New home made trackball game: Basketball

[eds1275]

I've been puttering away on this in my spare time. It's about 60% complete, all I need to do now is record some sound effects (going to do that today) and write/record some music, which I may get a start on today but will take a while to finish due to my inability to play drums. And of course I need to put in some sort of user control to adjust the throw sensitivity.

It needs a name. I've been using 3 Point Shot, but think it could be better.

This picture is a little old, the machine is taller and there is a countdown/scoreboard now.

[Generic Eric]

That looks neat.

It looks like it would fit on a Digital Pin, with the backboard horizontal, and the "floor" the vertical.

[bfauska]

Or maybe it lends itself to a vertical orientation completely? Basketball is a much taller game than skeeball.

[eds1275]

Or maybe it lends itself to a vertical orientation completely?

I'm not seeing too many vertical cabs around with a trackball, but it's no trouble to include a few vertical resolutions in there. What are the regulars? Here's a 480x640

[bfauska]

I guess I hadn't thought about that. I do think for the rotating monitor folk or those with large enough screens it is the more appropriate aspect ratio for a basket ball game.

[eds1275]

Big update. Someone lent me a basketball and I recorded a bunch of sounds. I got them integrated into the game and then made the pitch vary every time a sound is played up or down up to 7%. I have about 15 samples per sound I want and it really helps adding that variation in pitch. I want to add a sound for hitting the hoop but will have to look around the house for something suitable. I found a few bugs in the code and squashed them. I'll have a downloadable version up likely on or before Easter Monday. I'm hoping to avoid going to the big family dinner at my wife's mom's... so with any luck I can pick up some extra shifts to get out of that. I live on an island so that really helps me get out of obligations due to arranging everything on the ferry times!

[DaOld Man]

This game looks very interesting.
Good work eds!

[eds1275]

Well, no music yet (I can't really think of any style of music that fits this...) but I do have a tick every second that starts getting frantic near the end and then a big fog horn sort of sound at 0. I laid it out in Pro Tools, but haven't put it in Unity yet. It's only 2 minutes, so I think the audio track should stay in sync with the game clock but there is a chance it will drift slightly.

I added an intro page sort of video for it, and will add a similar exit page with credits like Ramp and Roll has. Before it is ready to go out into the wild I need to add some way to control the velocity of the mouse like in R&R. I might get around to that tomorrow (Sunday) if I'm not too much of a zombie from this night shift.

[eds1275]

And here it is, the first iteration of the game.

http://permanentrecords.ca/files/others/3PS.zip

As before, if you double click and then hold alt immediately, it will come up with a menu to set keys and resolution and whatnot. It may not accept every control type at the moment, I recall having to do some extra work to get that working for Ramp and Roll.

Default Keys:
Coin 5
Start 1
Exit Escape
Service P

It will most likely set the sensitivity to 0, so if you can't find yourself even moving the balls, try pressing P and upping it. I've got slider controls working now! With my mouse, 8 in either direction seemed to work pretty good. I haven't tried with the trackball yet.

I got the countdown audio track (beeps) working and it seems to stay synced up for the 2 minutes. I haven't recorded any music, but I did pick up a guitar and start gathering ideas.

[DarthMarino]

The ball moves on it's own for me.  If the sensitivity is low it rolls to the left and then lifts up. If I put it higher, it just shoots on its own.

Edit:  I just remembered that I had a similar issue on Ramp & Roll. The ball would always roll hard to the left. However, when I started the game with the CTRL options, it wouldn't do this.  That's how I started this game and I had the issues. I will try starting this without the CTRL options and see what happens.

[Malenko]

Super Hooper
Buckets
Ballshakalaka
All Ball
And One
Buzzer beater
Finger Roll

That's all I got for name suggestions.

[DaOld Man]

Cant get the balls to shoot, they do move left and right but cant go forward. Vert and horz sliders are set to 8. Tried upping to 12, no good.
I can only see the very top of the balls, like maybe the very top 1/8" of the ball.
The mouse sensitivity sliders value numbers don't update on the display until you save it. (need to update the slider value display when moving the slider).

About shooting the balls, I tried clicking & double clicking on the ball (like I said, can only see the very top of it), tried holding button and moving mouse forward, tried spacebar, LCTRL, LALT, LSHIFT, Z, X and none  throw ball forward.
Ball moves left and right with mouse move left and right.
Ball moves into the other machines on either side (this may be intentional?).

It may be something Im doing wrong.
This looks like a very nice game, and so far the graphics look real good, however I don't like the attract mode rotating all around the machines, going through the walls, etc.
Im using win7 64 bit.

[eds1275]

I've uploaded a new version with your suggestions implemented at the same link. You can see more of the ball. In the settings screen there is a display that shows the slider value as well as the saved value, and when you load the settings screen it defaults to what was previously saved to make tweaking easier. I hid the mouse cursor on the game screens as it may confusse people. It's back in the settings screen though. I also cut down the stupid spinny ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- that was going on in the attract mode. It was way too busy. But I want something... a static shot is very boring. And no, the ball shouldn't move into the other machines, but some wild throws might end up on the floor. I need to add in the mesh netting on the side of the machine, but I'm having a hard time figuring out the cloth simulation. I may put a metal mesh on it.

As for not being able to chuck the ball, I'm not sure, and DarthMarino's balls throwing themselves... I have no idea. It works for me on my 5 computers in the house. I'll ponder on that for a while and hopefully come up with something...

Things left to do:
Adjust the bounciness of the ball. It's a little too bouncy.
Add more balls! I was thinking 6. I was having a hard time coding it so that you won't pick up and throw more than one ball at once, but I think I figured it out.
Music
Some sort of notice that the game is starting after you press start
Bake the lighting to optimize the game. I am thinking of buying a graphics card for my PC soon so I've been putting it off. The current real time rendering of shadows is very inefficient
Name the game!
Adjust the angle of throwing the ball. It's close but needs tweaking.
Add an exit screen
Choose some nicer fonts!


I have a pretty buggy version of my own with a lot of balls, and although it is annoying because you often throw 2/3/4 balls at once that basically ruin any chance of scoring, it's a lot of fun to be able to just throw like crazy. I think this game is no fun to play alone, but would be a good time with a couple of drikns and friends going for a high score challenge.

[DarthMarino]

Edit: I figured out what the issue was.  I had some stupid program called vJoy installed. Once I removed it, the problem went away.  There were some people on Steam with a similar issue always thinking the Joystick was being pushed left.

[DarthMarino]

My two suggestions:

1. This also applies to Ramp & Roll.  The ball shouldn't be able to roll left and right before you throw it.  Think about World Class Bowling (or any bowling game).  You adjust your starting point but as soon as you stop rolling the trackball, the onscreen ball stops moving.

2. Add a button to grab and hold the ball. Just make it pick up the ball closest to the lower right corner. This way you won't throw multiple balls by accident. If you release the button without taking a shot, have the ball drop down. After you take a shot, release the button and press it again for the next ball.

Good job though.  I think this is further along than Ramp & Roll was in its first release.

[eds1275]

Hmmmm, I'm not going to use a button for grabbing the ball, that was the idea I had for the next game (lawn darts) but I have been thinking about it and have it stopping when you stop rolling the mouse. I'll be adding more balls and uploading another version later. It's slowly coming together! I am also going to implement the ball stopping to R&R and update that. The solution was easier this time around (I've been trying to figure that out since the beginning of ramp and roll - I'm not much of a programmer but trying my best to learn)

[DarthMarino]

I had an idea for this game after seeing one in action today. How about having the rim left and right as you are playing? Maybe have two modes; one with a static rim and one with a moving rim. I know some others I've seen also have it move closer and further away as you are playing.