So I wanna make a variable that goes down gradualy, if a certain object is touching another

Basically, it's a breath bar for when you are underwater, but you can change between objects and I don't want that to affect it.

Any ideas?

tried "custom" timers?

something like

timer = 60

if <collision stuff here> {timer -= 1}

I don't quite understand your question.

By change between objects, you mean characters, right?

So basically, you want each character to have their own separate oxygen bars?

going on with flame guy:
creation event:
//set the alarm, and save what the alarm is
a=100
as=a

step event:
//if he is in water, meter goes down, else it is full
if place_meeting(x,y,obj_water){
a-=1}
else{a=as}

This post has been edited by YoManRuLz on Oct 5 2009, 03:57 PM

This is what I need, but you can switch between characters, which consists of creating the new one at the position and destroying the original.

I don't want any of that to affect the breath bar.

I'm now using this:

in the alarm event on alarm 0, so it checks every 30 steps.

But it breaks because only one of those objects exists at once (except in the split second whilst switching, when there's two).

So I messed with it a bit:

If my character changes when it checks it breaks and says "Unknown variable x".

Any hints on how to fix?

"Unknown variable x" means you're checking a variable of an instance that doesn't exist.

Your code has a small typo; you're checking if the object exists as in if it exists in the object list. Of course it does, so GM goes on to the next check, but since there isn't an instance for all of the 3 objects, it breaks. You want to check if an instance of the object exists in the room, though, so change the 'if object_exists' to 'if instance_exists'.

Wouldn't it be easier to make breath a global variable?

Fixed it now.