I mentioned the Udacity HTML5 Game Development course in the Introduction post. During the time lessons for the course were first being released, a contest was announced in which the students could compete. Unfortunately, I was otherwise occupied and so could not. View the Contest Winners here.
There is a second incentive to create a project now however: HTML5 Game Development Certification. I am a little wary of the quiz, given the problems with the course’s programming quizzes. I will also be squeezed for time as June 24th is the only date I have available to take it. Before I make that decision though, I can at least try my hand at the project.
Every project begins with an idea. Mine is to create a game based on bumper-pool, pinball, and pachinko. It should integrate the elements that are desirable in this project: fast-moving graphics, physics, audio, and game play. It could even be educational if turned into a typing tutor game.
I’ll lay out the basic elements here. There will be a fixed table 100% visible on screen: square, hexagonal, or octagonal. There will be six or eight pockets. There will be active bumpers on the table that flash and make noise. There will be temporary pop-up gates in front of the pockets, triggered by key presses. There will be balls. There may be randomly moving bumpers that appear at random times, e.g. mice, to mix things up. There may even be music.
I could write my own physics engine, but one of the goals of the course is to use pre-existing tools and libraries, so I am going to try box2dweb for my physics engine. First goal: incorporate the physics engine and get a ball bouncing around a table. I will keep you updated on my progress here.
And somewhere along the line, I need to think up a name. Hmm ….