This is the second part in what should be a four part series on how to program your very own Pong clone. The first article went over setting up your environment in your favorite OS, now this part gets into some of the mechanics or details on how to actually get started.
Before I start with anything, we have to think about simple animation. In fact, animation is just simply a series of static images, with each image slightly displaced from the last.
So what does that mean? (more…)
If you ever wanted to program your own video game, this is a good place to start. I remember when I started learning programming it was surprisingly difficult to find out how to make an honest and simple game. In fact, after reading most programming books, the only type of game you could make would be a Zork clone.
You are in a dank cave and you can see nothing, but you hear a walrus in the distance.
What do you do?
- Look for the walrus.
- Watch The Big Lebowski
- Decide that the walrus is Paul.
This is not to knock Zork in any way! Zork is a clever, well written, and extremely well thought out game (even if my pseudo-quote isn’t). But in a world where we’re spoiled by moving objects, you want to know how to move and interact with something on screen. The problem is it takes a lot of different knowledge sets to get the job done. But in this post, you’ll get started learning how to make your very own Pong clone. (more…)