I''ve been working on a little game. It''s another 3D perversion of Pong, with a twist (roll your eyes, there''s always a twist). The game board is a rectangular plane with two walls. The two walls are electromagnets. The paddle is magnetic, and you don''t control it directly. Instead, you control the electromagnets, turning them off and on, attracting the paddle. The ball is not magnetic. The whole game is underwater, making for floaty movement and weak gravity. Here''s a screenshot: I''m using Tokamak for the physics. The realistic physics are what will make this game fun. Something I find myself already doing is banging a corner of the paddle against a wall to get a nice spin going. This makes the ball bounce off in an unpredictable angle, moving very fast. One idea I''ve been toying with is making the paddles polarized. Meaning, one end of the paddle is attracted to one wall, while the other end of the paddle is attracted to the other wall. Sound good? My questions: -Has this been done before? If so, point me at it. I''d love to get ideas from it. -Does anyone have any suggestions? I know 3D pong has been beat to death, everyone''s probably played dozens of variations, what are features you really liked, or that made a particular clone stand out? Thanks "Only dead shrimp go with the flow."

Ive never played 3D pong, except for once. the controls were unwieldy, bla bla bla rant rant rant.......... improve from unweildy controls, bad physics, and definitely try hard. good luck

quote: Original post by Brien Shrimp
My questions:
-Has this been done before? If so, point me at it. I''d love to get ideas from it.

The 3D part has but I have never seen the control system you describe used before. Nice idea.

Dan Marchant
Obscure Productions (www.obscure.co.uk)
Game Development & Design consultant

quote: Original post by Obscure
The 3D part has but I have never seen the control system you describe used before. Nice idea.

Yeah, I like the magnet idea, too. But I am having a really hard time using Tokamak to simulate magnetic physics, and after 3 hours, I have come to a pretty close approximation, but it makes for extremely irritating gameplay. So even if I got the magnet physics working perfectly, the idea, while interesting on paper, proves to be really bad in-game.

I still like the whole magnet idea, but I will not attempt to simulate real magnetics.

Magnet Pong revised:
-No gravity, add a ceiling.
-Still no direct control of the paddle.
-Paddle is controlled by "attracting" it to the walls
-Paddle''s rotation can be "frozen" (so it doesnt spin out of control).
New feature:
-Adding physical objects to the playing field, each is either attracted to or repelled by one of four walls. When one such object is on your side of the field, it will react when you try to move the paddle towards the wall it reacts to. These objects will be color-coded, to match the wall they react to. Perhaps they change color when hit by ball?

Suggestions?


"Only dead shrimp go with the flow."

I think it''s more important that you create a decent intuitive control system, rather than create a system that models magnetism perfectly. How many people do you know that could intuitively predict how magnetic objects react?

I haven''t played your game yet, but as for the problem with the paddle spinning out of control: this may be unrealistic, but you could put some sort of angular velocity damper on it. If the spinning irritates you, you could slow it down.