also intend on making it so it won't come out of the pipe if you are too close, but again, that's getting ahead of myself.

3. Notice the coins? Each one increases a global variable when touched, but I can't figure out how to display it. What I've tried before doesn't work.

Thanks in advance for this. Sorry if it's not clear what I need help with or something.

3. Notice the coins? Each one increases a global variable when touched, but I can't figure out how to display it. What I've tried before doesn't work.

That's the easiest problem you have. Just add a text object and set its text to Global('Coint count') in an always event.

As for the enemies I have a general advice for you: use private variables to control their behavior! I added PVs for the delay between shots, for the general status (is shooting or not), the time it will wait between two attacks and all that. Sometimes there are double values, like MaxShots and CurShots for the Sniper. Maxshots is the amount of shots it will fire in one attack. CurShots counts the fired shots, in order to stop the attack, when Curshots equals Maxshots.

For some values like Rate you could use a Global value instead, since it's just the amount you subtract from a certain value. This doesn't really need to be sprite specific.

Regarding the plant: you added 8 directions movement, but you didn't use any of the movement's actions. Instead you used 'Move at angle', which works differently. The amount of pixels you set will be moved instantly in 1 tick! I used Ball Behaviour for the plant, which fits the purpose better. You could also use Bullet of course.

With all the values you can easily control the behavior of your enemies and you can have different instances acting differently by just changing some values. Although I may not have done it the most elegant way here, it's generally speaking the way to go.

I didn't comment the cap, there aren't many events though. The hard part will be to figure out which PV is there for what purpose. But I bet you can figure it out when you have a closer look.

Your cap with changes

If there's something else, you can always contact me.

Thanks! I really appreciate it.

First of all, why won't Construct let me copy events from one project to another? Some times I tried it even caused an error that closed Construct! It makes things take a lot longer.

For the Global Variable thing...I was making two mistakes. First of all, I wanted the text to say "Coin Count X" before the actual variable was displayed, which just made a mess of text. I didn't realize you couldn't put text there! That solved that problem. Then I set it to "Start of layout" so it didn't update the variable when I picked up coins. "Always"! Duh.

The piranha plant works great! I copied all the info from your edited cap and then adjusted the speed to suit my liking.

I didn't put the Sniper Joe back into my Mega Man project yet, but what's in the cap looks great.

Private variables, they do a LOT more than I thought they would. All I thought of using them for before was for stats, like HP and attack power and stuff. It's a bit confusing though, it might take me a bit of time to figure them out myself.

I hate to be a bother, but I have another problem. I have no idea how to go from one Layout to another. In my Mario game, Mario appears in a different place based on where I enter the castle from (I lazily set it so pressing up anywhere in front of the castle makes you enter) and sometimes there's two Marios! The screen also feels like not scrolling after going between layouts sometimes. I don't really understand how to go about this. When I tried using events to move the player to a specific place, things got even worse. My first guess now would be to try and use private variables or something, but...I'm stumped at the moment.

I have no idea how to go from one Layout to another.

Use this action:

<img src="http://i25.tinypic.com/263k1n6.png">

And always be sure to name your layouts properly and call them by name and not their number. Will avoid a lot of confusion.

In my Mario game, Mario appears in a different place based on where I enter the castle from (I lazily set it so pressing up anywhere in front of the castle makes you enter) and sometimes there's two Marios! The screen also feels like not scrolling after going between layouts sometimes.

When you're simply using the action above, stuff like this shouldn't happen. Remember to include the needed event sheets in all the layouts (like player animation, your scrolling... etc.) And you may need to set certain objects (like the player sprite) to global, so it can be accessed in every layout. If you're still having problems with this, you know the deal: share a cap.

That way I can see exactly what's going wrong.

Oh, it does work better to use the names instead of just the number!

My main problem now is how to make the player appear in a certain place upon switching layouts.

For example, Mario enters the castle by standing in front of it. Then I want him to appear at the castle's inside entrance (different layout) in a specific place. When he walks out of the castle (by walking off screen at a specific point) then I want him to appear at the previous layout in the same place he was before he entered the castle. Does that make any sense? I can't figure out how to do it, and I'm not sure if I should use variables or something to store the X and Y positions, it seems like that might clutter up the variables if I don't know what I'm doing and having too many variables might make things confusing for me. I still haven't figured out all of the Piranha Plants variables you had in the cap, thought messing around a little will probably solve that.

My main problem now is how to make the player appear in a certain place upon switching layouts.

Well how are you trying to achieve this atm? I'd simply put a dummy sprite where I want the character to appear and set the player to its position on startup. Pretty simple I guess.

Going back would work the same way. Have a dummy sprite at the castle door to let the player reappear there. If there are multiple of these objects in a layout, you could use a global to decide where to appear (a global matching a PV on the dummy sprite). That global would be set in the previous layout of course.

Hopefully that's already enough info for you to work it out.

Messing around a little and I got it working better! I finally got the screen to scroll normally in the castle! This will take some time to get down though. Variables are confusing sometimes.

I tried adding Peach in as a playable character...using her Mario 2 sprites and moves. I tried giving her that float ability she has...but...wow...it's not coming out right. I'm not 100% sure about this because I haven't played Mario 2 in a while, but while in the air, if you press and hold the jump button again, Peach will float at that height for about 2 seconds, able to move left and right, but she can only do it once per jump. Would using private variables make that easier? My first attempt at making her float just gives her some kind of uber-float that lets her soar endlessly horizontally, unable to land...

(if you don't know what I mean by Peach's float ability, I could look for a video of some kind to help demonstrate it better)

Messing around a little and I got it working better! I finally got the screen to scroll normally in the castle! This will take some time to get down though. Variables are confusing sometimes.

See. Messing around is always the best way to roll.

(if you don't know what I mean by Peach's float ability, I could look for a video of some kind to help demonstrate it better)

Are you actually implying that I don't know SMB games?

Not only do I exactly know what you mean by Peach's float ability, I could also tell you the color of her panties!

My first attempt at making her float just gives her some kind of uber-float that lets her soar endlessly horizontally, unable to land...

Well, you could keep her VectorY at 0 for a certain amount of time, no? You could try something like that. I can provide an example if needed.