Newbie Questions

[gaveitatry]

I have barely touched Intersect, so I am not at all familiar with it, but I do have some questions since I am a total newbie.  I have had a lot of questions, but these are the ones that are currently on my mind.

1.) I would very much like it if I could have a "click to move" movement.  Is that something that I will be implement into Intersect one day?  I want it so that if you left-click on the ground, you move to that spot, but not if you left-click on an NPC, object, or structure.

2.) I would also like it if one press of a WASD key makes the avatar turn into that direction but not actually move.  Then pressing the key a second time (or holding it down) will make the avatar move to another tile.  Will I be able to make Intersect games behave like that?

3.) Will I be able to have full control of how I design the UI of the game window?  Like if I wanted the Hotbar to be on the bottom and the Chatbox to be on the top right and make them both neon green, will I be able to do that?

4.) How do I create a finished product of my game for others to play? If I make a one map game and want my friend in France to play it, what steps do I need to take so that she can get a copy of the finished game and play it with me online?

5.) How do I host a multiplayer game?  I have residential internet service.  Will that suffice?  At what point would I ever need to pay for a server in addition to my home internet, and how much would that server cost me per month?

[jcsnider]

Very good questions. I am going to answer them inline

14 minutes ago, gaveitatry said:

1.) I would very much like it if I could have a "click to move" movement.  Is that something that I will be implement into Intersect one day?  I want it so that if you left-click on the ground, you move to that spot, but not if you left-click on an NPC, object, or structure.

Once the source becomes available. (At the time of the main release, no ETA) This will absolutely be possible via modifying the code. It is likely another user on this site will create and share that feature otherwise you may have to ask a freelance developer to add it for you.

15 minutes ago, gaveitatry said:

2.) I would also like it if one press of a WASD key makes the avatar turn into that direction but not actually move.  Then pressing the key a second time (or holding it down) will make the avatar move to another tile.  Will I be able to make Intersect games behave like that?

Also very possible, would require source/code modification(s). - See Above

16 minutes ago, gaveitatry said:

3.) Will I be able to have full control of how I design the UI of the game window?  Like if I wanted the Hotbar to be on the bottom and the Chatbox to be on the top right and make them both neon green, will I be able to do that?

Yes, absolutely. You will be able to change where on the screen each panel/window is and each of the elements inside them. If you just want to re-arrange locations and you have some patience you can likely do this yourself.

17 minutes ago, gaveitatry said:

4.) How do I create a finished product of my game for others to play? If I make a one map game and want my friend in France to play it, what steps do I need to take so that she can get a copy of the finished game and play it with me online?

This can generally be very easy or very complex. There are 3-4 big steps. The first is obtaining the ip address the world identifies you by. http://ipchicken.com will give you that info. The second step is adding that ip address into the config.xml file the client reads so when your friend in France runs the game it finds you.  The third and hardest step is port forwarding which is telling your router/firewall(s) to allow Intersect traffic from the outside world (your friend) to reach your computer. Finally you would simply zip the client with its resources folder and send it to your friend in France. Sending the client can be done here, skype, dropbox, or any other method you use to share files. 

23 minutes ago, gaveitatry said:

5.) How do I host a multiplayer game?  I have residential internet service.  Will that suffice?  At what point would I ever need to pay for a server in addition to my home internet, and how much would that server cost me per month?

You could host it off your home computer during the design phases but residential internet services are generally not the best to host games out of. When the time comes that you want to host your game online we would recommend getting a cheap $2-3/month Linux VPS to host your game for you.