1. Joshua Meyer Workflow Document
To start development of my game I first started work on the
player sprites. To start a new sprite, I right click on ‘sprites’
in the assets tab on the side and click Create Sprite.
The sprite properties window will open and from here you
can create new sprites, load old sprites and edit them, but
for now I am just interested in making the player sprite.
First I must decide on a name for my player sprite that is apropriate and and easily recognisable from
other player assets I may make in the future. Once I’ve decided on a name I click Edit sprite and
begin designing the player sprite.
Designing the sprite was pretty easy thanks to the editor being simple to use and I am working at a
small resolution. The drawing tools are very similar to MS Paint making designing the sprites very
familiar.
2. Now that I have the sprite for the player its time to make the player object. Just like making a new
sprite, you right click on ‘objects’ in the asset tab and select ‘create new object’. Keeping the palyer
sprite and the player object seprate will be important later so for now I gave the player object an
‘_obj’ tag in its name. Umder the sprite section I selected the palyer sprite I had made previousy and
then I made othe object visible and solid.
Lastly, I will code the movement controls into the player object and get it ready for testing in a level.
The movement controls are fairly easy to code and will use pre-existing movement values in game
maker but I will still have control over the speed at wich the player object moves. Using an “if”
statement I can check, with “keyboard_check”, if any keys are being pressed on the keyboard. Using
the “ord” function I can check the classic computer controls W, A, S and D and assign a variable to
them. For this game, the player object doesn’t have to move to quickly so 8 pixels should be fine.
3. Once keyboard controls are coded the only thing left to do before testing is creating the level .
Creating a level is as easy as creating a new sprite or object. Right click on ‘rooms’ in the asset tab
and select ‘create room’. The dimentions for my room are 1024 pixels by 576 pixels, in line with the
specifications provided. Once the room has been created I need to add my player object to begin
testing and developing my game. Under the objects tab in room properties I found a drop down list
of objects to select my ship from. Once I selected my player object I just left clicked anywhere to
place the selected object anywhere in the level.
At the moment there are no level boundries meaning I could fly
off the screen at any moment. Adding boundries is simple and
is done back in the movement controls sctript. starting a new
line in the movement controls script I set the “limits” for each
direction the ship can move and now that I have a level to test
in I can confirm that everything works as intended.
4. Now I just need to add a scrolling background to give the illusion of movement. Drawing inspiration
from sci-fi movies and shows I recreated stars moving very quickly as if the player ship was moving at
‘warp speed’ so to say. Under the backgrounds tab in the room properties I selected some
backgrounds I made previously, set them to scroll across at different speeds and saved my level.
