Untitled 3D Ball-Rolling Game

Scrubz

I’m extremely new to Fuze, but I have a ton of programming & game dev experience from the SmileBASIC series. When I saw that I could get a free copy of Fuze and even join a contest, I thought I’d give it a try.

My inspiration for this project was the “Old Games Made New” category on the Retro Coding Competition page. I decided to try my hand at a successor of the 2001 arcade game, Super Monkey Ball. I’ve already made a fair amount of progress and I’ll continue to post updates here.

First look: twitter.com/Scrubz_FZ/status/1373819814393880578
Special pin type: twitter.com/Scrubz_FZ/status/1374960255310893058

Dave

Apologies as it appears we have some issues displaying embeds currently, the Forum is undergoing maintenance lately and this will be addressed. I have seen your twitter post (we have retweeted just now) however and I have to say - this is exceptional and quite mindblowing. You've certainly got our attention :) Super Monkey Ball is just one of my favourites ever.. It's an inspiration to see this done in Fuze. Glad to hear you decided to join. Looking forward to more updates - teetering precariously on the edge of my seat :)

Jonboy

Ooh that's exciting - I remember really getting into SMB on my Gamecube. I must check with Mike about this embedding problem - i really wanted to see the screen shot!

Jonboy

Ok, just figured I could 'edit ' the post to see the links! Oh my good grief that is looking the business - you really have done a lot already and it looks incredible. I love the gravity on the pins, nice touch!

PickleCatStars

It is definitely looking like monkey ball. Was it hard to get that control/camera scheme right?

Scrubz

@toxibunny To be honest, it wasn't too hard. The ball basically pushes and pulls the camera to make it follow it. Then it was just a matter of rotating the controls based on the camera angle.

Spacemario

@Scrubz I can tell you're very experienced, this is super cool! I hope you continue this for the competition, with multiple levels and the like!

Is the math complicated to rotate the controls with the camera? Just wondering if the basic premise is easy to articulate (is it just sin and cos related, or is there more to it)?

PickleCatStars

There’s a little more to it, but it’s not that hard to rotate the controls with the camera. You use dot() and cross() as well as sin() and cos(), and it’s just a few lines if I remember right. The pull/push is a thing I’ve read about but not tried.

Scrubz

This post is deleted!

Scrubz

@Spacemario Thanks! I definitely plan to finish this for the contest.

I don't know if I'll be able to explain the rotation math very well, but the code is super simple.

c = controls( 0 )
tilt.n = normalize( camera.u )
tilt.c = { c.lx, -c.ly }
tilt.p = {
	tilt.c.x * tilt.n.y + tilt.c.y * tilt.n.x,
	tilt.c.y * tilt.n.y - tilt.c.x * tilt.n.x
}

camera.u is the difference between the camera and the ball from a top-down view (x and z axes).

tilt.n takes the place of the sin() and cos() of the camera angle.

tilt.c flips the vertical component of the left stick to match the 3D scene.

tilt.p is where the actual rotation happens.

Spacemario

@Scrubz This is great, thanks for such a simple, clear explanation, I really like it!

Scrubz

I was going to post this update yesterday, but I unfortunately lost most of the code and had to resort to a backup from about 5 days prior. I spent all day yesterday re-implementing everything I had lost.

Anyway, I’ll continue to embed my Twitter posts even though that feature is currently broken. For now, you can check out my Twitter account for updates: @Scrubz_FZ.

Second special pin and respawning: twitter.com/Scrubz_FZ/status/1375947734738472960

Scrubz

I haven't completely committed to this name, but I've made a title screen concept: twitter.com/Scrubz_FZ/status/1378417038914371591

Not quite sure what to put in the background...

LucasJG25

Really nice work. I've been following you on twitter for quite some time now. Indeed you're pretty experienced in making games. Glad to have you in the Fuze community! Welcome!!

vinicity

That’s an awesome title screen! Your whole game looks incredible!

PickleCatStars

Yeah, that’s rad :D

Scrubz

Ramps and pause screen demo: twitter.com/Scrubz_FZ/status/1379801248157872129

PickleCatStars

If and when this goes up for download, I am gonna be replacing those pins with animals and people.

Scrubz

I've made some minor visual updates. This includes:

a couple new particle effects
fading platforms close to the camera
making platforms that obstruct the ball transparent
and shadows

twitter.com/Scrubz_FZ/status/1382040264664055815

vinicity

Looks great! Very polished!