Claus Topholt’s Blog

Right! I’m getting seriously side-tracked here. I was planning on using a bit of my spare time to investigate news on the Rich Internet Applications (RIA) front, but I found myself trying to create an Arkanoid clone in Flex.

It didn’t go too well, because Flex/Flash doesn’t update the visuals fast enough. I think it has to do with the fact that Flash rendering uses a software device, instead of direct hardware access, such as through DirectX or OpenGL.

At any rate, I just couldn’t let the thought of creating an Arkanoid game be, so I browsed around and found GarageGames’ excellent product, Torque Game Builder. Using the product’s out-of-the-box features, some sample graphics and a bit of TorqueScript, I have put together the following:

To see it in action, just download the following file, un-zip it and run the .exe file: www.topholt.com/arkanoid/arkanoidtest1.zip

I’m actually pretty happy with it, considering that it only took a few hours to put together. It uses simple rigid body physics (!) to bounce the ball, and just for fun I added rotation to the paddle.

There are tons of things still missing or not working correctly. Some of the collision detections are a bit off, and the physics are not completely correct - but that’s my fault, not the product’s. I think I’ll keep playing with this and see if I could make it into a real “casual” game.

Comments are always welcome!

I’m having way too much fun with Flex.. It didn’t take me more than a few nights to put together a small test of an isometric world and implement an A* algorithm for pathfinding. It’s not nearly done yet, particularly the motion is bad, but you can check it out here:

http://www.topholt.com/Flex/bin-release/IsoPathfinder.html

Perhaps I could spend some time this holiday season making it into a small game or something. Who knows.

If anyone are interested in the implementation details, let me know. The screen-to-tile-space conversion took me a while to figure out, and A* can be tricky as well.

Edit: I’ve added the ability to fire small pieces of cheese at the cursor, to test collision with walls. Just press ‘A’ and you’ll see it in action!

Edit: View Source is now available.