yeah, i can answer this question, give me a bit
@BustedAstromech’s answer is technically correct but kind of confusing in the context of construct
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you’re copying the family object and not just the group of sprites, yeah? you should have multiple instances of the family listed wherever the list of object instances in the layout is (im hazy on UI stuff at this point)
if you’ve got that correct (post a screenshot), then take a look at the event you made for keeping track of Health (post that for me too). the Health of the ships should be an instance variable of the Family, because each ship has its own Health. when you set up the conditions for the event, it’s probably something like “collision of bullet with family,” yeah? that’s one of those conditions that “filters down” all the instances of the family to just the instances it applies to (families that are colliding with a bullet that frame) so any changes you make to the family’s instance variable there will only affect the instances it applies to. hopefully that doesn’t sound more confusing written out, lol. but yeah show me what you have and i can tell you which of those issues it is
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Thanks for your help! Okay, first step:
The problem is, I can’t copy families. So, no, I don’t have multiple instances of it in the right hand window. I mean I get that that would be the solution but it seems the only way to do that is to manually set up family after family, as you can’t copy or clone them. I’ll try that out and see how much work that really is, if it’s manageable, because I already forgot lol
creating multiple instances of a family should definitely be possible, unless it’s like, a free version limitation or something?
wait, hm, let me google this
edit: my bad, you want Containers, not families, i just mixed up the terms
Ahhh so I just spawn one of the sprites in the container! That should spawn the entire thing… Lemme try
Stuff like that is when Unity started making a lot more sense to me.
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Thanks, I figured both things out, the spawning and the independent health.
Some things sure take getting used to. When I compare values, like, if left wing health is 0, and then say add 1 to CockpitDestroy I expect that variable to be 1 when the wing is destroyed. But Construct didn’t mean IF left wing health is x when comparing values, it means WHILE left wing health is 0. So I ended up with huge random numbers when I checked. At least I think that’s what happened. Well, one of the many things that happened and were wrong. Some things are just not spelled out precisely.
But I am happy with it. It’s easy enough!
Now back to taking on more problems
I haven’t used Construct, but in my experience an IF check is performed once every frame, so you’ll have things like you describe happen. A WHILE check is performed repeatedly until the condition changes, and nothing will continue until the WHILE stops going. So basically it would freeze the game unless something changes.
Oh. Well I don’t know what I’m talking about. Thank god that doesn’t keep me from game deving in 2018. Wondrous times, y’all
Anybody know of any good free 2D asset sites? I’m mainly just looking for a top down water or ground tileset and some clouds maybe. So I don’t go blind testing this. What I’ve got is… there. But I could use an upgrade
Tbh, I box out everything w/ the colors I want right now. I can’t put in any kind of placeholders anymore. It is too ugly and skews the final product. Obviously, that’s not where I started, but that’s where I am now, so… just putting it out there for a new dev
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I appreciate the advice though! I wish I could keep it simple like that because having things look concrete and yet not anywhere near the style of the final game is indeed irritating. It… makes me feel bad. And it’s unnecessary effort.
I do it because I want to get a feel for how different sprites look in action and at different resolutions. Just as a learning experience for me. All of that could wait though.
Okay so I got the Destruction Engine™ running (its not an engine) and also the scaling/moving between layers.
I feel like I’m constantly “hacking” Construct. Like it behaves so weirdly sometimes. For example, I pin all the sprites that make up an enemy together so they move together. Then I unpin them as the ship gets shot up. But the thing is I can’t unpin the one sprite I used to spawn the whole thing. If I do that it will unpin all instances of the enemy ship on screen. Try as I might I couldn’t get around that. Tried a whole day. So my work around is to create an EnemySpawnSprite, make it invisible, pin it to the ship and just not unpin that one, just use it to spawn the whole ship. Then everything works fine. Now of course such things might come back around and bite you in the ass later but so far… 
This was also my experience with Game Maker. I often wonder if this is just how games are developed, or if it is me who just doesn’t understand things
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it’s both
Games are an elaborate series of hacks to simulate, poorly, things like physics and thought and light and everything.
Most problems have a ‘clever solution’ but the reasons why one is valid and one is not matter at scale and performance and bugginess.
If something is not giving you trouble and you’re not planning to develop for years then hack away. Really! It’s better your thing be brought forth into the world.
If you’re planning on this project being larger than the work you can do in a year then you may want to ask for help so you don’t find yourself at the bottom of the hole you just dug.
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It’s possible to make your MMF, Construct, Game Maker game less hackable than Super Mario Bros. But is it necessary? I don’t know.
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