First, the easy stuff: since 180 degrees is pi radians (360 degrees, or a full circle, is 2pi radians), then the conversion is simply to divide your degrees by 180 and then multiply by pi to get radians. Once you''ve got that, though, there shouldn''t really be any reason to work in degrees in the first place; just keep all your angles as radians.

I also have an idea on how to make your game more physically interesting. One of the lesser-known Breakout knockoffs (it came out a few years after Arkanoid, I think) was _Off The Wall_, from Atari Games. It was very similar to Arkanoid in that you had various levels of blocks to bust through, with a different design on each level; it had a cooperative multiplayer mode too, with different players taking different sides of the screen. The big innovation, though, was that the ball had a spin on it: if you ''sliced'' your paddle as you bounced the ball you could impart a spin to it (just consider paddle velocity at point of contact and use that to apply angular momentum) and that spin would (due to air resistance, presumably) cause the ball to curve (rather than making it go in a straight line, let it travel in a circular arc with its radius determined by the amount of spin). This complicates your ''physics'' a lot -- collision detection becomes more tricky, and so does drawing the ball''s path -- but it''s not all that complex either, and it really offers a major upgrade over the usual Pong play.

Just an idea - you could make the paddle semi-circular and get all sorts of crazy angles when it collides with the ball. It would take a bit more programming, but it would be cool.

- Daniel
VG Games

I just finished getting the new random angle system to work! It plays much better now (although still needs a lot of work). The ball no longer gets stuck in endless bouncing back and forth loops. For now I plan on tweaking settings to improve other aspects of it''s playability and making the physics model better (although I don''t think I''ll be getting into those curve/spin ideas people have been suggesting, as this is one of my first gaming projects! but hey maybe later.... . I''ve added an interesting little gameplay twist though, the ball is now an explosive! It all ties in with the story I created ( yes you heard it right a pong game with a story! hehehe). Anyways... just thought I''d post an update to what I''ve been able to do with the feedback I got. Later,
Mike

I''m a little curious since I''m a newbie...how would I do collision detecting for a game like Pong, anyway?