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[Ninomojo]

Hi there,

I'm a beginner with Game Maker. I'm trying to create a small game for 4 or more players at the same time. All players will look and behave the same, same animations, just their colors will change (P1 will be red, P2 blue, P3 green, etc.)

I would like to know what's the most elegant way to duplicate the "oPlayer" object, while swapping the sprites for others that have a different color, and swapping the inputs for different ones (because obviously the same keys aren't gonna work for several players).

Do I have to load all color variation of the player sprites and duplicate oPlayer into separate objects like oPlayer_2,.... oPlayer_8 ? Or is there an elegant way for me to just create ONE player object, and then changing its sprites and controls when I instantiate it?

Thanks!

Romain

[Ninomojo]

To put it another way, if I were doing this in Blitz here's one of the ways I would try:

I would load player sprites into an array for P1, another for P2 etc. And then I would put those arrays into another array, and each instance of a player would poke their sprites from this higher array using their player ID number. Example:

player_sprites[player_ID].sprite[sprite_index_for_a_given_animation]

[dbb]

You could assign different sprites to different instances of the same object, but you'll probably want to create separate objects for each player, as they'll be accepting different keyboard / gamepad input.

What I'd suggest is creating one parent object containing all the code and stuff that's common to all players, then have a number of child objects where you just specify the stuff specific to each player, such as what sprite to use and which keys do what. Look up "inheritance" in the GM documentation if you don't understand what I'm talking about.

I'm not an expert, though; if someone else tells you something totally different, you might be better going with what they say.

[Matt Thorson]

I'd recommend having one player object with a variable designating which player number it is.

For player input, just call scripts with the player number as an argument, such as:

Code:

if (check_jump( player_num ))
   jump();

Within that script you'd then handle all the jump checks for the various player numbers.

For the sprites, just assign the sprite to the player at the same time you assign its player number:

Code:

obj.player_num = 1;
obj.sprite_index = spr_player1;

OR draw different sprites in the draw event based on player number:

Code:

if (player_num == 1)
  draw_sprite( spr_player1, image_index, x, y );
else if ...

[dbb]

Yeah. What he said. 

[Ninomojo]

I'd recommend having one player object with a variable designating which player number it is.

For player input, just call scripts with the player number as an argument, such as:

Code:

if (check_jump( player_num ))
   jump();

Within that script you'd then handle all the jump checks for the various player numbers.

For the sprites, just assign the sprite to the player at the same time you assign its player number:

Code:

obj.player_num = 1;
obj.sprite_index = spr_player1;

OR draw different sprites in the draw event based on player number:

Code:

if (player_num == 1)
  draw_sprite( spr_player1, image_index, x, y );
else if ...

Hey thanks, I didn't think of the Draw event based on player number!
But, how could I adapt that to multiple sprites per player? (you kno, one for running, one for jumping, etc.).

Is there a way to "load" sprites in arrays in Game Maker or something similar?

[Noel Berry]

Yup. You can make a variable equal the id of a sprite.

for example:

Code:

running_spr = sprite_name;
walking_spr = sprite_name;

etc.
or, you can put it in an array:

Code:

sprite[0] = sprite_name;
sprite[1] = sprite_name;

and then, depending on which one you want, you set the sprite_index to it, ex:

Code:

sprite_index = running_spr;
or
sprite_index = sprite[0]

and then if you still wanted to draw it, you could just go ahead and draw the sprite_index:

Code:

draw_sprite(sprite_index,image_index,x,y);

EDIT:
Actually, thinking about it, you could do something like:

Code:

sprite[0,0] = sprP1_Running;
sprite[0,1] = sprP1_Jumping;

sprite[1,0] = sprP2_Running;
sprite[1,1] = sprP2_Jumping;

sprite[2,0] = sprP3_Running;
sprite[2,1] = sprP3_Jumping;

and then all you'd have to do to set the sprite is:

Code:

sprite_index = sprite[player_num,0];

(for the running one, in this case)

[Ninomojo]

Two dimensional arrays rule:)
Thanks a lot Drazzke!

So in fact sprite_index are kind of pointers? Anyway thank you so much, I'm gonna try that.

[ChevyRay]

They are actually integers. Everything is an integer in game maker.

show_message(string(object_index));
show_message(string(sprite_index));
show_message(string(path_index));
show_message(string(background_index));
etc.

Will all give you integers, which you can pass around to other variables, or use to reference those particular resources.

[Hideous]

Actually, everything is a Double in game maker because game maker is stupid.

[Ninomojo]

Very useful info, thank you all.