Yeah, I'm still here. Have no phone (by choice) for now untill I move, but most of my past problems are over. Using someone elses computer for the moment. I have been killing my time watching my Land of the Lost DVDs (The 70's version). Otherwise I started another project back around early February. I am taking the 3-D crash course with Game Maker 6.1. I have looked at many of the examples here which helped quite a bit. (And credit will be given in the game). I was tinkering with a puck bowling project in 3-D way back but never got far with it. This time I am getting a much better understanding how to pull things off. My current project is Vertigo, which is a Roll Away style game. My first game was somewhat of a Roll Away clone, but was only in 2-D. Well, with the 3-D the gameplay changes entirely because you can be on any of 6 sides of a cube. What happens is when you run into a block in front of you or in some cases when there is no block in front of you and you move forward, your whole world view will flip 90 degrees. So when you jump you can fall down, or up, sideways….

(Hmmm…not posting pictures like I was able to do before. Trying this as a different way. Sorry) =(

It plays the same way as Roll Away, except it is in 1st person perspective instead of 3rd. (I don't wan't to hear it…my head is still swimming after trying to pull of everything I did so far). It took me like a month to a month and a half just to get all the dives, climbs, movement, rotations, etc… all working properly. There are 6 Levels of blocks for the Z axis for 8 possible heights you can be on.

Most of the objects are done…Normal blocks, hot blocks, ice blocks, laser blocks and the 4 colored lasers, switch blocks and all the switch colors, Time blocks (New since my last version), Bonus blocks (for Roll Away style bonus levels), Keys, Exit blocks, Glass blocks (Invisible untill sunglasses are picked up) used alpha blending on it so it looks nice. The breakable and fading blocks may not make it in (complications for how it detects things moving around…there are invisible flip blocks that control diving…and with these objects in, there would have to be some other kind of invisible flip block that changes the level where sometimes you flip, sometimes you don't. Don't know if I can pull it off. (Or would wan't to…..it would be a mess to try and put them in.)The "block types exist", they just don't react to the player. Also put in Gold, Silver and Bronze chimps to collect for points, bonus multiplying, bonus level… I was going to do diamonds but after trying about MANY different ways I can't get the effect I want from them for how they should look rotating.

Here you can compare Vertigo to Roll Away. The upper 2 pictures are from the original Roll Away for the PlayStation. The bottom 2 are Vertigo. I have a Level Over animation somewhat like the original where the whole level spins in front of you where you can see things you may have missed, etc.

I thought I would be finnished with this thing around April when I started…LOL! It just gets more complicated… Fix one thing, break two others. That and how I have to repeat everything for every level on the Z axis in the game, check which of 6 faces you are on, which of 4 views for each face, which height you are at… It's working pretty well right now (actually works better with the joystick, but thats because I was trying to "fix" something with the keyboard input). Sometimes I wonder if I will ever get this thing done, but I would say it is about 80% done. Need to put in more levels. (I had to make my own 3-D level editor to do this right…very slow, and not the most user friendly but it does the job for me).

After I move, I plan on getting DSL so I will be back on a regular basis then. Untill then….more game creating.