4 replies to this topic

[superman3275]

I've been trying to program breakout for a few weeks, and every time I've ran into errors that, despite spending hour upon hour trying to track down, I couldn't fix. I want to do something with less physics, that's easier and will allow me to advance. What's something I should make that's "between" Pong and Breakout?

[superman3275]

I think I'll try space invaders next, on lazyfoo.net's article about progress he says it's a good second/third project after pong.

[IgnatusZuk]

lol you basically answered your own question in 6 minutes time.

I think one of the most important and mentally encouraging things in a journey of becoming a game programmer is finishing what you start out to do.

[superman3275]

^^^^^^^^^
That's why I want to try a different game. I've failed on breakout four times, and I feel like I'm not ready. I'm going to work on something simpler so that when I finish it I can feel more motivated, and learn some important things that will help me move on to Breakout / My own games.

[stitchs]

What are the issues you have been having with Breakout? Have you tried breaking down the problems your having into small steps and tried tackling each step? For example:

If you are having problems with the ball hitting numerous bricks, here is how you could tackle it:

• take your previous Pong,
• implement two paddles, one that moves and reflects the ball (player) and one that remains still (single brick),
• implement collision detection for each side of the moving bat,
• make it so that if the non-moving paddle is hit, increment some sort of counter

This shows that you are able to achieve what you need with one Brick, then you could turn that into a single row of 5 bricks, get collision working correctly for those, then add a couple more rows.

Are you designing your code before attempting to program, so that you are not effectively going in 'blind'?

Regards,

Stitchs.

Edited by stitchs, 14 October 2012 - 05:13 PM.