Game Maker 7

direction = 0, right
direction = 90, up
direction = 180, left
direction = 270, down

Don't put "set lives" etc. in the Create event of the obj_controller, instead, put in the the "Game start" event. Because when the player loses one life and "restart the current room", the actions in Create event of the obj_controller will be execurated and you will see your number of lives doesn't decrease by 1.