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Week 2

The Forest Turns Solid

Part of Make Your First Mini-Game.

This week the empty screen becomes a place. Your learner paints a forest floor, plants their own trees, and adds collision (the rule that stops the hero from walking through things). The world starts to feel real.

Class file

Joining mid-course or catching up?

Download this week's starter project so your learner can jump straight into this class, instead of carrying their previous file forward. Enrolled students get the password in their Outschool welcome message.

MiniQuest_W2_Start.zip · 26 MB

How to set up GameMaker and open this file

What this class covers

Painting the forest
Your learner paints a forest floor and plants their own trees, turning the blank screen into a place.
Making the world solid
Your learner adds collision, the rule that stops the hero from walking through the trees, so the forest feels solid and real. The hero stops at each trunk and even slides along it.

A look inside the class

The GameMaker room editor, showing the decorated forest clearing being built with a painted floor and a planted tree border, the tileset open on the right.

Building the clearing in the room editor - painting the floor and planting the tree border.

Building the clearing in the room editor - painting the floor and planting the tree border.
The obj_tree_1 object editor in GameMaker, with the spr_tree_1 sprite assigned.

Making obj_tree_1 - a sprite given its own object, just like the hero.

Making obj_tree_1 - a sprite given its own object, just like the hero.

Optional Customizations

Just-for-fun customizations to try on your own between classes. Never needed to keep up.

  1. Paint in more ground variety.

    Back to painting for more texture. In the Layers panel, click the Ground layer, then open the Room Editor tab (top-right) to bring the tileset back up. Pick the light-green tiles, right next to the ones you used, and brush in a patch - a meadow of lighter grass, or a mossy nook. There is no wrong floor!

    The GameMaker tileset palette, with a row of light-green grass tiles highlighted.
    The GameMaker tileset palette, with more light-green grass tiles highlighted lower down.
    The forest clearing with a patch of lighter-green grass painted into it, highlighted.
  2. Add walk-through decor, like grass and bushes.

    Build a new object the same way you built obj_tree_1, but this one you can walk through. Right-click Objects, choose Create Object, name it obj_grass_1, and give it the sprite spr_grass_1. Then add a Create event with the same layering line every object gets:

    depth = -y;  // lets the hero tuck behind the tall grass
    The obj_grass_1 object in GameMaker, with the sprite spr_grass_1 assigned and a Create event holding the depth = -y; layering line.

    Click the Instances layer, then Alt + left-click to place a few tufts around your clearing, one at a time. Because you did not add obj_grass_1 to your player object collision lines, the hero strolls right through it - walk up into a tuft and the hero slips behind it, walk down and he stands in front. You can build obj_bush_1 with spr_bush_1 the same way for a whole undergrowth.

    Animated clip of the hero walking through grass tufts, slipping behind a tuft when walking up and standing in front when walking down.
  3. Dress your border with a second kind of tree.

    Your forest does not have to be all one tree. First, build a second tree object: right-click Objects, choose Create Object, name it obj_tree_2, give it the sprite spr_tree_2, and add a Create event with the same layering line:

    depth = -y;
    The obj_tree_2 object in GameMaker, with the sprite spr_tree_2 assigned and a Create event holding the depth = -y; layering line.

    Click the Instances layer and Alt + left-click to place a few obj_tree_2 one at a time, in among your obj_tree_1 border for a mixed wood. Press Run, and notice the hero walks straight through the new trees!

    Now make them solid too! In the obj_player's Step event, find your two collision lines below:

    // Move horizontally only if no tree is in the way.
if (!place_meeting(x + move_x * spd, y, obj_tree_1)) {
    x += move_x * spd;
}
// Move vertically only if no tree is in the way.
if (!place_meeting(x, y + move_y * spd, obj_tree_1)) {
    y += move_y * spd;
}

    And replace them with:

    // Move horizontally only if no tree (either kind) is in the way.
if (!place_meeting(x + move_x * spd, y, obj_tree_1) && !place_meeting(x + move_x * spd, y, obj_tree_2)) {
    x += move_x * spd;
}
// Move vertically only if no tree (either kind) is in the way.
if (!place_meeting(x, y + move_y * spd, obj_tree_1) && !place_meeting(x, y + move_y * spd, obj_tree_2)) {
    y += move_y * spd;
}
    The obj_player Step event in GameMaker, with the two collision lines highlighted, each now checking obj_tree_1 and obj_tree_2 together.

    The && in the middle means the hero moves only if it is clear of tree 1 and clear of tree 2. Press Run - now both kinds of tree stop you.

    The finished forest clearing in GameMaker, with a mixed border of two kinds of tree around a decorated, painted floor.
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