   top-down shooter level playing same way
  my old space shooter game created enemies in the level at random, and put them in coordinated patterns of three. however, i would like my game to have a little more depth than that. i want my enemies come up at the same time/spacial intervals each time (not act the same, AI depends on states), like bosses coming after the flight of red ships, or pass an island at this point, or messages like in star fox, how they occur the same time when you play the level over. i want to create some type of standard "map" or "level" file to do this, but how would i go about "Scripting" (but not really scripting) these events into the game, and how would it play out?   ----------------------i code therefore i am.Aero DX - Coming to a bored Monitor near you! 
  if the players ship always travels at the same speed (constant scrolling i mean), then you can use the time to decide when enemies and such appear. i.e. blue fleet appears at 15 seconds, red fleet appears at 30 seconds, etc.if the player can speed up or slow down the ship, then you will want to use the distance travelled to trigger these events. ;  so in VB (for time purposes) i can create an editor that would allow me to add an event (have it be messages, enemies, bosses etc) and give it a time value? make it an array of derived structs that are loaded into a level class, and during the game check if its time for that event? ;  yes, if that will suit your needs.since the events will be in order, you only have to check if the first one in the list is ready to go each frame, and when it triggers remove it from the list. ;  That''s exactly how I do it in my shooter.  I have events triggered by time setup in a simple script:Time:2000Event:EnemyEnemy:BigBadBossblahblahblah;  if you have to script the bosses actions? how do you do that? is that the blah blah blah? do you derive from some class or structure with a virtual script function? ;  scripting the bosses action is different.  All I was showing was the "Stage" script, basically what comes out when.  You''d have a file filled with these things like a file named stage1.map and look like this.Time:2000Event:EnemyEnemy:SmallSHipTime:4000Event:UpgradeObjectObject:SpeedObjectTime:8000Event:SoundSound:YouWillDie.wav{and so on)This just lays out your stages.  how the enemies will act would be in a different file, but this stage script, when it encountewrs "SmallShip", it''ll look in the enemy script file for what that enemy is supposed to do.   