First discussion

Summary:

Community driven project to develop a 'Breakout' video game clone.

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Community Projects

PiscesMike 13 Sep 2013 02:29

The following is an excerpt from RB's Uservoice page concerning a tutorial for a complete game:

"Greetings all! Good to see continuing activity here!

I was thinking perhaps we should try to tackle this game project as a community. We could use similar base code, which we post to the forums, and then ask questions if we run into problems. It would give us a chance to learn from working and have the added benefit of creating a number of variations on a theme, provided we use different textures, and different behaviors (to a degree). I'm at a point where this would actually be pretty helpful for my development as well.

So what I suggest, keeping it simple, is a 'Breakout' type clone. My former room mate, and a good friend wrote something very similar for one of his various programming classes, and it can make for a fun 'little' game.

I'm going over to RB's site to start a forum thread under "Forum->Other->Community Projects and encourage everyone to drop by and check in there if you're interested. I'll also post some basic game guidelines, the beginning game code, and open the discussion to suggestions. See you there!"

Welcome to the continuation of that post.

First let me introduce myself, my name is James Michael Hicks, 'Mike' as my friends call me, or 'PiscesMike' whenever I'm out and about posting on the net. I've been an avid gamer for many years, and a code tinkerer for perhaps just as long. When I was a young lad, many years ago, I met a friend who happened to have a Colecovision. He introduced me to Pong, the first 'video game' I had ever seen. As a youngster, this simple pleasure mesmerized me. It wasn't long (probably about as long as it took me to get home) before I was begging my parents to get me a similar game machine. You know how kids can be. This went on until my birthday finally rolled around, and my dad actually told me I could pick out whatever video game machine I wanted. My dad was an electrical engineer and a Ham radio enthusiast, so of course any electronics were pretty interesting for him as well. He also was quite a sneaky and devious person looking back on the whole thing. You see, as we rode together to purchase my birthday present we spent the time talking about games and computers. As he explained more and more, he told me that the computers were able to do all kinds of stuff, including making games. Also, he explained I could get the Colecovision, or Atari, or whatever I wanted, and a couple games OR, if I was smart, I could get a computer, and in a couple of years be making my own games. It isn't hard to guess which one we ended up coming home with.

This was my introduction to the Timex-Sinclair 1000, and the beginning of a relationship that has endured to this day. It's been more than a couple years, and although I think I could tackle a simple 'Pong' game, the finer points of efficiency in implementing 3D terrain, manipulating generated models into XNA, and HLSL are things which are a continuing challenge. I've recently discovered RBWhitaker's lovely site here, and find it a tremendous resource and an inspiration as I push forward in my own endeavors.

Following in the spirit of progress it has occurred to me that while I have some impressive examples of code I've been working on, I have yet to complete a single game. So, I'd like to take the opportunity to do that now, with community input, and provide examples from the ground up to completion. As mentioned above, I suggested a 'Breakout' clone. For those that don't know, Breakout is a 'Pong' derivative of sorts. Instead of facing a live opponent, you control a 'paddle' which hits a 'ball', which 'breaks' an element in a wall of 'bricks'.

So, from the goal of creating a clone of this game, we can deduce the following basic guidelines:

We will need a 'Paddle' object to represent the player

• It should track the location of the 'Paddle'
• EDIT: (added 9.13.2013 7:35am) It would also be a good idea for this object to have inputs for color and texture (like the 'Bricks' object below), which will allow us to change the appearance of the 'Paddle' in game.

We will need a 'Ball' object to represent the ball

• It will need to track the balls position, trajectory, and velocity
• EDIT: (added 9.13.2013 7:32am) It would also be a good idea for this object to have inputs for color and texture (like the 'Bricks' object below), which will allow us to change the appearance of the 'Ball' in game.

We will need a 'Brick' object to represent the 'Bricks'

• This should be an array and will need to track a variety of variables, including: Active(has it been 'broken'), color, texture, and a custom struct to define a 'Brick Type'.
• 'Brick Types' for example can be 'indestructible', 'explosive', 'bonus points', 'drops a powerup', etc

We will need a 'TextOutput' object to display the score using an XNA FontObject

• It should be able to accept text, text position, and color/display options

In the course of this project, I also plan to add a 'Background' object to manage various images in the background, and of course, a 'Sound Manager' object to play music and (EDIT:) sound special effects.

At this point, I'm going to take a break in the post, and ask for your input.

Going forward on this project:

• Everyone should have C# and XNA Game Studio 4.0 installed
• Everyone should be familiar with C# and the basics of OOP

If you have any questions so far, please feel free to ask.

---

"May the mercy of His Divine Shadow fall upon you." - Stanley H. Tweedle, Security Guard class IV, The League of 20,000 planets

Last edited on 15 Sep 2013 14:11 by PiscesMike Show more

Re: Community Projects

rbwhitaker 13 Sep 2013 04:11

Mike, let me just say that I think this is an excellent idea, and I'm glad you're spearheading it. I'm probably going to sit this one out, as far as full development goes, because (a) I have plenty of other things to do here, and because (b) I think you guys will probably learn more without me. However, I'll be around to answer questions if you guys need it, and hopefully I can give you guys moral support as well.

This is the first time I've seen anybody do something like this here. There may be a lot of people who are cautious about jumping in. So please give it a few days to see what takers you have. And anyone who comes here and read this, I'd strongly encourage you to jump in and participate. The basic requirements that Mike has laid out are a low enough bar that anybody ought to be able to participate if they take some time to get through the C# tutorials.

To help the project along, I have a few suggestions. You guys can take them or leave them. It's your project, not mine.

• Set up a version control system that everybody can get access to. My personal choice it BitBucket, but I believe GitHub has more users. If you want help with that, I'll help you set up a project on BitBucket. Heck, if I can come up with a way, I'd be happy to do some sort of crash course video chat/screen cast on BitBucket, version control, and Mercurial. (If you go with GitHub or Git for your version control system… perhaps somebody else should do the same. I don't know nearly as much about Git. My personal choice is Mercurial.)

• It might be a good idea to set up some sort of legal ground rules. Again, what I put here is not official, just a suggestion at the moment. I might say that should be, "All contributions to the project must be your own work, and any part of the project can be used by any participant for any purpose, later on." That's simple enough that people will understand it, sets the expectation that you've got to help build the thing in order to use the code (A "who wants to help me eat the bread?" thing), and allows people to be able to take what they do in this project as a team and turn around and use it for their next project without worrying about legal problems. Obviously, there are a lot of alternatives to this. Feel free to choose whatever you guys think works.

• You're going to want a design document or a specification of some sort. Something that anybody who comes into the project can immediately see what you're trying to accomplish, and what you've got complete. Perhaps that's just a document in Google Docs or perhaps a Wiki on your source control system (both GitHub and BitBucket have built-in wiki systems, though I think I like GitHub's better). But you guys will probably want to build it together and maintain it.

Aside from all of that, if there's anything else I can do to help you in this adventure, please let me know. I'll definitely be around. I'm excited to see where this leads!

Re: Community Projects

PiscesMike 13 Sep 2013 10:41

Thanks for the kind words RB!

Some great suggestions which forms a good starting point.

As an indie and loner programmer, I'm not familiar with BitBucket or GitHub (other than what I've downloaded), and usually just copy each newer version of my code over to a USB drive with a project name and date for organization. Using these services seems the best approach, so I will spend the next couple days going over them. My original plan was just to post all the code here, and I was working on how to do that without it becoming a huge incomprehensible jumble. I will more than likely go with BitBucket to store the entire project code, and post snippets here for what we are currently working on. The only issue I have at the moment seems to be my lack of ability to post a link here. Perhaps my karma will improve and I'll be able to do that in the future.

In the meantime, when code is available, I will post a 'coded' link something like: www(dot)BitBucket(dot)com(slash)ProjectName.html which should be easy enough for people to figure out. Over the course of the next couple of days (I'm shooting to do updates about every 3 days to give people time to catch up, form questions, and tinker), I will get caught up on BitBucket, create a basic GPL (General Public License) for this project, and create the project document.

For those out there reading and following along, I encourage you to pop in on the post here and introduce yourself. Doesn't have to be anything fancy, just a hello and a username would be fine. If you feel like giving a little background information about yourself, where your programming level and experience is, and any suggestions you may have please feel free to do so. It's encouraged so we can get to know each other a little better, but not mandatory.

So, for the coming post on this project (~09.16.2013) I'm going to concentrate on the items Mr. Whitaker has outlined above as well as try to get the basic game frame on BitBucket. This basic frame is going to be nothing more than a blank C# XNA 4.0 Game for Windows with some extra commenting outlining the aspects of the game flow. Simply put, this will allow us all to get on the same page and highlight the areas where we will be adding code later. In addition to what has already been planned, I'm going to add a 'Standard Practices' quick reference with a list of little things that will help the development. This will be items which are applicable to any project, such as daily backups of the project to a USB drive, and an organizational framework.

I would encourage anyone who has qualms about C# to check out the tutorials RB has linked to in his above post. It seems the more I learn, the more there is to learn, and he has created a great resource with these tutorials. Going further, I would also encourage everyone to update to (at least) the Visual Studio 2010 version of C# Express and XNA Game Studio 4.0 if you haven't already. When I was first starting I used a 'not-so-licensed' version of C#, and while it didn't cause any problems I've come to realize this approach was completely pointless. Both C# Express and XNA are completely free from Microsoft, and you can even register C# to get a key which will unlock the 30 day trial. The only restriction they put on the IDE is completed software release. Since we will be using C# in a learning environment, this should suit our purposes nicely, and it's good to have trusted, problem free development environments.

Anyways, this concludes my diatribe on what we're going to be using, where we currently stand, and where we plan to be headed in the future. Any problems or questions, feel free to shoot them at us. I'll be checking in daily, probably multiple times, and Mr. Whitaker is sneaking around keeping me on my toes. Looking forward to hearing from everyone out there, and working together towards a complete project!

---

"May the mercy of His Divine Shadow fall upon you." - Stanley H. Tweedle, Security Guard class IV, The League of 20,000 planets

Last edited on 13 Sep 2013 10:46 by PiscesMike Show more

Ken S (guest) 13 Sep 2013 14:55

Hey Mike! Ken here (I'm the guy Mike was referring to that wrote a breakout game for a programming class I had).

I'm not familiar with this site, I'll take a look around when I have some time. I'd be interested in contributing to this, if I can find the time.

Since we seem to be sharing our back story (not sure if this is normal but whatevs) here's a little background on me:
I started programming in Basic, mostly editing other people's code that I found on BBSs when I was pretty young, I can't really remember what age. In high school there was a programming class that used Turbo Pascal, I really had a lot of fun there. There wasn't much structure to the class, so I just read the book and taught myself mostly. I even learned how to do animations and write games, I found you could draw off the screen and then switch "pages" to make the animations faster, and I learned how to load sprites. Before long I had written a Galaga clone (not as good as the original but I was still really happy with the way it turned out). I wrote a lot of games in turbo pascal, and shared them with my friends in the class.

Then in my senior year there were no programming classes left, so me and 3 other guys petitioned to have an independent study class on programming. I was shocked that it was approved. That class was also a lot of fun, but I felt like I wasted a lot of time. We brought in old crappy computers that we pieced together because the school didn't have anything available for us, and I spent a lot of time troubleshooting problems with the hardware/software. Then we started making a mod for Doom using images from the school, we used a picture of the teacher that was there to babysit us to replace the imp creature, etc. But we never finished that, then the school asked us to run network cables to some of the class rooms that didn't have network drops and we spent a lot of time doing that. Finally towards the end I felt like I was wasting time and decided I wanted to learn java, which was the new/hot thing at the time, so I taught myself enough to write a simple game called lights out. At the end of the year we had to show off something for the class, I showed off my lights out game because it was the last thing I worked on, but I wasn't really impressed with it, I felt like I should have done something much more advanced.

Then I went to college, but it wasn't really what I was hoping it would be. The computer lab was great though, it was all linux machines, and I'd never used linux so I spent all my time learning how to write scripts and whatnot instead of going to the classes that I didn't like. After 3 semesters I dropped out and went to a trade type school with a 13 month program geared towards programming. The school was another major disappointment. The teachers didn't really know the material, they just had us read the books and gave tests on the material. But again I taught myself as much as I could, and I impressed the other students by writing games again, just like in high school. The one I spent the most time on was the breakout game that Mike mentioned. It was written in VB 6.

Once that course was over the school had a program to help place students in a job and they helped me get my first interview at a job to do Visual FoxPro programming, which I'd never done before, but I found a copy and played around with it a bit before the interview. I have no idea why, but the company wanted to hire me, even though I felt like the interview went poorly and I had no VFP experience. I ended up working there for over 9 years working on their in-house developed CRM/MRP software that they used to run their business (manufacturing). I spent most of that time as the only programmer, or the lead programmer, and also a good portion of it as the IT Administrator. I really didn't like it most of the time, some of the programming was challenging and fun but mostly I was bored.

I left that job, partially because I wanted a change, but mostly because the pay wasn't very good. Now I work pretty much solely as an IT Administrator. I do a little programming for my old employer still, and a tiny bit of programming on my own, but mostly I do IT work. I kinda hate it to be honest. But the pay is really really good compared to what I was getting. So I shouldn't complain. But game programming is what I really have always wanted to do. I don't know why I've never really pursued it as a possible occupation, but I haven't. Anyway, I mentioned to Mike that I wanted to get back into game programming and he sent me the link to this. So maybe I'll try to find time to contribute. I've done enough C# on my own to consider myself somewhat competent, but I've never done any XNA stuff. So, I'd have a lot to learn I think.

Wow, I have no idea why I typed all that…

PiscesMike 13 Sep 2013 18:12

Hey Ken! Great to see you made it by. Good introduction, got to learn a few things even I didn't know!

---

"May the mercy of His Divine Shadow fall upon you." - Stanley H. Tweedle, Security Guard class IV, The League of 20,000 planets

Re: Community Projects

Emblis 13 Sep 2013 17:54

Sounds like a fun idea!

Could you please make a flowchart and a class chart so that we may get an idea of how it is intended to work?

Re: Community Projects

PiscesMike 13 Sep 2013 18:15

Greetings Emblis. A flowchart sounds like a wonderful idea.

I've started doing the base documents and will have them up on Google Drive pretty shortly. I'll go ahead and do a flowchart and add it in with those as to where we stand now. Good to have you aboard!

---

"May the mercy of His Divine Shadow fall upon you." - Stanley H. Tweedle, Security Guard class IV, The League of 20,000 planets

Re: Community Projects

rbwhitaker 13 Sep 2013 19:35

I'm really excited to see how this is progressing. It's coming together a lot quicker than I had expected it to. It looks like there are three people already on board! Awesome!

I have a question and a suggestion for you guys now.

The question first. What would you guys think if I created a separate Group in the forum for projects like this? The group might be called "Community Projects" or something. Under that, there would be a category for this Breakout clone. All of your threads would be bundled together under that. Also under the Community Projects group would be a General category, which could be used for general discussion on projects like this, as well as for staging new project ideas. Some day, when more projects come along, they'd also get their own category. Is that something you guys would want? I think it would give more credence to what you're doing. More legitimacy. It would also pave the way for the next set of people who come along behind you. I ought to be able to move this thread over there without any trouble.

And now my suggestion. I strongly recommend a deadline/end date. I don't care if that's three days, three months, or three years from now (well… probably not that long) but pick a date that everything is done by. The point of the deadline is not to make everyone involved feel a lot of pressure to finish everything up by spending all of their free time on it. Quite the opposite, in fact.

The purpose would be so that it doesn't continue perpetually. So that you don't feel obligated to still be working on this a year from now. Software has a tendency to fill all time allocated to it, and without an end date, that could fill an eternity. I know you guys don't want that. Establishing an end date where you stop working on it regardless of what state its in would be very meaningful, I think.

Then you can pick a different game, a sequel (because all Breakout games needs sequels…), or just go your own ways. Maybe form different teams or something. At any rate, you'd know that by whatever date is set, you'll wrap things up guaranteed.

I'm not about to force an end date on you guys. Choose whatever you think makes the most sense for what you're trying to do. I'm merely suggesting it.

Re: Community Projects

PiscesMike 14 Sep 2013 01:53

Hey again RB!

I think a separate Forum Group would be awesome. I was thinking of suggesting that from the start, but wanted to see what happened as far as getting people involved. Looks like we've hit that goal and I'm sure that will only grow going into the future. As the work progresses it should form a useful record for the future generations as well. My only input would be leaving instructions here to find the new location for anyone still coming over from UserVoice as I specifically put down this location for the project. Once the move has happened, I will go back over there and add another comment to update anyone browsing there.

As to a deadline, I had kind of set one for myself of 90 days. I'd like to give things a full week to get kicked off, so if we go with that, we could start the 'official' production on 09.19.2013 with the anticipated release date of 12.15.2013. That way I can have the documents, guidelines, and such up before we get 'started'. 90 days seems a good midpoint between being constrictive of time and being too lenient, at least for this project, and, at least, in my opinion.

For anyone else out there reading, if we were to be starting from absolute ground up, 90 days might be a little tight. Not that it couldn't be done, but with this particular project we are already starting with a couple of advantages. Namely, the design and play mechanics of the game have already been worked out since we're making a clone. In addition, I have a music score from another production I'm working on which we can use for this project. These two items alone could hold things up in a professional setting. Design and mechanics is an area where you will be better to spend a little extra time to have everything worked out (at least on paper), than to try and forge ahead and 'repair' stuff later. Taking that into consideration, we can spend our 90 days actually concentration solely (for the most part) on code and reviewing ideas and input. And lastly, we also have Ken S as a resource. Since he's already been through something very very similar, we have him as well as RB to fall back on in case we hit stumbling blocks. For this project, the math won't be so bad but it's always good to have someone who can smack you in the back of the head with a ruler and yell "You're doing it wrong!". Just kidding, Ken never yells. We'll find out about Mr. Whitaker!

I like the idea of sequels. One of the things I have noticed in my own coding is the re-usability of techniques once they've been coded correctly. That is to say, once they have been completed, you can usually switch them out to another project and update with new graphics (textures in the 2D scenario) and you'll get a completely new feel to things. I have a couple samples of stuff I've done in the past and will more than likely put up some links to videos showcasing what they can do, and a few might even end up here. Anyways, good coding, and we'll chat soon!

---

"May the mercy of His Divine Shadow fall upon you." - Stanley H. Tweedle, Security Guard class IV, The League of 20,000 planets

Last edited on 14 Sep 2013 01:53 by PiscesMike Show more

Re: Community Projects

PiscesMike 14 Sep 2013 12:49

The basic documents have been completed. They are rudimentary for the moment, but will grow as the project progresses. You can find this information on google drive, at the following link:

http://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B5moEgyck5X5Q1ZjZDRTckdTSDQ&usp=sharing

Again, if you have any comments or questions, feel free to post them and I'll get back with you as soon as I can!

---

"May the mercy of His Divine Shadow fall upon you." - Stanley H. Tweedle, Security Guard class IV, The League of 20,000 planets

Last edited on 14 Sep 2013 12:53 by rbwhitaker Show more

Base Code

PiscesMike 15 Sep 2013 13:42

Greetings once again all!
I went ahead and created a base project, completely empty of everything except the base code. I added commenting where I thought appropriate to highlight areas of interest and have left the default comments intact as well. You should be able to copy and paste this right into your own project, replacing the contents of Game1.cs. This is just to get us familiar with the game loop and what things are going to look like, and has very little functionality save rendering a blank screen. Before going further I'm going to take the advice Emblis gave and create a flowchart which will help cement our goals and provide a layout for our custom objects. Later today I am going to try and also get this up on BitBucket, but figure this will be a nice reference for any other projects going into the future.

// Welcome to the 'Breakout' Clone game project. This document will serve as the basic starting code for the clone and will contain extra commenting to show areas of interest
// when adding additional code funtionality. Documents outlining this project, current status, the GPU license, version notes, etc can be found at:
//                  drive(dot)google(dot)com/folderview?id=0B5moEgyck5X5Q1ZjZDRTckdTSDQ&usp=sharing#
// You can find the original discussion as well as the ongoing debate on RBWhitakers game programming site located at:
//                  rbwhitaker(dot)wikidot(dot)com/forum/t-694876/community-projects
// Note: the location of the forum may change, if it does, please look for the "Community Projects" area. Directions to the new location may also be located in the original 
// forum notes. 
 
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using Microsoft.Xna.Framework;
using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Audio;
using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content;
using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.GamerServices;
using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics;
using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Input;
using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Media;
 
// Additional using statements will need to be added here. These statements, of course, will vary depending on the project. For the time being and for simplicity's sake, we are going
// to stick with the auto-generated statements for now. They will be enough to get us started, and in fact, probably a good way into the game. If you are unfamiliar with using statements,
// consider them to be analogous to #include statements, or linking to a dynamic link library. They basically allow us to use the objects, structures, and variables provided by the 
// exposed (linked) classes. The default statements provided above will allow us to use XNA's services for graphics, user input (keyboard and mouse), content importing, and audio for
// playing music and sound effects. 
 
namespace BreakOutBaseGame
{
    /// <summary>
    /// This is the main type for your game
    /// </summary>
    public class Game1 : Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game
    {
        GraphicsDeviceManager graphics;
        SpriteBatch spriteBatch;
 
        // This is the location where you will want to put your global variables. This can be things such as variables to track if we are running in fullscreen, the players score,
        // starting level number, etc. In the auto-generated code, we have only two objects, 'graphics' which is used to create the interface to our display hardware, and spriteBatch,
        // which is used to create the object used to render (draw) the actual textures. Every XNA game should have these two at a minimum, and as we progress in the game we will add
        // other objects which will allow us to access the audio hardware, keyboard, joystick, etc, if we so choose. 
 
        public Game1()
        {
            graphics = new GraphicsDeviceManager(this);         // Creates an instance of the GraphicsDeviceManager which references our display hardware. In parenthesis, you will
                                                                // see the keyword 'this'. Simply put, 'this' is our form, and sends the GraphicsDeviceManager all the information
                                                                // it needs to use 'this' form for rendering and output.
 
            Content.RootDirectory = "Content";                  // Ensures that our Conent Pipeline is set to read from the correct Directory. It is important to note that this is 
                                                                // the name specified in game, and represents a game resource, not necessarily the actual Directory name. To locate
                                                                // the actual directory, you can click on the 'Content' shortcut located in the solution explorer to the right and 
                                                                // check the entry titled 'Project Folder'. In more advanced games, this content folder may contain any number of
                                                                // subfolders to represent game assets such as sound, textures, 3D models, etc. 
 
            // Here, you would want to set up other basic hardware options if you wanted to set a specific screen resolution or make changes to the form itself, such as setting a
            // caption. You will mostly want to limit what goes here to these two options.
        }
 
        /// <summary>
        /// Allows the game to perform any initialization it needs to before starting to run.
        /// This is where it can query for any required services and load any non-graphic
        /// related content.  Calling base.Initialize will enumerate through any components
        /// and initialize them as well.
        /// </summary>
        protected override void Initialize()
        {
            // TODO: Add your initialization logic here
            // This is where we will want to set the default values of our global variables, if they were not set on creation, and create instances of our custom objects.
            base.Initialize();
        }
 
        /// <summary>
        /// LoadContent will be called once per game and is the place to load
        /// all of your content.
        /// </summary>
        protected override void LoadContent()
        {
            // Create a new SpriteBatch, which can be used to draw textures.
            spriteBatch = new SpriteBatch(GraphicsDevice);
 
            // TODO: use this.Content to load your game content here
            // LoadContent is where we will actually be importing the assets for use in game. Here you would load everything from 2D textures, to models, to sound effects, and a music loop.
        }
 
        /// <summary>
        /// UnloadContent will be called once per game and is the place to unload
        /// all content.
        /// </summary>
        protected override void UnloadContent()
        {
            // TODO: Unload any non ContentManager content here
            // This is the reverse of the LoadContent, where we will destroy any remaining references to objects before preforming a final game exit. XNA seems to handle this pretty well
            // on its own, so we may not need to unload anything with this simple game. It is important to remember that in more advanced settings if we forget to unload certain objects
            // we can create a memory leak and all kinds of nasty thingies.
        }
 
        /// <summary>
        /// Allows the game to run logic such as updating the world,
        /// checking for collisions, gathering input, and playing audio.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="gameTime">Provides a snapshot of timing values.</param>
        protected override void Update(GameTime gameTime)
        {
            // This is where most of our action is going to be taking place. We'll check the keyboard state, respond to input, update variables, etc. It probably goes without saying, but
            // I'm going to say it anyways: it's best to keep things here as tight and efficient as possible. Since this will run many times a second, any thing we put here that causes a
            // bottleneck will be multiplied expotentially. 
 
            // Allows the game to exit
            if (GamePad.GetState(PlayerIndex.One).Buttons.Back == ButtonState.Pressed)
                this.Exit();
            // Although this ^^^ claims to allow us to exit the game, it's an outright lie. This is setup to respond to a XBOX controller (*as far as I know), and since we don't have one
            // hooked into the computer it does nothing. Seems like Microsoft would have went ahead and changed this to be keyboard sensitive since it's a Windows default project, but 
            // since they didn't, we'll have to add code here to do that later. Fortunatly, that's actually pretty easy.
 
            // TODO: Add your update logic here
 
            base.Update(gameTime);
        }
 
        /// <summary>
        /// This is called when the game should draw itself.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="gameTime">Provides a snapshot of timing values.</param>
        protected override void Draw(GameTime gameTime)
        {
 
            GraphicsDevice.Clear(Color.CornflowerBlue);        // Clear the render target (the screen) and fill it with a nice shade of blue. Whenever you want to change the color of the empty
                                                               // screen, you will modify the color component of the clear method. I usually like to change mine to Color.Black. The Color object
                                                               // is very useful and contains a large number of basic options. If you need to create a custom color from RGB or RGBA components,
                                                               // you can do so in the following manner: (The RGB values are int, and the alpha value is a float)
                                                               //                                                   Color MyCustomColor = new Color(Red, Green, Blue, [Alpha]);
 
            // TODO: Add your drawing code here
 
            // Just like the default comments say, this is where everything is going to be rendered to the screen. Or, more precisely, this is where we turn over all the objects we have
            // constructed to the video hardware to be rendered.
 
            base.Draw(gameTime);
        }
    }
}

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"May the mercy of His Divine Shadow fall upon you." - Stanley H. Tweedle, Security Guard class IV, The League of 20,000 planets

Last edited on 15 Sep 2013 14:13 by PiscesMike Show more

Breakout Clone on Bitbucket

PiscesMike 15 Sep 2013 18:30

After a little tinkering, I was able to get the project up on BitBucket. It is located here: https://bitbucket.org/PiscesMike/breakout-clone-project/src/241e39475e602f83c2f9312454fcce01b732637e?at=default
I'm not sure if I set the defaults up correctly though since I'm new to using their service. You may need a password to download the code, or make changes. If you run into that scenario, just let me know here, and I'll dink around until I get that figured out! Now, on to the flow chart!

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"May the mercy of His Divine Shadow fall upon you." - Stanley H. Tweedle, Security Guard class IV, The League of 20,000 planets

Last edited on 17 Sep 2013 14:10 by rbwhitaker Show more

Re: Breakout Clone on Bitbucket

Emblis 15 Sep 2013 19:22

Nope, it ask for login, I can not access it.

Last edited on 15 Sep 2013 19:23 by Emblis Show more

Re: Breakout Clone on Bitbucket

PiscesMike 15 Sep 2013 20:15

Ok, sorry I had the project set to be Private. I've changed that now, and loaded it while being logged out, and it worked. So, just try the link again and see if it works for you!

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"May the mercy of His Divine Shadow fall upon you." - Stanley H. Tweedle, Security Guard class IV, The League of 20,000 planets

Last edited on 15 Sep 2013 20:21 by PiscesMike Show more

Re: Breakout Clone on Bitbucket

PiscesMike 15 Sep 2013 20:44

This link might be a little easier, upon looking at things, I found the download thing a little confusing. If you click on the "download" header there are no files to get. However, If you go to 'overview' there is a summary box on the right hand side showing the branches, tags, forks, etc. At the very bottom of this window is a download link that works. So here's the link for the main page, with the correct download:

https://bitbucket.org/PiscesMike/breakout-clone-project/overview

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"May the mercy of His Divine Shadow fall upon you." - Stanley H. Tweedle, Security Guard class IV, The League of 20,000 planets

Last edited on 17 Sep 2013 14:11 by rbwhitaker Show more

Re: Community Projects

rbwhitaker 17 Sep 2013 14:48

I was able to download the project. I made a few changes (ignoring user-specific files and binary files in the repository) and submitted a pull request. Mike, you should see the pull request and be able to take a look at what changed, and accept or reject it. Let me know if there are any problems, or anything strange happens. By the way, if you don't like that commit, I won't be offended if you reject it.

Re: Community Projects

rbwhitaker 17 Sep 2013 14:51

By the way, I never did hear anything from Emblis or Ken about the time frame thing. Three months seemed on the long side to me. (I might have picked a month?) But in the end, it's completely in your (plural) hands.

Three months puts it right at about when college is ending for the semester, and people will be finishing up projects and finals. If any of you are in college, that's going to be poor timing.

Re: Community Projects

PiscesMike 17 Sep 2013 15:40

Greetings all! Pull has been reviewed and accepted. Thanks for the cleanup, those are things I would never have paid attention to, at least not until I had used BitBucket for a while longer. It seems like things went fine for the accept.

My main reason for picking 90 days was to allow anyone who isn't up to speed with C# to be able to ask questions, etc. It's looking like it's going to be just me, Emblis, and Ken for the majority of this project, so I think shortening the time frame would be fine. I'm going to give it a few more days, just in case we have additions to those participating. I know those here are probably anxious to get things started and don't want to be dragging along forever to get to completion.

My last bit of work before going into the main coding is to get the flowchart up and I'll be working on that today. This is actually going to be a good learning experience on my part. Although I have done it before, I've mostly limited myself to creating a list and outline of the objects, without giving a lot of thought towards the actual flow control. I know, I know… BAD programmer!

Anyways, I'm off to do some house chores. Have a great day all!

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"May the mercy of His Divine Shadow fall upon you." - Stanley H. Tweedle, Security Guard class IV, The League of 20,000 planets

Re: Community Projects

PiscesMike 17 Sep 2013 15:45

By the way all, once we get farther into things, I will more than likely be using a class I have already created for managing sprites. This should be able to handle the Ball, Paddle, and Brick objects and can be used in an array form. I've gotten some cool (at least I think) results using it already. I'm going to add a link to a short video of the class in action below. Everything in this video is rendered using this class, and its supports a variety of options. For the main part though, you can pay attention to the 'star field', which was created as an array of sprites. In this demo, each 'star' has its own motion. For the breakout game we will be doing something very similar for the bricks, minus the motion.

http://youtu.be/r0M0h6rli_Q

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"May the mercy of His Divine Shadow fall upon you." - Stanley H. Tweedle, Security Guard class IV, The League of 20,000 planets

Last edited on 22 Sep 2013 00:28 by PiscesMike Show more

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