I’ve started writing up some of what I’ve learned and done on my DS game adventure. Now that I have balls working nicely, I’ll start with that.

You can read it (it’s a PDF) here.

I just added support for balls in motion to interact.. bouncing off each other in a reasonably realistic way. There still some tweaking but the physics of the game are coming along nicely.

Also, I’ve started writing up some of my experiences. I’ll have that available shortly.

The other night I added a brick type that will release a ball when hit. That puts another ball in play. I also added a couple more levels and a way to select one at the start of a game.

Tonight I converted ball movement from being based on X & Y change values (which were added to the ball position each time through the game loop) to being vector based. A bit more math, but it’s much more flexible.

Once I had that working, I added a velocity vector to the paddle to reflect it’s movement. This vector had a magnitude of 0.25 when the paddle was moving and 0 when it was still. The angle was 0 or PI, when the paddle was moving right or left, respectively.

Then I had the paddle collision handling add the paddle velocity to the ball’s velocty vector. This gives the abiity to slice the ball when returning.. letting the player manipulate the speed and angle of the ball.

These fairly small changes really improve the feel of the game.

My Breakout project is coming along nicely. Since the last post I’ve added:

• scoring (with different types/colours of blocks having different point values)
• 3 balls (with an indicator of balls remaining)
• smaller ball
• using the upper display for:
  • a logo,
  • scoring legend,
  • balls remaining indicator, and
  • score
• sounds effects (ones from other games that I found online.. I plan on working on my own in time)
• data driven levels (although it only supports one level currently)

I think the next thing on the list is to add more advanced collision physics (e.g. being able to slice the ball).

Also, I’ll get a video up shortly.

Over the holidays I’ve been (when not playing FFIII, Magnetica, or Pokemon Diamond) working on my first DS project: a breakout game.

Tonight I got all the basic gameplay elements working:

• move the paddle (with the Dpad)
• launch a ball (with A)
• it bounces off the walls
• you can knock it back with the paddle
• if it hits bricks, they disappear

Next I’ll add scoring, and a limited number of balls.

I’ll post a video here shortly.