Metiri Dubstep

Woo! Day 3 has been great. Great and long.

So what did I accomplish today?

Oh man. After a long amount of time I have decided to end day 3. This post is coming up a bit late, but as you can see from the gif above, it’s worth it.That gif is what I have so far! Can you believe it? After only 3 days I have something that resembles a game! This is actually exciting. So let’s get jiggy wit it technical.

Since yesterday I’ve redone all my code. I started with the Game class, which has a Ball and Paddle object. It takes care of all the input, logic updating, and drawing. It’s basically doing everything. It is enforcing the rules of the game. Well it will be in the coming days. I have just created a platform to build upon, and a good one at that. I also made a Ball and Paddle class. Pretty simple stuff, really. The ball handles collisions and it’s own movement. I’m trying to embrace encapsulation and I hope I’m understanding it correctly. The paddle is the player controlled (via the mouse) square that stops the ball from hitting the bottom of the screen. It’s working flawlessly. I’ve solved the problems I was having yesterday with frame-independent movement. I also implemented a fixed time step to stop the game from running differently on different machines (hopefully). It is wonderful to see the progress I’ve made so far. I can’t wait to wake up tomorrow and work on it.

So here I am. Day 1. The first game I am going to be making is a Breakout! clone.

If you don’t know what Breakout! is, you do. The player controls a paddle that moves horizontally, bound by the screen, which is used to bounce a ball back up (and away from the horrible bottom of the screen which causes a loss of a life) at a bunch of bricks. These bricks break and the ball will bounce back. Once all the bricks are broken, the player has won. But if the player loses three lives by the ball hitting the bottom of the screen past her paddle, the game is lost. 

So what did I accomplish today?

Welp, not a whole lot, but enough to be satisfied because it is a start. I’ve spent my day wondering about the classes I’d need to make this work, and luckily for me, it’s do-able. I’ve decided to use SFML, as my experience with Unity and other game engines left me wanting to program more. I know it’s harder, but I want the experience. I know reinventing the wheel (making a game engine myself) is a BAD idea, that’s why I’m not doing that. I am keeping it simple by only implementing WHAT I NEED. No fancy engine features. When I encounter a problem, I won’t be abstracting it out so it’ll work in future games. Right now, my focus is on making this one game, not making future ones. This is the approach I plan on taking for the first few games I make, since I think it’ll be the best way to understand game development for me personally. 

Now to talk about the tangible planning that I achieved today. I simply wrote out the classes I think I need and the members I think they’ll have. Nothing is set is stone! Since this is my first project, I plan on encountering hiccups along the way! Anyways, here is what I have:

Brick Class: The bricks will be destroyed when the ball hits it

Width

Height

Position

Color

Break()

Ball Class: The ball will bounce off all surfaces

Radius

Position

Speed

Bounce()

Paddle Class: The paddle is a player controlled block that moves horizontally and is bound by the screen

Width

Height

Position

MoveLeft()

MoveRight()

Game Class: The game will enforce the rules

vector<Brick*> Bricks? (too technical at this stage, but I’m thinking ahead)

Score

Lives

CreateLevel()

From incredible Indies to AAA games, we’re giving away 20 mystery Steam keys and you can be in with a chance of winning one this weekend!

To get your name in the hat, simply enter using the widget below before Monday 8 February at 12pm GMT when we’ll be picking the winners. Good luck!

Win a mystery Steam key!

Please note that in order to complete the Steam element of this giveaway, you will need a public, unlimited profile. Full terms and conditions in the widget above.

That’s right! To celebrate Bundle Fest 3, we’ve got a brand new, top-spec, Alienware Alpha machine worth $799 to give away to one lucky winner absolutely free!

With a 4th Generation Intel® Core™ i7 Processor, we’ve got the highest spec Alpha available loaded with free games including PAYDAY 2, Awesomenauts, Magicka and an Xbox 360 controller thrown in up for grabs.

Win a top-end Alienware Alpha!

Enter using the widget above by 9am BST on Tuesday 29th September, when we’ll be announcing the lucky winner.

And load up your Steam library with more awesome games in Bundle Fest 3! With dozens of Steam bundles already live, check out two new bundles every day this week!