Beginner with multiple coding questions (secret timer and more)

Tyr

Preamble: I'm trying to learn the Godot engine (and coding) by making games for jams. Still early days - learning, but not fast enough to make any deadlines. There are plenty of videos and sources out there, and I'm getting a bit lost in all the information (and different ways to achieve the same thing). Plus, some of the info has become outdated as Godot updates.

There are a couple of nodes and scripts I see myself using often in the future - if anyone can help me get up and running with these ideas I'd really appreciate it.

The context: 2D top-down game. Your laundry has blown about town - collect it before it rains.

The questions:

How do I get my character to stop showing a movement animation when no keys are pressed? I'm using an animated sprite sheet and not an animation player or animation tree on this occasion. Here is what I have:

extends KinematicBody2D

func _ready() -> void:
	 $AnimatedSprite.frames.get_frame("walk_down",0)

var speed : int = 200
var vel : Vector2 = Vector2()
var direction : Vector2 = Vector2()

func read_input():
	vel = Vector2()
	if Input.is_action_pressed("walk_up"):
		vel.y -= speed
		direction = Vector2(0, -1)
	if Input.is_action_pressed("walk_up"):
		$AnimatedSprite.play("walk_up")
	if Input.is_action_pressed("walk_down"):
		vel.y += speed
		direction = Vector2(0, 1)
	if Input. is_action_pressed("walk_down"):
		$AnimatedSprite.play("walk_down")
	if Input.is_action_pressed("walk_left"):
		vel.x -= speed
		direction = Vector2(-1, 0)
	if Input.is_action_pressed("walk_left"):
		$AnimatedSprite.play("walk_left")
	if Input.is_action_pressed("walk_right"):
		vel.x += speed
		direction = Vector2(1, 0)
	if Input.is_action_pressed("walk_right"):
		$AnimatedSprite.play("walk_right")
	
	vel = vel.normalized()
	vel = move_and_slide(vel * 200)

func _physics_process(_delta):
	read_input()

Much like a hidden object game, there would be a list of missing clothes at the bottom of the screen. On picking up the clothes, the item on the list would either fade or disappear from the list entirely. How would I implement this? How would I do this for multiple items (e.g. 4 missing socks becoming 3 missing socks etc.)?

How would I implement a hidden countdown timer which ends the game? The time could start from the moment the game starts, or from the moment the first item is collected.

Thanks for reading.

cybereality

So to stop the animation, you want to check if the character is not moving, which velocity tells you. So after all the input checks (before you normalize), you can do this:

if vel.length_squared() < 0.1:
    $AnimatedSprite.stop()

Implementing the objects is more complex. If you want them to disappear, you can set it like this:

sock.visible = false

Fading can be done with a Tween. However, organizing the objects can get complicated. You may want to look at tutorials for inventory systems, because the code is similar (drag and drop, snapping, inventory management, etc.). The data can be stored in a Dictionary. Which can hold the item name, some values (maybe the position is should be on the screen), if it is part of a set of objects, etc. But it would be a lot of code for me to write here, an inventory tutorial should help you.

In terms of the countdown, you would use a Timer node. The Timer has a wait time, in seconds, so you can enable autostart and then set the time to 60 for 1 minute and then when it finishes a Signal is emitted (similar to a function call). You have to connect this Signal (it is called "timeout") to a function you write. And that function can pause the game, show a score or gameover screen, or whatever you want.

Tyr

@cybereality Thank you! Will give these a try and let you know how it goes.