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Question How do I create a simple Respawn/Checkpoint Script?

Discussion in 'Scripting' started by Gnarw, Mar 27, 2023.

  1. Gnarw

    Gnarw

    Joined:
    Mar 18, 2023
    Posts:
    1
    Hello everyone.

    I recently started with Unity and C# and followed along a tutorial to create my first "own game".
    It's a 2D platformer and I created a few levels for it.
    As the game goes on I want to add more difficulty and length to the levels, but I also want to "reward" the players with some Checkpoints, where they can respawn after dying.

    My player doesn't have a health system it's more like a one life "if you run into a trap you die and respawn" type.

    But the problem is I just can't figure out how to implement this checkpoints into my game. I searched many threads, I tried many different ways and many different scripts but literally nothing was working at all..

    So I'm now opening this thread to seek for help.

    I just want to find a solid, but simple code who just respawns the player at this point after dying.

    If you guys need any informations just ask, I don't exactly know if and what you need - sorry.

    Thank you all for helping and keep teaching me guys. ♥
     
  2. Kurt-Dekker

    Kurt-Dekker

    Joined:
    Mar 16, 2013
    Posts:
    38,520
    That's not how tutorials and learning works!!

    Since nothing you describe above is new or unique... Google tells me there are 89,000 different hits for "unity respawn checkpoint" and nobody is going to do better than that in this little tiny text box.


    Screen Shot 2023-03-27 at 8.10.12 AM.png

    Let me offer you this approach instead:

    Tutorials and example code are great, but keep this in mind to maximize your success and minimize your frustration:

    How to do tutorials properly, two (2) simple steps to success:

    Step 1. Follow the tutorial and do every single step of the tutorial 100% precisely the way it is shown. Even the slightest deviation (even a single character!) generally ends in disaster. That's how software engineering works. Every step must be taken, every single letter must be spelled, capitalized, punctuated and spaced (or not spaced) properly, literally NOTHING can be omitted or skipped.

    Fortunately this is the easiest part to get right: Be a robot. Don't make any mistakes.
    BE PERFECT IN EVERYTHING YOU DO HERE!!


    If you get any errors, learn how to read the error code and fix your error. Google is your friend here. Do NOT continue until you fix your error. Your error will probably be somewhere near the parenthesis numbers (line and character position) in the file. It is almost CERTAINLY your typo causing the error, so look again and fix it.

    Step 2. Go back and work through every part of the tutorial again, and this time explain it to your doggie. See how I am doing that in my avatar picture? If you have no dog, explain it to your house plant. If you are unable to explain any part of it, STOP. DO NOT PROCEED. Now go learn how that part works. Read the documentation on the functions involved. Go back to the tutorial and try to figure out WHY they did that. This is the part that takes a LOT of time when you are new. It might take days or weeks to work through a single 5-minute tutorial. Stick with it. You will learn.

    Step 2 is the part everybody seems to miss. Without Step 2 you are simply a code-typing monkey and outside of the specific tutorial you did, you will be completely lost. If you want to learn, you MUST do Step 2.

    Of course, all this presupposes no errors in the tutorial. For certain tutorial makers (like Unity, Brackeys, Imphenzia, Sebastian Lague) this is usually the case. For some other less-well-known content creators, this is less true. Read the comments on the video: did anyone have issues like you did? If there's an error, you will NEVER be the first guy to find it.

    Beyond that, Step 3, 4, 5 and 6 become easy because you already understand!

    Finally, when you have errors, don't post here... just go fix your errors! Here's how:

    Remember: NOBODY here memorizes error codes. That's not a thing. The error code is absolutely the least useful part of the error. It serves no purpose at all. Forget the error code. Put it out of your mind.

    The complete error message contains everything you need to know to fix the error yourself.

    The important parts of the error message are:

    - the description of the error itself (google this; you are NEVER the first one!)
    - the file it occurred in (critical!)
    - the line number and character position (the two numbers in parentheses)
    - also possibly useful is the stack trace (all the lines of text in the lower console window)

    Always start with the FIRST error in the console window, as sometimes that error causes or compounds some or all of the subsequent errors. Often the error will be immediately prior to the indicated line, so make sure to check there as well.

    Look in the documentation. Every API you attempt to use is probably documented somewhere. Are you using it correctly? Are you spelling it correctly?

    All of that information is in the actual error message and you must pay attention to it. Learn how to identify it instantly so you don't have to stop your progress and fiddle around with the forum.
     
  3. Homicide

    Homicide

    Joined:
    Oct 11, 2012
    Posts:
    657
    Hmm, i mean, im not really sure whats the issue here. Im guessing just an experience issue, as this issue itself is really elementary.

    Placing trigger colliders through out your level will give you the check points your require, literally that easily. And, they ofc, are a gameObject with a transform, so their location can be obtained at all times, allowing to 'place' the player back at any 'most recently obtained' checkpoint.

    Hit me up on discord if you need a little extra hand getting it working. JD#1539