Need some help with my game please

[sanctum]

I have been messing about with a bit of code that will draw a series of spikes using blocks that rise slowly up the screen. the code seems to work but it stops the main character from moving once it activates.
Heres a video example of the problem (please ignore the lack of character animation and stuff, its early days):


www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2XUJDpibRc

The spikes code is in the main loop 1. I set it to start shortly after the game begins. As you can see, the player sprite can move about until the spikes emerge, then the sprite freezes (it even stops the sprite from falling)

Is it possible to have the game draw blocks like this without freezing the sprite? 

[mas]

What I think it looks like you're doing with the spikes is having it in some sort of REPEAT or WHILE loop.

When your code hits that loop, it will do everything in the loop until the loop ends. This will freeze out the other events.

As your spikes start occurring a little into the game, I'm assuming you have some sort of a timing loop (to make the spikes appear after say 2 seconds?)

what you will need to do is hook into that timing loop to advance the spikes rather than having a repeat.

So I'm assuming your code is something like
LET S = 20 ; S = spike progress
WHILE S > 0
AT S 10 ;assuming S for Y, 10 for X
PUTBLOCK [spike block]

DELAY 25 ; a little delay

SUBTRACT 1 FROM S

ENDWHILE

What you would need to do is hook into the timing loop

From my previous game, I setup a timing loop in mainloop1

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
;; things that happen on any screen
;; TIMER LOOP TO CATCH EVERY X SECCONDS
IF J <= 12 ; often this is 24 for 25fps, I'm using 12 to make things a little quicker
ADD 1 TO J
ELSE
LET J = 0
ENDIF

I then have a condition on my block movements so it triggers on a certain value of J - so once a second

;; this sets up a trigger on J = 9. In my game I trigger on most values of J but I select a different area of the screen to look at
IF J = 9
LET OBJ = 1    ; I don't use OBJ in the game so stealing the variable
LET OPT = 40   ; ditto for options
LET RND = 56   ; and RND doesn't get set - free variables :-)
ENDIF

IF OBJ = 1 ; I have seen the trigger, advance my blocks
LET M = 0 ;
LET C = RND ; Y
;;; etc

So rather than having a big repeating loop, you trigger an advancement and then exit the loop so the other events (player etc) can keep running


I hope that helps and makes some sort of sense
M.

[sanctum]

Cheers mas.

I forgot to actually post my code, but you are right, most of it is nested in a big REPEAT loop:

The start of the code looks like this:
REPEAT 5
LET COLUMN = D
LET LINE = A
PUTBLOCK 1
ADD 1 TO D
ENDREPEAT

LET D = 9
DELAY 5

REPEAT 5
LET COLUMN = D
LET LINE = A
PUTBLOCK 2
ADD 1 TO D
ENDREPEAT

LET D = 9
DELAY 5

REPEAT 5
LET COLUMN = D
LET LINE = A
PUTBLOCK 3
ADD 1 TO D
ENDREPEAT

DELAY 100
LET D = 9

REPEAT 5
LET COLUMN = D
LET LINE = A
PUTBLOCK 2
ADD 1 TO D
ENDREPEAT

LET D = 9
DELAY 20

REPEAT 5
LET COLUMN = D
LET LINE = A
PUTBLOCK 3
ADD 1 TO D
ENDREPEAT

LET D = 9
DELAY 5

(its a bit messy, Ive got column on a D variable but I probably dont need that)

this is the start of the code which draws the blocks at the bottom of the screen, then I have a big repeat loop that advances the spikes up the screen, repeating the process over and over but moving up one block each time.

Ill try sticking it in some variables instead. I think that could work well. Thanks for the help!

[mas]

yeah, I think in this case as you have different sections (to advance the spikes a bit at a time) you probably need to drop the delays and use a timing loop

(in the game init event)
LET S = 0 ; seconds
LET T = 0 ; frames per second - let's say up to 24 for 25fps

(in the mainloop with the spikes)
ADD 1 TO T
IF T > 24
LET T = 0
ADD 1 TO S
IF S > 60
LET S = 0
; could also increment a minute counter if you wanted to
ENDIF
ENDIF

;; then with your loops

IF S = 3 ; so after 3 seconds
 IF T = 0 ; so only trigger once - I forgot to add this originally, adding it now in edit
REPEAT 5
LET COLUMN = D
LET LINE = A
PUTBLOCK 1
ADD 1 TO D
ENDREPEAT

LET D = 9

ENDIF ; T = 0 check

ENDIF ; S = 3 check

IF S = 4 ; so 4 seconds since the timer started, 1 second since the last spike advanced
;; if the Second is too slow, you could track the FPS and instead advance every 5 T; so 5,10,15,20,0
;; but you'd probably need a thing to say "move now" outside of this, and then these would

;; check for some other trigger. In my previous code, I used OBJ to trigger something to happen

IF T = 0 ; so only once a second

REPEAT 5
LET COLUMN = D
LET LINE = A
PUTBLOCK 2
ADD 1 TO D
ENDREPEAT

LET D = 9

ENDIF ; T = 0

ENDIF ; S = 4

... ...
... ... etc.

Good luck.
M

[sanctum]

thanks a lot for the help.
Heres another question. 

In an effort to tidy up my code and free up some variables I tried:
REPEAT 5

ADD 1 TO COLUMN

PUTBLOCK 1
ENDREPEAT

I also tried:
REPEAT 5
PUTBLOCK 1
ADD 1 TO COLUMN

ENDREPEAT

both these result in the spikes being spaced 2 blocks apart (see picture, I want them in a row right next to each other, not spaced like that)
this loop seems to add 2 to column each time

the code that works is this:

REPEAT 5

PUTBLOCK 1
ENDREPEAT

I don't understand how/why this works.  There is nothing in the loop that tells it to add 1 to column but it still does. If I had a better understanding of it I might get whats going wrong with my codes

[mas]

Hi again, no worries, glad the advice has been useful.

With PUTBLOCK and COLUMN. The default behaviour is to PUT a BLOCK on the screen and then increment the COLUMN value; similar how it is when you PRINT to the screen and if you don't change the LINE / COLUMN values, the next thing you print or DISPLAY will be at the next column along.

So, for what you're doing; getting a line of 5 spikes in a row, all you need to do is set the COLUMN for the starting spike, and then the

REPEAT 5
PUTBLOCK 1
ENDREPEAT

will display [Spike][Spike][Spike][Spike][Spike]

When you ADD 1 TO COLUMN in your REPEAT loop, what you actually are doing is

PUTBLOCK 1 displays a block on screen and adds 1 to COLUMN

ADD 1 TO COLUMN adds another 1 to column

When you then repeat for the next BLOCK, it has advanced the COLUMN by 2 (one from the PUTBLOCK, one from the ADD 1 TO COLUMN) which is why you end up getting:

[Spike] gap [Spike] gap [Spike] gap [Spike] gap [Spike ] gap

If you exceed the 32 characters per line, it should reset the COLUMN to 0 and increment the LINE; only a problem if you're doing something on the right hand side of the screen as you'll have to keep checking/ setting the position correctly.

Hope that helps / makes sense.
M.

[sanctum]

Oohhhh! I did not know it worked like that. Thanks!