psycho666

Hi forum.
I'm doing quite a lot of work on my fresh new pixel art city builder. And so far it's all fine. However i got a few basic questions, before i move on with even more work.
What i'm curious about is what would the players like to do in the city builder game, and what the players think should be done automatically?
For example, so far i allow the player to build a house. If the player feels like it, he can demolish the house and build a larger house, or even a building that the people can live in. I'm wandering, should i do this automatically, or keep it in the player's hands. Meaning when you need more people the house will automatically upgrade itself to a larger house, and later on, when it feels it's not large enough and the city needs more people to rebuild itself in a 4 floor building, that something like 50 people can live inside. I have the same issue with the stores. The small store cover something like 100 people. If there are more people in the city, that the stores could not cover should the store expand itself to larger store and cover 200 people, or should the player receive a note that sais "not enough food stores." and the player to be responsible for building the larger store.
My main question came from the farms actually. I plan to build a small building on the field, and around it the player to have the option to create a crops fields. But then i was thinking that this would be probably to much, cause in the later stages the player would need to build a crop field for every large living building he creates.

And if we take all those questions, the general question would be:
What you think the player should do, and what should be done automatically by the game in a city builder?

Hi all. I'll start with this: i have no idea if my question is for this section, so if the mods feel it's not - feel free to move it. I just believe i'll get more accurate answers here, then in the novice forum.
OK, here is the issue.
I'm making a city builder (among other things), and i have done the houses, stores, etc., and it's all great. Works perfect. Now i started the roads and streets. And the problem is that each street have 11 subimages - left, right, 4 turns, another street connecting from each direction and a crossroad. Good, i made the graphics, all fine.
Now here is the issue. When i place a road block it get's created with a random subimage - left or right. Now when i place a second block next to the first one the second block should rotate to the left or the right, until it connects to the first block. Works perfectly. Amazing. The first block is still with the wrong subimage however. Even if i place another block next to it, only the newly placed block rotates, the old block stays the wrong way.
I have tried 3 different ways for detection a near road blocks and it leads to one of 2 results:
1. Nothing happens
2. Endless alarms...
I use alarms for detection - when the block is build it randomly generates a subimage and set an alarm. When the alarm is executed the block checks if there are other blocks near it and chooses the correct subimage to connect with them. When i set in this object to trigger the alarm in the nearby road blocks they get the correct subiamge, but they trigger the alarms in their near blocks, which trigger the alarms in their nearest blocks, etc... Chain reaction. They are all one and a same object. So alarm in one means alarm in all.
So this is my question:
How can i check the near road blocks, then make the near roadblocks check their nearest roadblocks without triggering an endless alarm chain?
If i do this in the create event again the first placed roadblock stays placed wrong, not to mention the turns... It is impossible to make turn. The blocks always use the straight subimage.
Any idea and help will be greatly appreciated.

Hi all.
I know this is kind of a fantastic situation. But i'm think i may have to face this hypothetical situation in real life...
Basically in my game i create a lot of objects, such as treasure chests, enemies, loots, etc. fairly often. I have checked and my game manage to create 200 instances for about 5 minutes. And the scary thing is this is just 5 minutes, what about 10 hours, and even more, the game is about 20% done. I have only the treasure chests done. What will happen when i add the actual loot to the equation, not to mention the enemies, the battles and the loot from the battles... I will hit 100 per minute easily...
Now my question is: what will happen when game maker reach instance id of 99999? it starts from 10000, so it has 89999 instances before it hits the limit...
However, i may face this issue later on in the gameplay, when the player have over 10 hours gameplay, and each minute he have 100+ instances created (later on destroyed), so the numbers will run fast...
I know the player have no control over this, nor i, as developer do. So how does the software handle this thing?

Hi guys.
I am making a small king simulator game.
It is exactly what is sounds like - a kingdom simulator, where you assign your generals to different assignments.
The tricky part will be picking the right general for the right assignment. For example, your elf archer will kill all skeletons he can find, while your warlock will be more open to their problems and may even start a diplomatic relations with them.
There will be a large variety of enemies and generals, so sure enough, i got a huge space for both diplomacy and battles.
For example, in the forests you will encounter living plants, werewolfs, animalistic creatures, etc, while in caves and dungeons you will find more skeletons and mummies.
However, i'm wondering about one thing: should i relay more on battle aspect of the game, or the diplomatic aspect?
Meaning, should the elf archer stop killing skeletons when he meets the skeleton king and speak with him, and eventually finds out, that the skeletons and your kingdom have a common enemy - the mummies from the eastern desert, or should he keeps killing them, completely ignoring the possible alliance.
I am asking this, cause i am soon gona reach the point where i need to start work on the AI system. So i need to choose either more diplomacy and less diversity in battle, or stronger battle aspect, and shallow diplomacy.
In the more diplomatic aspect i'll have more work on the AI of the NPC's and your generals, NPCs fighting NPCs, live vs undead clash, etc., while in the battle version i have to do more items, larger variety of enemies, different battle statistics, something like adding different types of damage, resistances, weaknesses, etc.
Of course, i can do both versions, and just add one extra setting to the game.
So what do you think? Should i go for more diplomacy, or more killing stuff...

Hi. View issues again...
OK, i'm making this game that is going well for now, think this might be my first finished project if i keep up with the good work. However, i am trying to create a mini mode, where you will have a small window with the most important stuff in it. This way you can keep track of your game while browsing in the web.
It all works perfectly well. I resize the window, i resize the drawing region, all works perfect. Except the stupid views get scaled down to a small freaking size of 32x32, and i want them to stay 192x96. And the views are actually OK, the port gets scaled down. And the funny thing is my code:

window_set_fullscreen(0)
window_set_showborder(0)
window_set_showicons(0)
window_set_stayontop(1)
window_set_size(200,global.count*128+32)
window_set_region_size(200,global.count*128+32,1)
view_xview[0]=x
view_yview[0]=y
view_wview[0]=200
view_hview[0]=global.count*128+32

This part works perfectly. What stuns me is this part:

view_xport[i]=4
view_yport[i]=34+(i-1)*128
view_wport[i]=view_wview[i]
view_hport[i]=view_hview[i]

I do this for all views, so they will stay with their current size. They don't.
I place that code in the step event - same thing...
I did everything i could think of doing - non worked.
If you guyz have any idea where the problem might be - please give me a clue, cause i don't have any...

I need that minimode, since the game is real time, and it works as long as the game is on. It's a simulator, and it takes hours to do anything, so this will really help the player keep track without getting bored.

EDIT:
I added this to the code:

view_wport[0]=200
view_hport[0]=global.count*128+32

...
Things got worst... Now even my view[0] get scaled down...