Elevennis

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  In Game

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  Snapshot from Tutorial Screen

Disclaimer

I ran into some issues with the upload, so some content had to be removed. A fuller version of the game is available on GX.games

Inspiration

This project is inspired by many different games and applications. I thought of the core game one time whilst playing badminton and saw this hackathon as a chance to express that idea to see what it would look like. The original name for this project was going to be GoodMinton, but that seemed to be taken, so I went with Elevennis as a pun on a similar sport. I plan to take this game further being inspired by mspaint funnily enough for game mechanics as you could simply water my application down to a drawing game. I also took from rocket league and a mini game on Rayman Legends called Kung Foot.

What it does

The game basically is a game of tennis or badminton, but the twist is that you draw the racket/paddle every time you want to hit the ball. Your aim is the part of the enemy court which is the same color as your restrictive bounds. The enemy ai aims to get in the opposite area on your side of the game. When the ball hits yellow, the last person to hit it concedes the point.

The longer the paddle, the weaker the hit and also the converse (the shorter the paddle, the stronger the hit), so you choose how you want to play it consulting some strategy. Whether to lightly tap it to the other side, or precisely smack the ball into enemy bounds.

You can move the draw area that you play with between hits, or after a point is scores.

How I built it

Following the hackathon, I built the entire game in GameMaker! It was fun and difficult and pain sometimes, but when you get the hang of it, you really start to appreciate the engine. I remember spending about half a day writing my own physics objects in GameMaker, then realised it had its own Box2D implementation and got that working in about 2 hours. The grin on my face rivalled the large embarrassment I felt for not knowing that. I built Aseprite from source and used that for the art in the game that's not procedurally generated. I got a talented buddy of mine to compose some bumpin' tracks and the rest is on Reddit.

Challenges I ran into

I spent ages on the physics and the main mechanic. The main part is drawing something and letting interact with the world. I need this to be fast and accurate and, there are actually, still a few problems with it, but it does what it needs to decently for now. Handling multiple platforms was whole other headache. Sometimes everything would work perfectly fine on a window's target, but on GX.games/Reddit it's invisible or positioned wrong or dysfunctional don't get me started on HTML5. I abandoned that dream long ago, but there are a few hopes for me to find out why half of all the menus are missing one day.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

I'm really proud of the drawing to physics mechanics. Took me the longest to do because I was looking for speed and efficiency. It felt really cool working with buffers and data per byte instead of the higher level abstractions and trying to pack as much data into the smallest spaces possible. But i'm sure it can be optimised further.

I'm actually really proud of the idea too... I'm not sure if it's unique per-say, but I think it was quite creative. The name was kinda low hangin' fruit, however.

What I learned

PUT THE EGO AWAY! IF SOMEONE HAS MADE A FUNCTION FOR YOU, OR AN ENGINE, OR THE SPRITE, OR THE SOUND, OR WHATEVER IT IS... PLEASE ANYONE READING THIS AND FUTURE ME... TAKE ADVANTAGE OF IT AND USE IT TO ITS LIMIT!!!!

There was too much time wasted on this project trying to implement algorithms, and systems that I had at my disposal already. You only need custom stuff when you have a really specific problem. It's like building a house: the people who lay the bricks aren't also those who made them. Import, reuse, share, and relax. Trust me... it is worth the time gain.

What's next for Elevennis

I want to fix up the bugs and make this into a full game with a story mode, better AI, more features and abilities, online multiplayer, and more UGC. This hackathon was the push I needed to begin. I appreciate anyone who plays and any feedback they leave. It's been great!

Built With

• gamemaker