Airboard

Update Two
So my main goal for this update was to get collision detecting working right on-board and off, so that you didn't just warp around the screen as sometimes happened when you flew into a ceiling before. I'm sorry I didn't let you guys play with that version, I suppose-- eventually I'll get over myself and post versions that still have the game-debilitating bugs unfixed.

The reasons it took so long are numerous and varied, but it mostly boils down to a lot of Gamemaker's internal variables sucking. Its collision-detection system is... lacking. At best. So I had to write my own, based on a solid piece of code Mehgamehn shared with me. The rest of this tale is rather... dry, so I'mma just throw it in this spoiler.

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Spoiler
The specific piece of code Mehg gave me was this:

Code:

repeat(abs(py_vsd)) //Does not activate if py_vsd = 0(if on the ground)
    {
    if !place_meeting(x,y+sign(py_vsd),obj_wall) y+=sign(py_vsd) else py_vsd=0;
    }
    if !place_meeting(x,y+1,obj_wall) py_vsd+=1; //this sets the artificial gravity

The code basically just moves the character one pixel at a time, checking for collisions the whole time, instead of simply jumping to the next spot, so I hopefully won't get anything stuck in the floor anymore.

The piece of code used its own vertical speed, which meant not using Gamemaker's. Using the internal one as I did at the start resulted in the character dropping doubly fast, because Gamemaker handles falling on its own! So... Yeah that had to go. And with it, the internal horizontal speed as well. So once I did that, I realized I was also using the speed/direction polar-coordinate velocity for handling all of the inair stuff.... and promptly placed my head in my hands. Where gamemaker converted hspeed and vspeed to speed and direction automatically, I now have to do it all myself any time one of them is changed. After finally coding everything up all nice and neat, I realize I coded for a solid hour before checking to make sure I wasn't doing things wrong. I proceed to spend the next few hours stumped by a stupid typo-- basically having an 'and' instead of an 'or' in my composite vertical/horizontal collision code (a modified version of the above code) broke everything. You'd think I'd eventually learn to think more critically about those sorts of things but welp. As it turns out, the internal vspeed and hspeed have something to do with screenwrapping, because just being outside the room doesn't trigger the "outside of room" flag that wrapped the screen. Thankfully that was pretty simple! But frustrating before I got around to doing it.

So that was last night. This session I was mostly working on cosmetic things like toning down the contrails and trying to fix the brakes which weren't happy with the new speed variables. And uh, that's it?

So after rigorous playtesting (Talking to Superfrequency after she played it) it was determined that left and right felt much more natural than up and down for tilting-- left and right was my original system, but I initially changed it because there are some problems that I've yet to fix (I did sink some time into solutions, but they didn't turn out so great) such as, if you're walking left and you jump and get on the board, you'll start tilting forwards and wind up going straight into the ground (or curving and hitting the underside of the platform). That's not so fun! I'm not sure what to do about it.
With up and down freed, up now thrusts and down flips you around. I've put the "mount board" button on the same button as jump so you can double jump to work it instead of hitting X then Z. Dismounting is still Z, though that could change? No controls are set for indefinititude.
New to the brake button: HOVERING! Maybe this'll be a powerup you get later (Maybe even thrusting will? WHO KNOWS) but now while holding the brake button © you can move around. I'll probably add some sort of balancer code later to tilt you upright after a bit, so you don't hover in place upside down indefinitely (it just looks a bit weird to me, anyway). Maybe you could be locked in that mode for gradius-y bits or something? My mind is aflutter at the possibilities.

So anyway, the Big List O' Features:

• Ground!
  
• Collisions and Jumping!
  
• Hoverin' 'Round!
  

CONTROLS
Onboard:
THRUST - Up Arrow
Tilt Counterclockwise - Left Arrow
Tilt Clockwise - Right Arrow
Flip Facing - Back Arrow
Brake - 'C'
Dismount - 'Z'

Offboard:
Left - Left Arrow
Right - Right Arrow
Jump - 'X'
Mount - 'X' (while in the air)

-Build 3-