Breakout!

[Egan Ford]

(01-04-2014 07:12 AM)Kevin Ouellet Wrote:  One suggestion I would have for players who are more used to directional controls would be to add d-pad controls allowing the user to press left and right to move the paddle around. With the touch screen it can be awkward since your fingers often blocks the ball view, so those who are not used to playing games on a smartphone might have trouble beating just one level.

The keyboard may be a challenge.

Paddle-based games like Pong and Breakout usually have an absolute value paddle with stops at each end returning a value of 0 - 255 (for 8-bit systems) that can be used to know exactly where to place the paddle. That is how this touchscreen pong also works. Touchscreen challenged players can hold the Prime like a Gameboy and use two thumbs and just touch the screen (not touch-drag) and the paddle will jump to that position. I meant to video that, but forgot. For fat fingers, one can decrement paddle_y at the top of the code to move the paddle up. I tried to place the paddle where one could drag the paddle and have the paddle align with one's fingernail.

Spinner-based games like Arkanoid and Tempest rely on measuring variable velocity or acceleration and the stops are in the software.

Digital d-pads provide neither absolute position or velocity making them poor for paddle and spinner-based games. However ...

I have three possible options for D-pad support:

A. The D-pad is an accelerator. While holding the left or right arrow the paddle accelerates, if left or right is released the paddle could full stop or coast to stop. With full stop I expect most will overshoot and with coast-to-stop there will be some training. Coast-to-stop aligns with button-based games that require acceleration, e.g. Asteroids. I think most could learn this. Rapid breaking can be implemented by using the opposite direction.

B. The D-pad with linear velocity based on the current ball x velocity (e.g. 1.25 * vx * speed adjustment). This would align with the player's desire. If the ball is moving in the +x or -x direction fast, then you want to track it fast, and vv. This would be easier to implement and possibly be easier for users to learn quicker. Releasing left or right would full stop the paddle.

C. Do nothing and hope that users can learn to use the touchscreen. If clearing a level is too hard just change base_ticks to 30, 35, or 40. The game will start out slower and very easy until you hit an orange or red brick, then it will be harder, but not as hard as it is now. Another option would be to change the fast speed (hardcoded) from 2 to 1.5. There are endless permutations to tune this game.