The VG Resource

3) lol i'm pretty stupid, what do you mean by an isometric movement engine? you mean by being able to smoothly move in all 8 directions?

...I would've thought it would be pretty clear.

You're aware of games that are 2d from an isometric viewpoint, right?
http://www.spriters-resource.com/ds/mega...heet/20533
http://www.spriters-resource.com/gameboy...sheet/2233
Sure you do.

So not just 8-Way movement, movement that primarily addresses the diagonals, on maps that are drawn from an isometric perspective. Only the player character moves in 8 directions; NPCs stick with the diagonals only.

OH..i see...

i haven't made anything like that before, but i can try..
(Coty is WAY better at coding then me, so ill probably have to bother him lmao)

I think i might be able to accomplish this though..a few more questions first though:

1) how many pixels wide are the squares/diamonds?
2) when are these weekly meetings? and how are they done? MSN?


EDIT: gonna experiement with 64x64 until i get an answer

It's up in the air, but there's a possibility that backgrounds will be prerendered and not tiled. The shouldn't effect the engine too badly, though.

Meetings are on Thursday nights, but you don't need to worry about that for the time being.

ok...last thing for now...

the character the player uses, does it need to be snapped to the 65x65 iso diamonds? (like the handheld pokemon game characters)
i know the NPCs will, not sure if the character needs to though

EDIT: also, will this be an internet game? or one player?

It's single player (meaning the game will have a single-player difficulty curve to match). No netplay is required.

No, the player won't snap to a grid, although other things might. NPCs probably should to prevent them from getting stuck in things.

ok, that makes things a ton easier..lol

Collision masks *will* snap to the grid for obvious reasons.

collision mask?

(lol i started with game maker not even 6 months ago lol, go easy on me..)

do you mean obsticles' mask?

EDIT: wait i think i understand wat u mean XD

It's probably bad phrasing on my part.

If we're going for a pre-rendered backdrop system, the background will be just one giant drawing. In that situation, you'll need invisible blocks to stop the player fom just walking through everything. Those will be isometric to fit with the grid, and would snap to them accordingly.

oh i see what you mean..

(lol me and coty just made certain objects solid)

so same idea as what i used to do, only with invisible solid objects?


that's part of the coding to make the character move, you ARE using solid objects invisible, correct?

Pretty much. You can make them visible for now, I'm talking in regards to the future a little.

Also scanning that, that script will move a sprite in increments of 5 pixels, unless there's less room than that, in which case it'll move less than that? I notice there's not a condition for if you're directly next to a solid object? I assume GM's a smart enough system that it'll just ignore the input, but it might be a good idea to have it explicitly state that the character doesn't move (possibly with a 'bump' sound effect, like in the games, but that's not required. It'd be something for you to show off with).

hmmm..

ok..

well..let me have a crack at it..
WAIT..need sprites first! blah watever ill just make some quick crappy ones lol

No, don't do that. Please.

I'd rather you use existing ones. The sprite style we're going for is very close to the Disgaea games, so it would be best if you used those as replacements.
http://www.spriters-resource.com/search/?q=disgaea&g=1

aww..lol ok

wait..do you want this a keyboard event? that's what i'm already working on, or do a point and click to move thing?

iso movements are weird XD