RedditPosts Tagged ‘breakout’
It was a funny thing, this…
In the interest of full disclosure, I’ll state up front that the main reason for this post is because someone told me I couldn’t get trophies if I hadn’t written a blog post. I have no idea if we’re too late for any awarding, but what the hell.
I haven’t really felt the need to talk about my game, EscapeOut, because it wasn’t a particularly interesting process. Relying on a 20-min show-off video by Photon Storm about how to make a brick breaker in 20mins, I stumbled my way through Flixel and came up with something that put a little spin on the core concept. The theme of LD21 was Escape, so how else does one apply that to a brick breaker? Easy: something on the screen has got to try to get the hell out of dodge. From there it was a simple leap in logic to the eventual core mechanic. I won’t say what that is because I don’t like to spoil the game. In fact, I really liked setting friends down in front of EscapeOut with no instructions to see if they can figure it out. The game has no instructions for a very intentional reason.
Judging by the comments on EscapeOut, forcing players to discover the game’s mechanic paid off. I’ve been a very bad LD participant: haven’t blogged, haven’t played many of the entries, haven’t used the IRC channel except for a couple technical questions. Mostly this has been due to time; I only managed to spend half of the 48 hour timeframe coding, due to oversleeping and family obligations. So, I was quite surprised to log on today and see the comments and ratings left for EscapeOut. A few people really seemed to like it, more than I ever could have imagined. Even more shocking, the game was rated #54 in humour. Seriously, a game with no instructions, no words other than “YOU HAVE DIED” and “YOU ESCAPED”, no characters, no narrative, and even no sound effects or music, ranked within the top 10% of humourous games in the entire Ludum Dare 21!
I guess this really goes to show that an intriguing mechanic can turn a relatively bland experience into an interesting one, even if only for a few minutes.
(T+48:48) Final Entry: BlockOut v0.LD48_11
BlockOut v0.LD48_11
LoneStranger – 04/20/2008
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This is by far not what I wanted it to be. There are only two brick types implemented, but I think its enough to get the idea of the game I wanted to do.
I wrote it using the Sun JVM version 1.6.0, however, it should work with version 1.5.0. It will not work with 1.4.2, because it needs the System.nanoTime() method.
My game is like Breakout… only in reverse. The object of the game is to protect the goal from the bouncing ball by placing bricks on the field of play. Bricks cost money, which you earn by playing and the computer’s misfortune.
The ball will bounce around and the computer will attempt to keep it in play. The player gets points/money for each couple seconds the game is going. If the ball leaves the field of play through the bottom, the player gets bonus money.
If the ball leaves the field of play through the top goal, the game is over and the score is reported.
I know the collision on the bricks from the side isn’t the best. I have some solutions in mind but not time to implement them.
You can download the game from my website and the code as well.
[Update] I used Eclipse as my IDE, and Photoshop to do the graphics. That’s all the tools I used. Oh, except for this pen and scratch paper.
[Update 2] I changed the above link to the zip version of the download. The jar just wasn’t handling some pathing stuff right. I’ll check into it for the eventual post-LD release.
(T+42:55) Update – New Screen shot, homestretch?
I’m behind where I want to be, but I’m still chugging along.
So, it’s not really obvious from the screen shot, but this is not your usual Breakout game. The idea is the same; the ball bounces and removes the bricks. The catch is that you aren’t controlling the paddle. The computer is. Your job is to build up the wall and protect the goal at the top of the screen. You do so by buying different types of bricks and deciding where to place those bricks for the best protection.
I’m not sure if I want to ‘scale back’ the graphics to make it look more minimalist, more in line with the hollow ball and paddle. I think I’ll be able to get at least a basic game ready to play before the deadline. I can see myself adding more things into post-LD revision later on.
