Wednesday 1 July 2015

Berzerk - how it works

Game and Title Events are fairly straightforward. The first is just a collection of includes, the second displays the title screen (see right) and functions in the same way as Asteroids.

Globals is mostly (err..) globals but does have a reset check - setting resetGame non zero starts a new game. This game restarts the layout when a life is lost or when the room changes.

MazeCreate is in many ways not dissimilar to the Pacman game, in that it tidies up the position, width and heights of the walls (events 7-11). The majority of the rest of the code implements the Berzerk pseudo random number generator explained here. This uses the room coordinates (x and y) to generate a random sequence which is predictable. The nested for conditions (3-6) set this up, and 4,5 and 6 adjust the position of the 'room middle bars' as extracted from the random seed (the "Set Wall to" in event 3)

Player handles the player code. Event 2 cancels firing - the animation and movement is disabled when the fire key is pressed. Events 3 to 11 manipulate an 8Direction behaviour in two ways, once to the set animation, and another to set the current direction, if any, in instance variables lastVectorX/Y so that the player knows which way to fire.

Event 12 handles actual firing, and 13-18 set the correct firing animation (it sort of "points a gun")

Event 19 handles the collision with 'non fatal walls' - these are not visible (there is one on each exit) and collision with this moves to another room. playerX/Y is the new direction (set in 20,21) and changeX/changeY set the direction of movement (event 20 and 21). Evemt 22 9 not wraps it, stops the game, movement, destroys everything except the frame and plays the audio (23 and 24) depending on whether there are any robots or not.

Event 25 handles scrolling - when you move, the current room 'scrolls off' and 25 to 26 does this, restarting the layout (next room) at the end.

Event 27  handles the bonus count (when you destroy all robots in a room) and this is done in the collision code. The rest are functions which update lives and score

Robots handles robots. The first thing we do is create them, one (possibly) in each of the 5 x 3 'quadrants' of the room, providing they aren't too close (1-5). There is a short delay before it starts - when it does (6,7,8) it starts moving, decides whether it is chasing horizontally or vertically and starts a timer which regularly flips the chase direction, and one for trying to fire.

Events 9 to 18 handle setups for the different robot types, which is dependent on the score, see strategywiki.org for what appears when.

Events 19 to 22 handle movement. It moves in the current direction (evaluateMove function works this out) and if it is overlapping a wall (the else in 21 is fired) it toggles the direction it is chasing in. Event 22 causes it to toggle randomly anyway.

Events 23 to 26 handle firing. Each robot keeps a count of how many it can fire total, and how many it has left. When it fires one, it decrements "bulletsLeft", but each bullet knows who fired it. When the bullet is destroyed the "bulletsLeft" value is incremented (in the colllision code). Event 24 works out the angle to the player, but the bullets only fire in diagonal or straight directions - the or in 25 checks this as "near enough" and the direction is ironed out to the nearest 45. Finally 26 doubles the speed if it is a fast shooting robot.

Event 27 is a function which works out which way the robot should move into the dx and dy instance variables, and sets the animation appropriately. It gets a Robot UID as a parameter.

Events 31-33 handle the infamous evil Otto. A timer to create him is set up in 31, He is created in 32 and the sine behaviour adjusted. This handles the vertical position automatically, but event 33 adjusts him horizontally with a simple chase, doubling the speed if there are no robots left.

Collisions handles (surprise...) The first 3 just stop all bullets against walls and other bullets. Events 4 and 5 allow RobotBullets to kill the player, and a robot (if it isn't the spawning robot). Event 6 allows player to kill robots, 7 and 8 stop collision with the wall or Otto, 9 allows Robots to blow up on collision with the players orrobots, and Event 10 fires if the robot hits a wall (which shouldn't happen !)

The consequences are dealt with in 11 on. Event 11 fires if the player dies, and spawns an explosion which for some reason fires in Event 17 (disorganised ....). Event 12 and 13 handle Robot Bullet destruction and the incrementing of "allowed bullets for this robot". Event 14-16 handle scoring for robot death, and the bonus (note Count = 1 because it still exists). Events 17-19 handle life lost at the end of the explosion(either go back to the title screen or restart the same layout)

Finally 20 starts the game off.

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