Mouse input?

[PrinceOfBrains]

Hey everyone - it's my first ever post here! I found this while looking around for any kind of freeware 2D game engine - I've tried learning Flash, Ruby, and what have you, but...frankly I'm too dumb for programming languages, and this seems to be a fine alternative.

I do have a question, though. I've had an idea in my head kicking around for a while for a 2D shooter, Gunstar Heroes/Contra kind of game, and I think I could pull it off with SGDK. My question is, can SGDK accept mouse input? My ideal control scheme for the game would have you moving around with the arrow keys or WASD, and aiming and firing by using the mouse to move a crosshair around the screen and firing with that. Is anything like that feasible with this engine?

Thanks for your time.

[bluemonkmn]

There is a rule function you can use called "MapMouseToSprite".  A rule function is something you select when you are defining the rules of how a sprite or plan behaves.  So if you wanted to create a sprite that represented the mouse cursor within the game, you could create a sprite that looks like an arrow, and then add a rule (on the Rules tab of the Sprite Definition window) that specified "MapMouseToSprite".  The function takes 1 parameter called InstantMove, which determines whether the sprite will instantly be at the current position of the mouse or whether it will set the velocity of the sprite so that it will try to move there when MoveByVelocity is applied.  For a mouse cursor sprite, I would suggest specifying the value "true" (no quotes) for InstantMove.

Once you have a mouse cursor sprite (perhaps it looks like a cross-hair), then you can add that sprite to a sprite category like "BulletTarget" (just made up a name).  Then you can make you bullet sprites move toward the nearest sprite in the BulletTarget category.

Hope this helps, and I hope you enjoy using SGDK2!

[PrinceOfBrains]

Much obliged for the swift reply! Yes, that should do exactly what I need it to, and I appreciate the help. Sorry if it it was kind of a "stupid newbie" question.  :baby:

I suppose while we're still here talking about it, does anyone have any tips for making that kind of game? Cool enemy behaviors, tips on making the weapons, etc?

[v6v]

Enemies that charge and shoot at you. I believe that the sample projects have some kind of sprite that support that.

Draw Counters in the overlay map to show how many bullets remain.

(Not to overwhelm you)

Now, there's 2 ways to go about having the bullet go towards the crosshair.

The easiest way, which I did when I was a newbie, was to make a bullet sprite, set it's speed to a large number, then use the rule that pushes a sprite towards a certain category (The crosshair category).

The second way is to use Pythagorean's Theorem to calculate a triangle's hypotenuse from the X and Y position points of both triangles. This way isn't feasible without code of some kind, but it's something I should tell you if you may need this information later.

I suggest you play around and learn to make a project with a moving box, or something simple, before moving on to this.

If you want a template of a game like this, feel free to ask. It won't be any trouble.

Edit After looking over bluemonkmn's post I think that he pretty much beat me to the bullet method.

[PrinceOfBrains]

Well, I suppose if it wasn't too much trouble...

Just somewhere to start from, you know? I don't intend on this being the first thing I make with SGDK, but I do hope to get to this sometime eventually. I really appreciate all the help, you guys.

[v6v]

Alright, now I don't expect you to know how everything works off of the bat, but I submitted a template for a sprite like that.

Learn from the sample projects. When you feel ready, tackle my project.
If anyone has a better project, feel free to post it. I don't have much time to detail this one.

I've submitted it to the Project Listing. I'm hoping bluemonkmn will approve and post the link.

~#Sharp

[PrinceOfBrains]

I really appreciate the help! As soon as I get a chance to study them in better detail, I'll let you know!

[bluemonkmn]

I've submitted it to the Project Listing. I'm hoping bluemonkmn will approve and post the link.

Unfortunately I am in the process of completing a major upgrade to the project listing site, and the uploads are not working on the original project listing.  Did you see a "Project Listing Beta" menu item?  If so, could you try to upload it there?  I think that one is working.

I'm upgrading because I think the upload functionality was the source of the security hole a couple weeks ago that caused all my sites to get hacked.

Edit: I may have fixed the old Project Listing.  You could try again submitting it to that list.  I'm not sure which to keep, but I'm leaning toward the one that already has the files in it.  I just want to know which one is going to be more secure.

[v6v]

Come to think of it, the  Neuro demo might be a better example of this.

The Shooter project I made is far from perfect, but extremely basic.

Mind if I upload both, primarily as a Template, and Application of this in an actual Game?

[bluemonkmn]

Go for it.

[v6v]

Thanks. I've tried to get both on the Beta Project Listing.

*Scratch That* Neuro is 6MB too large.

[bluemonkmn]

Did you try to get Neuro on the old listing?

[bluemonkmn]

The Shooter sample is published.

[v6v]

Did the shooter example seem Under-Done (buggy, rushed, and inefficient) or Over-Done(too complex for something with those small requirements)?

I wanted to make a basic example, but had to work with 2 hours.
I'm sure there's a better way, which I had used in Neuro, so I figured to upload what little I had of that.

Neither listing is working. It's not too important though, as long as I had contributed a working sample.

If you choose to change something in it, feel free.

[bluemonkmn]

What happens when you try to upload to the old list?