Health/Energy bars?

[lamptonworm]

Hi all,

I'm after ideas on how to do health/energy bars in AGD - thinking about a global var for health then using a custom char and a repeat loop to draw the bar, any other approaches come to mind?

Cheers,
LW.

[andrewvanbeck]

I'd do the same, like make 8 characters for the bar and use the appropriate one at the end of a string.
I'd stick with using characters - there are probably a few ways to do it, but they might rely on PUTBLOCK or additional sprites, or even custom ASM code - none of which is ideal... characters are straightforward and quick, and you probably won't need to have lower case letters, so the benefits are stacked in it's favour. At least until the new version of AGD arrives, that might have some drawing commands for us.

[alessandro]

I already did this in Cronopios Y Famas and Cousin Horace (level 3). No fussing around with PUTBLOCK etc., this is a safe and reliable method.

Basically, the health value is assigned to a variable which lower and higher values are also the COLUMN values of the health bar. The bar itself is part of the frontend screen, which surrounds the window area, and is reloaded from memory whenever needed. A possible variation could imply using a text line from within AGD, made with a specifically redefined character in the game font, which could also be used to show energy being replenished when the character performs a certain action, or dies and the player has another life left. See any of the two games above to have an idea of what I am talking about; download links can be found in the AGD Releases forum section.

The following code is taken from Cronopios Y Famas and refers to the code pertaining to an enemy character sprite:

IF COLLISION 0          ; collision with the player sprite
 IF A = 0              ; delay to avoid player sprite health being immediately depleted
   LET LINE 5
   LET COLUMN H        ; the rightmost part of the health bar is also the current health value
   COLOUR 71
   MESSAGE 1           ; overwrites the rightmost character of the bar with a space (thus deleting it)
   BEEP 50
   DELAY 5
   SUBTRACT 1 TO H     ; health value is diminished by one
   IF H = 9            ; if the health value reaches the leftmost part of the bar, it has been depleted
     KILL              ; and the player character is killed
   ENDIF
 ENDIF
ENDIF


[lamptonworm]

Thanks both!