Game Maker Progress 5: New Patrolling AI, Abilities and Controller Support

Hello everyone,

I am excited to show you and tell you about certain new additions I have made to Sky High in the past week! Let's start with a new patrolling AI.

The new patrol AI is able to climb 1-tile high blocks and go down 1-tile high ledges. It's simple - but it does add some new potential ideas and create more interesting enemies. One of the ideas I was thinking of is an enemy that rushes the player - this is made better if the enemy is able to jump up and down at least 1 tile high obstacles! As you can see by the yellow square (I've used it to test the code before I actually try it with an enemy) it can climb up the 2 steps - but once it reachs the 2 + high wall - it turns back and climbs back down!

Another feature I've been trying out is adding a few abilities! I've kept the first 3 simple - Shield, Rapid-fire and Speed respectively. The shield makes the player invincible for a time, rapid-fire removes the cool-down timer on the attack and speed adds to the players maximum movement speed. I am currently thinking of what abilities would make the game more interesting and whether or not to include ways to upgrade or change the abilities via collectibles - I'll likely toy with the idea this week. As you can see in the image above - underneath the icon for the ability you have the cool-down timer when it is unavailable (it also becomes greyed out) and the hot-key when it is ready to activate! Which brings me to my other addition!

I have added controller support - more particularly I used an xbox 360 controller to code it but I believe it works just as well with other controllers such as a play-station controller. In case you were wondering - the hot-keys for the abilities also change if you have a controller attached;

The game feels much better and more fun to play using a controller - which does bring up the thought on how I could improve the use of a keyboard if the player chooses to go with that route. Although part of the comfort of playing with a controller I found to just be inherit to it being a controller - however if I find ways to improve a keyboard-play experience; that'd be better!

Until next time,
Dylan