Forums » Help » Trying to print something on the screen freezes the game

I am trying to print on the middle of the screen when the player reaches a new level. I have tried lots of ways but the result is always the same in that the screen freezes as long as the entity is active. This works just fine if I use an animation, but if I try to just use text it messes up.

EntityLevelHud = ig.Entity.extend({
        collides: ig.Entity.COLLIDES.NEVER,
        font: new ig.Font('media/04b03.font.png'),
        size: { x: 40, y: 40 },
	//animSheet: new ig.AnimationSheet( 'media/coinscore.png', 40, 40 ),
	timer: 100,
	scroll: false,

	init: function( x, y, settings ) {	
		//this.addAnim( 'idle', 0.1, [0] );	
		this.parent( x, y, settings );
	},

	update: function() {
		this.parent();
		if ( --this.timer <= 0 ) {
			this.kill();
		}
		var levelString = "Level " + this.level.toString();
		this.font.draw( levelString, this.pos.x, this.pos.y );
	}
});

Don't draw inside the update method.
Also, EntityLevelHud's level property is undefined. Unless set in WM, toString() will raise an exception.

Sample fix:

level: 'UNKNOWN',

draw: function()
{
	this.parent();
	this.font.draw('Level' + this.level, this.pos.x, this.pos.y);
}

Cheers.

Also, a good habit to take is to set gravityFactor to 0 for such entities as are not supposed to be affected by gravity.

Thanks very much, I did not realize putting that inside the update function would do that, but definitely my bad on not referencing where i stored the player level correctly. Here is the updated version, the next thing I need to ask is why the scrolling is choppy for text printed to the screen but not if I used an animation? I used the drop game as a reference for scrolling the screen.

EntityLevelHud = ig.Entity.extend({
        collides: ig.Entity.COLLIDES.NEVER,
        font: new ig.Font('media/font.png'),
        size: { x: 40, y: 40 },
	animSheet: new ig.AnimationSheet( 'media/coinscore.png', 40, 40 ),
	timer: 100,
	scroll: false,
	gravityFactor: 0,

	init: function( x, y, settings ) {	
		//this.addAnim( 'idle', 0.1, [0] );	
		this.parent( x, y, settings );
	},

	update: function() {
		this.parent();
		if ( --this.timer <= 0 ) {
			this.kill();
		}
	},

	draw: function() {
		this.parent();
		this.font.draw( 'Level' + ig.game.level, this.pos.x, this.pos.y );
	}
});

			// Move screen and entities one tile up
			this.screen.y -= 40;
			for( var i =0; i < this.entities.length; i++ ) {
				if ( this.entities[i].scroll != false ) {
					this.entities[i].pos.y -= 40;
				}
			}

If I use an animation image, the image scrolls very smoothly, when I switched to the text display, it was jumping by 40 pixels on an update. Any ideas?

My code may be a bit misleading, I put in the scroll = false part and the check in the scrolling section to stop it from scrolling until I can fix it.

How is the scrolling section declared and defined?

I am not sure where the scrolling part is actually defined for the impact system, but the section I posted is the part of the code that shifts the screen by 40 pixels.

	update: function() {
		if( ig.input.pressed('ok') ) {
			ig.system.setGame( DropGame );
		}
			
		if( this.gameOver ) {
			return;
		}
		
		this.speed += ig.system.tick * ((10/this.speed)*this.level);
		this.screen.y += ig.system.tick * this.speed;
		this.score += ig.system.tick * this.speed;
		
		// Do we need a new row?
		if( this.screen.y > 200 ) {
			
			// Move screen and entities one tile up
			this.screen.y -= 40;
			for( var i =0; i < this.entities.length; i++ ) {
				if ( this.entities[i].scroll != false ) {
					this.entities[i].pos.y -= 40;
				}
			}
			
			// Delete first row, insert new
			this.map.shift();
			this.map.push(this.getRow());

What's your game's clearColor set to? If set, try any other value than null.

I removed my clearColor line so that it would stay at the default value and that did not fix the choppy scrolling but it did remove my background image.