Hello,

I am trying to draw a design for coins that the player collects like in super mario game. The coins design might have some fixed number like 8 designs. I want to draw these based on some random number generation and picking up one design .

I am using a paralaxer background and moving the coins. After the coins have gone behind the screen I want to draw a new design.

I don't know how to do this as I am new to game programming, my friend suggested me a possible way might be to include an xml file ,which contains like 0 ,1's you draw where there are 1's and leave where there are 0's . I am using cocos2d-html5 for programming. I don't think it is a better idea to use text files to achieve this ,Is it ?

If you have any better idea ,please tell me.

Any code samples or weblinks(most probably in javascript) are greatly appreciated.

I am posting a sample design ,how I want it to be., like this I am going to have several designs.

i don't have any experience with the tecnologies involved, but the algorithm should really be simple...

i think the reason he said to use a xml file is so you can do this:

<patterns>

<pattern>010110001101111</pattern>

<pattern>111110010100110</pattern>

<pattern>100101100001111</pattern>

</patterns>

if this is all that you have on that file, then it would be more efficient (space and time to load) to use a simple text file with one pattern per line.

that said, you'll need to use a fixed size for all patterns. you should be good with just this.

if this is all that you have on that file, then it would be more efficient (space and time to load) to use a simple text file with one pattern per line.

It would be even more efficient to not use a separate file at all. You can simply use an array.

Start with a default.

var coins = [0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0];

Now every time you execute this line of code, it will return an array of random 1's and 0's

coins.map(function() { return +(Math.random() > 0.5) });

i thought he wanted fixed patterns, like coins forming an 8 or spelling something, your solution is far better for random formations, +1

I agree with Mito here...

Of course, if you want to make it so that you can place coins anywhere, and feel like xml or JSON (if you are using javascript), you could define by position on screen.

Will show XML example as easier...

<coins>
 <coin>
   <x>40</x>
   <y>23</y>
 <coin>
 <coin>
   <x>300</x>
   <y>150</y>
 <coin>
</coins> 

Of course, if you want to do everything in a grid then this is probably not the best... or you could have it defined as grid or not as well.