Some Minor Progress

Yes, some minor progress, sadly not in posting regularly to this blog. That, unfortunately, has been a dismal failure so far. No, the progress was in making my game work.

So what did I do? Not much, but oh so much indeed.

Launch!

The game I am working in requires a projectile to be launched from a fixed location on the screen. Think Angry Birds — the slingshot is what I’m after. And no, my game is not YAABC (Yet Another Angry Birds Clone).

Anyway, I had no good idea where to start, until I found a very cool and straightforward tutorial on YouTube describing how to do it. Of course, my implementation would be different (remember, not YAABC), so I had to make some changes along the way as well:

Instead of setting the "slingshot" on the ground, it will float in space. Because of that, the launcher sprite is simpler and easier to draw.

However, there is still a problem. I want the player to be able to launch the projectile in any direction, so I need to be able to rotate the launcher. However, my rotation code is not working properly.

Progress?

So, was there progress made? Yes there was — the second hardest part¹ of my game has been started. As many people will say, starting is often the hardest part.

So is there more to do? Oh yeah — the launcher still doesn’t work the way it should, the launching bands don’t retract, the rotation is completely frelled, and I need to integrate it better with my architecture. But it’s a start, and it’s easier to refine something that already exists than to start something brand new.