Scorpion Engine

[Mixel]

The flipping entire animations feature is amazing. Thanks Earok and BitBeamCannon!

Aand thanks again for having me, that's a lot of game to have recreated in 2 sessions!

[earok]

No worries! It was great to have you on stream.

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Another experimental update sponsored by Bit Beam Cannon!

* Insert new codeblock line inserts the new line at the cursor, not at the bottom of the codeblock.
* Can delete using delete on the keyboard
* Can insert new line using enter on the keyboard
* Pressing up and down on Code tab will go up and down the lines of code, not the codeblocks
* Rearranged codeblock inspector so that disabled is in a fixed position.
* Ctrl+X will cut a line
* Ctrl+C will copy a line
* Ctrl+V will paste a line

Note that copy+pasting uses the system's clipboard, it's technically possible to post codeblock lines into notepad etc but you'll just get a JSON serialization of the line.

[acidbottle]

Holy smokes earok, what a great couple of updates! The insert line anywhere option is one of my top wanted features! Am not 100% sure, but sometimes line duplication jumps around the codeblock, pretty sure I seen it happen to Mixel to!

I do have a question in regards to auto scroll. This can obviously be set with set scrollspeed, however, with sprite parallax I guess things are a little different here. Is there some simple logic (based on the amazing gothicvania demo) that can be used to auto scroll the x axis, my endeavours have so far been fruitless.

I was hoping it will be possible to freely walk around the game area while the screen auto scrolls with parallax, like a simple shooter really!

[domkid]

Great update, many thanks Earok and Bit Beam Cannon

[earok]

@Domkid cheers!

@AcidBottle no worries! I think this check in will fix the "line jumping around" issue.

Regarding autoscroll, I'm not sure what the issue is *but* given that the AGA parallax system really just uses plain actors, there must be a way to achieve the effect you want. You could try experimenting with the camera lock control type maybe?

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Latest experimental check in sponsored by Bit Beam Cannon:

* Fix for previously reported issue where inserting a new line on an empty codeblock would throw an error
* Fix for previously reported issue where, if rearranging lines was the only change made, it wouldn't trigger a save
* Added ability to select all lines with CTRL+A
* Added ability to select a range of lines with SHIFT+CLICK
* Added ability to select individual lines with CTRL+CLICK
* Added ability to cut, copy and paste multiple selected lines

Note that there's no support for multi-line dragging.. yet. If you try to drag a line when you have a selection, only that one line will be dragged. Of course you can currently cut+paste in the same codeblock to achieve the same effect.

[saimon69]

Am starting to feel similarities with Actionscript; do we have to expect soon a "scorpionScript" ECMA compliant? (joking but not too much, i used to develop in actionscript 1)

[earok]

New update into experimental from Tsak - improvements to the sword and the animation in the GothicVania demo!

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@saimon69 not really any plans for anything ECMA compliant! The original version of Scorpion featured script based on Inkle, if there's ever a way to code in pure text again it'll no doubt be based on that again.

[saimon69]

Would say more 'when' than if ^^

[acidbottle]

Originally Posted by earok

Regarding autoscroll, I'm not sure what the issue is *but* given that the AGA parallax system really just uses plain actors, there must be a way to achieve the effect you want. You could try experimenting with the camera lock control type maybe?

Thanks earok, had a quick bash with various actor types and finally managed to get auto scrolling and parallax working in harmony

The SSCAN2 flag is such a powerful feature, opens up more possibilities than I have time for!

On a more specific note, I do have one issue that Im still struggling with, I hope there is a solution as its more a niggle than anything major. However, we have collision types (block, none, bounce etc) and this is not only for blocks but the screen edges as well. Would there be any possibility for this to work as intended but to be able to exclude a specific tile or tiles?

The example is I have an actor (cpu_platform) that is jumping up through platforms, with collision to none, but when gravity pulls the actor down (with collision set to none) it falls right down through the map!

Have looked at several different games and demos and have not seen this particular scenario, I suspect many will avoid having enemies falling down through a platform (unless its flying or floating).

Just wondering

[Mixel]

It sounds a bit weird but you want them to sit on bottom specifically but pass through platforms above? Can you put a timer event on them that switches the actor type when actor_y is within a distance of Mapheight?

If you want the jumping actor to do this everywhere I guess you’d make it set an actor_var on spawn, which would be its jump origin, then put a timer on it that tracks the y pos in relation to that so it only becomes a platform colliding actor at the last second so can jump through stuff.. uhh..

I think I’m going to use this on my fish now, lol, I’ve had to adjust their jump height on a level by level basis to avoid them jumping up the map but this is a much better solution.

[acidbottle]

Hey mixel, thanks for having a think about this! Please let me know how you get on, if you try this on your characters.

I once tried the on spawn / timer thing but never worked properly for me, for some reason or another. However, all this was very early in the wboy development and my grasp of logic was not as good, therefore it may no longer cause an issue. Will revisit this idea anyway

[earok]

If you want a "floor" with some holes in it, the simplest solution would be to make the map 1 tile taller and disable up/down scrolling. Then you can put solid tiles where ever you want. You could maybe cover the whole lot with solid blocks that trigger a "destroy block" when the player collides with them (so the player can fall through them to his death)


.. I really should have applied that solution to Amigo the Fox, I did something very hacky to stop fish falling through to the void.

[acidbottle]

Awesome, will look at both methods, both now sound very plausible!

[earok]

Latest check in to experimental: String variables.

Some notes:
1. You need to set the type of variable (previously just 'variable' or 'constant') to string.
2. String manipulation commands are in the Data category. Only just "set character" and "clear string" right now.
3. The default value of the string must also be the maximum length of the string. If you just want a name with three characters, setting the value to ABC will suffice. But you can clear the string and repopulate it with fewer characters (as per the example).
4. Untested, but saving/loading should work on string vars. So you might be able to make something like in Zelda where each of the save slots has it's own name.
5. If you put only one character value in the expression box, it'll interpret that character as it's ASCII value. If you use more than one character, it'll assume you're attempting to use the raw value of the ASCII character you want.
6. The dialogue sample is back in experimental, updated to use the new string manipulation commands.
7. Both string variables and numeric variables can be added to print commands with {variablename}. Numeric values have also been upgraded too (to just print the required number of variables, also it works properly with negative numbers)



That's probably going to be it for features for 2022.3, I want to do a few bug fixes before making it final. Do let me know if there's any breaking bugs that should be addressed before I do an official launch.

Edit: Added a string replacement function that should make it easier to make multilingual games

[acidbottle]

Absolutely incredible update, again! Made quick work of implementing strings vars, thought it was going to take quite a while

Much appreciated!

[Mixel]

Woo! Excellent update. Highscore tables seem doable now. Thanks! So much potential, people will do all sorts with this.

[earok]

Thanks guys!

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Did another experimental update:

* Fix for issue reported by BitBeamCannon, the "projectile_x" (etc) variable wasn't pointing to the right actor IF an event was called from OnTimer, the fix was reasonably straight forward but - hopefully this shouldn't break any existing projects. I'll test all of my sample games before doing a release.
* Fix for issue reported by Mixel where games weren't loading correctly on workbench unless run from a shell.
* Projects now have a "defaulticon.info" file, you can replace this if you want a default icon for workbench releases etc
* Added one-click LHA workbench export

Note that the names inside the LHA file reflect the filename itself. So if you export to amigo.lha, you can expect the LHA to contain:

- Folder named Amigo (with an icon for that folder)
- Executable named Amigo with an icon named Amigo.info
this (hopefully) will be the final experimental update for 2022.3 unless any breaking bugs come up while testing all of the official and unofficial sample games

[acidbottle]

Great stuff with the update!

May have found a bug though, its not from a recent update either as I watched some older videos. Am astonished I hadn't spotted it before!

It relates to an animation not triggering whatsoever. Platform_cpu up animations do not trigger at all, but animations for downwards are fine. The actor has not been changed at all since when it did work okay.

Maybe its project specific ...

[earok]

@acidbottle I'll need source code with a replication of the bug to investigate

[acidbottle]

Thanks earok, have checked in the latest build just now. The red squid animation (going upwards) is not triggering, you can see this as soon as you start the game.

Appreciate you taking a look, probs something very simple