Gyro Breakout

Tap!!
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:D
Intense gameplay!

Inspiration

You know how easy it is to find Pokemon Go players? There's that really distinct circular-into-a-swipe motion. I thought it would be fun to make a game that makes it easy for other people to know what you're playing. I hope to see groups of students on campus wobbling their phones around like crazy in the coming weeks.

What it does

Breakout is an old arcade game which is kind of like single person Pong. It's just that, with no extra frills or special mechanics.

How I built it

Made using Processing-Android.

Challenges I ran into

The collision system was a nightmare since doing algebra on little sleep always ends in disaster. I re-wrote my collision detection algorithm 3 or 4 times.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

I love the screen shake and vibration effects. It really gives the game some physical "weight".

What I learned

I learned a ton about the control systems for basic games. For most of the weekend, I was just patching on new features without really thinking about the whole structure, which lead to some problems with the lives / game restart mechanics. Next time I think I can make a much smoother internal engine that's easy to change and modify.

What's next for Gyro Breakout

Next I want to try out stuff like powerups and maybe add some filters to make the game look cooler. The background is only a black screen, so there's a lot to work on. For future gesture based mobile games, I want to try something where you're flicking and slashing your phone in the air. Who knows?