Box Breaker

[JDFight]

Here is a version with updated gamepad controls - it is significantly improved and uses delta time and getAxis values to scale the acceleration to framrate.

I originally did the gamepad support with an old Microsoft Sidewinder pad - it only has a classic style digital pad. I grabbed an xbox 360 controller to get a better handle on the analog controls.

Another way to make the game more challenging is to change the drop rates on powerups - right now I am dropping them at an extremely high rate. lowering the drop rate and/or also restricting which powerups may drop on each level will significantly increase the game's difficulty - I'll start tweaking stuff and see if I can't balance things more...

- I do like the idea of having shots only take one hitpoint from bricks too.

@miko - Thanks a lot for the map update! That makes contributing maps a lot much easier I also enjoyed the LoVE level!

[T-Bone]

Here's my "fix" for gamepads. When you use an non-analog one, it should still work (though the paddle moves somewhat slower in that case, which I consider an improvement).

[JDFight]

Here is a new version with tweaked drop rates for powerups - The drop chance has been raised from 50% to 80% which still yields enough powerups to be fun... but definitely makes the game a bit more challenging.

I think I will keep the "shots" powerup powerful - So that each shot destroys a brick completely - with a lower drop rate, the shot becomes less gamebreaking since it does not drop as often - Also, bricks destroyed by "powerballs" and "shots" do not drop bonuses.

analog gamepad controls are now to my liking

[Robin]

Great! It's gotten much harder.

By the way, not your fault or anything, but this game is a bitch to play with a touchpad.

[JDFight]

Haha that's interesting - I developed the whole game using a touchpad

This system is an old powerbook - so the touchpad is really good... I have always found that Apple touchpads have always been much better than pc touchpads for some reason. Actually, I have never found a PC touchpad that I liked... Never could figure out why they can't seem to get them right....

Don't take that as an Apple is better than PC argument, though... If I was an Apple fanboy, I would never have wiped the powerbook and put GNU/Linux on it Apple is just too expensive and controlling these days!

[T-Bone]

Here is a new version with tweaked drop rates for powerups - The drop chance has been raised from 50% to 80% which still yields enough powerups to be fun... but definitely makes the game a bit more challenging.

I think I will keep the "shots" powerup powerful - So that each shot destroys a brick completely - with a lower drop rate, the shot becomes less gamebreaking since it does not drop as often - Also, bricks destroyed by "powerballs" and "shots" do not drop bonuses.

analog gamepad controls are now to my liking

Wait, you RAISED the drop rate?

I played it some on my netbook with touchpad, and it was okay but not optimal.

[JDFight]

to clarify the drop rate - 80% is the required "roll" for a bonus to spawn... I probably should have said - the drop rate has been "lowered" from 50% to 20% instead!

[Robin]

I'm a touchpad power user, but quickly moving the platform around becomes a bit difficult if my fingers get sweaty. Usually, though, it works fine.

to clarify the drop rate - 80% is the required "roll" for a bonus to spawn...

I figured you meant that.

[JDFight]

UPDATE:
Now Box Breaker includes a basic save system - You can now continue from the highest level you have previously unlocked - (saving works as expected on my system, but I haven't tested it on any other machines) When I get a chance I will add a highscore table too.

Also, added a few new levels and some new brick colors.

The project directory has been cleaned up and reorganized and is now hosted on github here :

source link:https://github.com/jdfight/BoxBreaker

[JDFight]

Final Update:

I am going to call BoxBreaker finished - At this point, I feel I have achieved everything I set out to achieve with this project. I would have like to have written some cleaner code - admittedly, I have some spaghetti and c/p work in there - But, my focus was to learn more about lua and love2d. If I was to take the project further, I would rewrite a lot of stuff to be more elegant but I was mostly fumbling around in a new language in my usual hacker-style...

In hindsight, it would have been nice to use one of the gamestate libraries such as hump and TEsound... A code rewrite would certainly benefit the game - but is not really worth it - Ultimately, it works... There are no real gamebreaking bugs that I know of, and I did learn a lot about lua from it.

Now it is time to move onto something new

If I do anything more with BoxBreaker, it will mostly be to add more levels - I still would like to have 100+ levels eventually

Thank you everyone who made comments and suggestions - This is an awesome forum! I am so glad I found this community!

Here's the final version: