Is lemmings possible in flash?

[junahu]

I've tried to make a lemmings footer and it's almost perfectly finished (except a nice user panel and a few stats but I can do that on my own)

My big problem is that I deform the terrain and lemming bridges by pasting black movieclips into a movieclip that appears at a higher layer than the terrain movieclip. This means of course that bridges (in the terrain movieclip) cannot be then built over the movieclip with black holes in it.

This is a serious gameplay error and renders tactical use of bridges useless.

Does anyone have any non processor intensive solutions or alternatives? Or even suggestions?

(I.e I don't want to paste bridges and holes into the same movieclip and then have EVERY lemming hittest EVERY hole and bridge component then comparing their depths to determine whether the bridge has a hole in it or not)

see for yourself how annoying my connundrum is

[APDesign]

oh man, I was TOTALLY going to do that!!! I busted out my Super Nintendo and played some lemmings and I was like "I so want to make this game in flash" but it looks like you beat me to it :(

that is the coolest thing I have ever seen, by the way.

[junahu]

Thanks. It means a lot. But I still haven't made it completely glitch proof (one such glitch is putting blockers of bridges but that won't be hard to sort out.). After that I may think of making some nice pretty levels.

[Marz]

Not a bad start on it.. But after trying to play the thing, even with the controls the way you have them, it's literally impossible to grab the right lemming all the time.

Not a bad idea though. But I'd suggest making it a full blown game instead of a footer, for simplicity sakes and for better gameplay. =)

As for your problem. The way you did it, is unfortunately the fastest way possible. Which leads to your significant problem or, when you get too many.. Would the game start slowing down heavily?

Yes.. It will.. Of course you already know that, but it will.

My personal suggestion would be to have multiple drawing API blocks scattered around the playing field. Using the drawing API inside of these blocks, you could create the holes easily by messing around with the layout of things.

As for the bridges, you are pretty much stuck with what you have. You could lessen the load by creating sectors.. But that's about it... Saying that if a lemming is in sector 1, only do the hitTests in that sector.. Then when placing a new block.. Assign them to a certain sector as well.. Use variables alot.. They save processor intensive decisions.. Especially since the standard for having memory in your computer is so high anyways, use those memory blocks.

These are the only things I can think up now bro.. If you need any more ideas or if you need to know how to do any of the above mentioned... Just give me a hollar then.

[SeiferTim]

Wow. Looks cool, except that it's EXTREMELY small!! I couldn't tell what I was doing.... I think it may be hard to pull off a *convincing* lemmings in flash, since in the original lemmings, they were able to cut into the ground, and things, unless you make sort of a dynamic mask image, that overlays your ground/walls...
If you enlarge the stage itself, and make it easier to "grab" a lemming, I think you could be onto something...
I think another good feature would be to have the "jobs" menu always visable, while perhaps assigning them each a HotKey, like perhaps the F-Keys, or the Number keys so that the player can quickly change jobs....
This may end up being something really hard to pull off, but if you manage it, it'll be awesome!
"Let's Go!"

[APDesign]

how the hell did you get the digging to work? Are you using some sort of tile based system or something? The thing that always pisses me off when I want to make a game is the hit testing, how to make it accurate and such. How did you make it so the ground actually dissapears and the hit testing changes accordingly? ( I know you probably didn't use hitTest(); (supposedly its slow?) it's just the best way to describte it)

[junahu]

I used the quickest (and therefor dumbest) method I could think of. I duplicate movie clips of holes into a movieclip above the terrain but below the lemmings. Lemmings then hitTest with both the movieclip with holes in and the terrain. If they're standing in both moviclips then that lemming is in a hole that has been carved into the terrain. It's simpler than it sounds, but yes, it's kind of slow when done excessively.

I can reduce the click area for the lemmings and have the green borders visible only on the lemming you're dealing with, I think. Then I could bring the lemming that you have your mouse over in front of the other lemmings.

Some of the animations are a bit bare (e.g. when building builders suddenly jump to the block they just built rather than stepping over to it and blockers don't do the detonation animation). And I need to reimplement lemming debris (little arms and legs everywhere).

I would probably do well to remove the sin wave wobble of the lemming parachutes since I know how intensive Math can end up.

Also need to add the miner lemming power and nuke button.

Then I'll have to find a version of lemmings to rip sounds and jingles from.

Marz. You'll have to explain API blocks to me some time. I'm quite the idiot.

[APDesign]

I must agree that you should create some shortcut keys, especially for "pause" I remember pausing all the time in lemmings. then it would be eaiser to pick the lemming you want, especially if you made him come to the front and highlight in green.

[junahu]

OKey doke. I guess I'll get cracking on all of this.

[Marz]

Well.. I'll explain it in a little bit.. I'm gonna code up the KBU website right now.. As soon as I'm done with that.. I'll do a couple of diagrams and some information to portray to you the possibilities :)

[junahu]

Yay! Yay with a captital 'ay'! YAY!

[Marz]

Well man.. I won't be able to get to it until tomorrow night.. Sorry about that... Just a looong day and I have a 13 hour shift tomorrow.. SO I need me some shut eye now...

Take it easy.

[junahu]

Hellooo helooo heloo. Echo echo echo. It's my footer that's scaring everybody off itsn't it?

[Marz]

No.. it's the fact that I work around 100+ hours per week.. be patient and it shall come to.. :)