GAME:IT Junior Learning Game Maker: The Score Tab
Set Score: Game Maker has the ability to keep track of 3 specific variables used in gaming: Score, Lives, and Health. They really are just 3 variablesthey have nothing to do with score, lives, or healthsometimes we use them to keep track of other variable values. Typically, you must set an initial value. Example: Score = 0 When you want to increase the score, you use the same action but activate the relative button.
Test Score: This action checks whether a score has reached a particular value.
Draw Score: This action will draw the value of the score in any position on the screen. Must be used with the Draw Event.
Show Highscore: Game Maker keeps track of the top 10 high scores for each game. This action displays the high score list.
Clear High Score: This action will clear the high score list
Set Lives: With this action you can change the number of lives left using an initial number (like 3) and using a second action to decrease lives until you reach 0 (by using the relative function). This action can also serve as another variable unrelated to lives but necessary to your game. Example: using it as a counter that counts loops through a part of the program.
Allows you to check whether lives have reached a certain value. Check Lives:
Draw Lives: Allows you to draw lives in any position on the screen. Must be used with the Draw Event.
Draw Life Images: Instead of drawing a number at any given position, you can draw images (sprites).
Set Health: Health is the 3 rd variable available for use. Using as a Health variable, value is usually set for 100 for full health and 0 for no health at all.
Check Health: Allows you to check whether health has reached a certain value.
Draw Health: With this action you can draw health in the form of a health bar. When health is 100 a full bar is drawn. When it is 0, the bar is empty. You can indicate position, size, color, and background of bar.
Score Caption: This action allows you to manipulate what scores you want displayed. You can indicate to show or not show score, lives, and/or health.