Dark Basic Pro: Dodge Ball Game

Designing the Game

The level is designed very simply. You have two sides where one side is red and one side is blue. The sides are separated by a physics wall preventing the players from moving to the other side. The spectating part of the level allows players to move around and view the match from above but are restricted from jumping back into the game.

Game Mechanics

You are a single player on a two man team that can freely travel within your "colored" side of the map. If you press the B button you can pickup the ball and if you press the A button you can throw the ball and hit a player. If you hit a player they will be transported to the spectating part of the level where they can view the match from above.

Count Down

The count down will commence and the players on each opposing side get ready to start throwing the dodge balls. The dodge balls are positioned across the level. When the time is up you can run and pick up a ball with B and toss it with A.

Physics are Hard!

I had to design an something that was invented in the Nintendo 64 era. Invisible walls!

When you first try to handle the problem it seems complicated. You want to hide the blocks/walls that are going to be used for the invisible walls.

There was actually an easier way. Design one level with physical walls and another without.

Without

The visuals of the level are actually reflected in the image above. You want to be able to spectate and see what's happening below. You also want to be able to see through the wall separating the two sides.

With

The actual physic mesh or the object that actually defines the walls is used is this image above. You can clearly see there are physical walls that are blocking the areas the player can not go.

Disabling the Wall Physics

The wall in the middle shown in the last image has physics that stop the balls from the game from traveling through it. It should only stop the players from traveling through so what do you do?

You disable the physics of the wall so the balls can freely fly through the wall without any physics restrictions. It's actually kind of cool when it's done because your players are restricted but the balls are not restricted to fly through.