Random Blog: WarioWare DIY 101

Alright, time to revive this old thing. This article is a tutorial for warioware diy, a pretty non-recent(old) ds game. If you are wondering Why I would do a 101 on a game that's a few years old, the reason is because to properly explain my current projects, I feel it is necessary to explain just how these games are made. This Article is essentially How To Make a Shooter 101. The game itself provides you with the basics and I am sure the basics are easy enough to find, so I won't be going over the bare minimum here. Oh, and by shooter I mean a shmup, not an fps. If you are unfamiliar with those terms, some things I reference may confuse you. Keep Google handy.

How To Make a Shooter: Difficulty level: Intermediate (Gone through tutorials).

To start: Make the ship ( or whatever the player will be controlling)

SPRITE DESIGN SECTION

My art skills are paramount to perfection

As you can see, not an amazing amount of thought has to be put into the design, but it is best if you have one area which the bullet should come out of. In this case, it is the tip of the triangle. As you may be able to tell from this sprite I am planning to have the ship on the right side of the screen, but there is little to no difference made to the game if you flip this around, however, due to the ds's screen proportions, a vertical game will need to be designed differently.

After making the ship, next comes the bullet. The bullet size can be changed, but the larger the bullet, the easier the game will be. If the bullet's thinnest side is aimed for the enemy, that makes the game more difficult.

Frowny faces tell the player that he's the BAD guy. Or something.

Of course, now that you have a ship and a bullet, next comes a bad guy. The size of the enemy is very important to the difficulty of the game, a larger enemy is an easier target. Once the enemy is done, next comes the always gratuitus explosion.

Look, it's mars!

For the explosion, start with a circle or a block of solid pixels. Then, go to the eraser icon. I believe the in game tutorial covered this, but an easy way to make an explosion is by clicking and quickly stopping the "blower" eraser key.

Oh....

Once, that is done, make another frame and copy the first to the second.

Goodbye Mars.

Then, erase the frame again, leaving behind a few pixels.

We shall always remember thee.

Finally, just make an empty frame. This will make sense later.

AI SECTION

Now for the AI. First, create the ship. Put him where you want (in this case, the far right of the screen.)

I just love that ceiling fan.

After that, the first AI event should be made to happen at time 1-1. Set the ship to roam in the reflect pattern. Make the reflect area very thin, or the ship will move diagonally up and down(unless you want that.)

Ok, Time to leave the ship alone. Now onto the bullet. Make the bullet be attached to the ship(see in game tutorial for help if needed).

This is high level art.

Once done, go back the the design area. (aww, you thought that section ended). By the way, the only reason I did not have you do this before was so I could show you where the bullet went in relation to the ship. I'm not totally evil.

Because bullets don't constantly hover by the ship.

This part is easy enough. Just go and make a new art (not frame, mind you). After that, simply exit. Go back to the ai section and make the default art for the bullet be the clear one. Now comes the fun part. Set an event to occur when the stage is tapped, then set the art to change to ArtA(the real sprite) and make the bullet move WEST quickly(or whichever speed you prefer, so long as it makes sense).

You do not know the joy this picture gives me.

For now, you are done. Go and test it out.

I am embarrassed by the amount of time it took me to correctly set this up.

Pretty weak right? Only one bullet? Time to make your ammo much greater. Go back tot he AI and make an event that occurs when the bullet touches the end of the screen. Then, make the art change to the clear sprite and have it attach to the ship again.

Prepare to see this screen a lot.

Now for the Enemy AI. Make it spawn at a random location off screen(not where the bullet can go.) Also, If you are making multiple enemies, make sure it is set to "try not to overlap"(having 3 stacked enemies is lame).

This one took even more fiddling.

Set ti to move toward the ship's side of the screen at a random time(this is more of a concern with multiple enemies).

Yes I took this picture on my lap. I thought it wouldn't show.

Now make so when it reaches past the opponents side, that the game ends in a loss. You can choose to put in a freeze effect or not.

This mainly helps to tell players what caused their loss, so they can understand better on repeat plays.

Now, go back tot he ship AI and make the jump back to ship happen once the bullet hits the enemy.

Then go back to the enemy AI and make an event when it come in contact with the bullet. Make the art change, but play only once, so that the enemy doesn't keep exploding eternally. Also, set the frames to play at the fastest speed. Then add an action that turns the enemy's switch on.

After all that, go and set up the win condition for when the enemy's switch is on.

Now play the game.

Hopefully you noticed an issue( if you didn't make SURE someone else play tests your games). The enemy never even makes it to the other side! Go back and tweak it.