on pattern(%%) do { ... } as x

One of the next challenge to handle for the GEDS engine will be the support for timed sequence. Such as "close the door, shake the ground, and now the boss can enter". Or more simply, "play the 'dead' animation, fade out, reload the level". As mentioned earlier, I could simply associate each of these individual actions to a row in a pattern of the soundtrack. That makes timing implicit, and it should ease the synchronisation between the two.

Beyond the syntax, the idea is to have TrackSequence as an external action that stores its own list of external actions and associate each of them with a row number. The TrackSequenceReader would then be an Animator that launches the individual actions appropriately. Well, my brother has partly "recovered" the improved soundtrack, and I have modified the NTXM player so that I could look at the current pattern/row position... things are getting in place for some tests.

S'il reste un aspect encore fort "amateur" de AppleAssault, c'est sans aucun doute la gestion des évènements genre "oups. t'es mort", "level clear" et autres "game over man". Didier les comparait même à des "crash windows" ... Avec mon système axé sur les machines d'état et tout ça, j'ai longtemps galéré pour trouver une approche, puis je me suis rendu compte que je pouvais tout simplement associer ça au suivi d'un pattern dans la musique. Il y a même moyen de procéder assez simplement en réutilisant les "iGun" déjà en place dans la machine d'état pour capturer les actions à effectuer dans un TrackSequenceGun qui lance leur exécution dans un Animator supplémentaire (lesquels me servent plus ou moins d'activités parallèles sur la DS).

Surprisingly, it seems that the most complicated part doesn't lie there, but in the management of the "shuriken rush" sub-tune that needs to be activated and de-activated depending on your "punch bar". "Surprising" in that the HUD logic -- and not the game logic -- is the place where it fits the best. Troublesome, isn't it ? And untidy, too.

edit: It's getting in place, but still buggy on many aspects.

todo: add Bxx support to NTXM so that we can loop sub-sections of the module.