Door Helper Sprites


While playtesting I got stuck going through the door a couple times in stressful situation. While not under pressure it seems pretty easy to line it up to get through them, but when in a hurry it is easy to mistime it and collide with the door frame or wall next to it.

This isn't supposed to be a skill challenge - to get through a door - so wanted to improve it. I can't just make the player's ref box smaller, as then the character would have parts passing through walls and objects. I already had to tighten up the ref box on the doors/door frames to prevent occasional LOS (line of sight) getting through it.

So I came up with the solution of adding "door helper" sprites.  Here is a screenshot where I turned the visibility on for them, as obviously you won't see them while playing:


When walking on them, only in a specific direction to each, they will nudge the player over towards the doorway.

It is easier to see it in action than describe it, so you can take a look at this video:

I'm not sure if this is the final version or could possibly come up with an entire different solution later,  but I will roll with it for now and hope it helps alleviate some frustrations of the player!

Under the Hood (Developers)

For any other Construct developers, here are the events for this:

I am already relying on the "facing" instance variable of the character for other important events, so I am using it with confidence here.

The instance variables on the "testingSlide" (temporary name) determine which direction to move the player, depending on which direction they are moving.

I already had an event to setup the doors how I needed them, so I added this to the For Loop there:


It may look like a lot but it is fairly simple. Each door has four helper sprites, so basically repeats 4 times but just changes the direction. I might DRY this code up a bit but I'll wait to see if further changes will come down the line.

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