Horror game!

[innawo...@gmail.com]

Hey!

I'm trying out puzzlescript and put this together today on my breaks at work (it really is just a little demo right now.)

http://www.puzzlescript.net/play.html?p=2a11b6d2e4020f74ec40

I'm looking for some tips for triggering the enemies to start pathing to the player. I wanted to make them start following after LoS is made, but that seems very complicated if I have to start involving diagonals and stuff. Right now they start looking for the player when revealed by the sight cone. I guess this sort of works, but I feel like it removes the tension of having to look around for monsters in every direction.

I'm also looking for ideas or feedback in general to add to this, please comment!

[Hand-E-Food]

Wow!  I love the torchlight effect.

Something needs to be done about movement.  Every step you take makes monsters move twice as fast due to the intricacies of realtime_interval.  I'm not sure what the answer is offhand.

There are a number of options to adjust the monsters behaviour.

You could create a tripwire, an invisible path of tiles from an entry point to the monster.  A monster remains dormant if it is on a tripwire tile.  When the player steps on a tripwire tile, it recursively removes all tripwire tiles connected to it.  Any monster no longer standing on a tripwire activates.  Set the tripwire up on the only entry into a room.

http://www.puzzlescript.net/editor.html?hack=55b454507ed8c9ea57aa

Give the monsters an invisible torchlight of their own.  The monster activates when it's torchlight sees the player, or when the player shines their torch on the monster.

I don't have an example of this.

[Jere Majava]

This sure likes a promising game. Very Alien II. Love the graphics!

You asked for some ideas what to add:

- Different kinds of monsters, especially on how they move and behave. Some could try to get away when they get to your line of site for example - and attack only form behind.

- Limited amount of ammo, with possibility to find more?

- Rubble and such, maybe even something moving or animated to give you false alarms - and waste valuable bullets.

- Doors with switches and hidden floorplates that open and close them. You could trap the monsters (or get trapped) or accidentally releas a bunch of them.

- Crates you or monsters can't pass but can shoot over, maybe push too. Thsi would add more tactical dimension to the game.

- Monsters could make noises when they step on rubble, roar at each other if they meet etc.

[innawo...@gmail.com]

I added some crates and now the "monsters only move when revealed" mechanic works a bit better. I think I'm going to make a second enemy type that is tripwire triggered. Thank you by the way, thats exactly the kind of solution i was looking for, I just couldnt figure it out.

http://www.puzzlescript.net/play.html?p=69013b2a6e379c04844e

[FunATuns]

This game is awesome! The torchlight is really cool!

You should ad some spooki music!

 --FunATuns

[burningthe...@gmail.com]

There is some reveal rooms and hallway code at the end of the tutorial below. Your Torch light is good. The only thing is when a room is revealed it stays revealed but it may not be as spooki..

http://www.puzzlescript.net/play.html?p=7c530a94aa7f2ea90520

[Tobin Mollett]

Great work so far. There will definitely need to be a terrifying sound whenever a monster is revealed. You can have two types of monsters, perhaps. The kind that hunt you all the time, and the kind that only attack after you reveal them.

[innawo...@gmail.com]

The sound for sneaky monsters revealing themselves is a good idea! I'll have to figure out how to generate an alien-type screech sound i guess.

I changed some layout stuff and now the monsters will actually path into shadows near the player sometimes, which is really creepy.

I also added another type of monster that seeks the player as soon as the room it is in is entered, and it's eyes are always visible through the shadows so it's more fair (and spooky.)

I can't post it right now unfortunately since I only have it saved at work :c But I'll post an update next time I can get my hands on that.

[Hand-E-Food]

Save your scripts to a text file and you can sync them with Dropbox or any other similar service.

[Jere Majava]

I definetily recommend that. I use Gist (https://gist.github.com/), which also has version control. Much more convenient than relying on the ever changing URL:s of shared games in PS.

[Connor McHarney]

This is way cool! I would say add a feature where the monsters play an animation when you first startle them. That way the player has a little more time to react. (Also you could control the amount of time)

[innawo...@gmail.com]

Both of your suggestions are good ideas, however I think I'll just paste it here for now:

http://www.puzzlescript.net/play.html?p=c757ce7cf04a2573bcda

I like the idea of the startle animation. It could also let me make the turn rate faster without making monsters that hide close to corners or doors impossible to kill!

Here's what's new:
-doors
-brown aliens that will seek you when a valid path is created
-ammo
-reloading
-randomized floor tiles

[innawo...@gmail.com]

Also, is there a way to make a really fast animation that is independent from the realtime rate?

[Connor McHarney]

Maybe if you set "again_interval" to be really short and use again rules? I don't know if that interferes.

On Wednesday, June 25, 2014 9:40:17 PM UTC-6, innawo...@gmail.com wrote:

[RADIOSOAP]

how do you do the flashlight effect?

[carpen...@gmail.com]

On Wednesday, 9 July 2014 22:57:11 UTC+1, innawo...@gmail.com wrote:
> Also, is there a way to make a really fast animation that is independent from the realtime rate?

NOT really if you want to control the animations speed. You need to set a fast realtime rate then sub-divide it to uses for the various speeds you want. I have put a rough demo together with an idea for this. There is a counter to 6, you then can then use that 'full' speed, or half speed (every other count) or 3rd speed (on 3 & 6 counters), or 6th speed. Any way have a look at demo, have a hack around there are comments in code. (inspired by you game I also experimented with some monster move algorithms).

http://www.puzzlescript.net/play.html?p=18723360e5666843524bc46f12f9a793

James