YOU’RE TOAST - GAME PROGRAMMING

Project Type: School
Role: Designer, Artist, Coder
Team Members: Solo Project
Duration: 1 Month, Released June 2018
Tools: Processing

Idea

In Fall of 2018 I took part in the course Digital Games: Genre, Structure, Programming and Play at Simon Fraser University. We explored fundamental programming concepts using the Processing coding language. For the final deliverable project I created a game called You’re Toast where you play as a piece of bread that must platform their way to a toaster as quickly as possible.

Process

I began the creation of the project by sketching level ideas on graph paper, outlining how the player would move and reach the goal. Next I attempted basic collision implementation but met a roadblock where the player object would not properly collide with objects; causing the player to fall through walls and the floor. I attempted various fixes such as calculating the players horizontal position and comparing it to other objects then freezing the player’s motion. Unfortunately this made the player get stuck in objects and then be unable to move further.

I came to realize that I would need to handle the collision detection of the player objects sides independently. It took a great amount of trial and error to achieve the desired collision behaviour but eventually I did just that and moved on to implementing visual elements into the game. Seeing as the game I was creating had the rather silly concept of an animated piece of bread getting too a toaster I felt the visuals should reflect that absurdity by being cartoonish and fun. I chose a teal colour scheme and comic book style font which I felt match the desired feel.

There was one final twist to the project. I discovered I would also have to handle power up object collision entirely differently then the wall and floor collision creating yet another puzzle to crack. Thankfully I was able to do just that using bounding box styled collision detection.

Takeaways

I was rather pleased with how You’re Toast turned out. Given more time I would have loved to create more varied level designs and tighter controls as the player feels a touch floaty. Regardless, stylistically the various elements all mesh together forming a cohesive aesthetic. I learned a tremendous amount about collision handling in the Processing language that I hope helps me in future games.