Firefox OS Gaming: #FlappyJam

Showing posts with label #FlappyJam. Show all posts

Monday, February 24, 2014

Flying Fox Part 3 (Game Programming)

Today is the deadline for the Flappy Jam (read all about it here: http://firefoxosgaming.blogspot.com/2014/02/game-jams-game-programming.html. I definitely didn't write this series of posts on Flying Fox just to enter the jam, but I admit that I was interested in how I could make a simple version of Flappy Bird. The main interest was that I wanted to try a one-finger one-meaning game. The earlier two posts in this series were:

Making the Fox Fly
http://firefoxosgaming.blogspot.com/2014/02/flying-fox-part-1-game-programming.html

Making the Clouds Move
http://firefoxosgaming.blogspot.com/2014/02/svg-and-z-order-game-programming.html

The first post showed how to import a complex SVG drawing made in Inkscape and make it jump up if it is touched and to fall down if it is not. The second post talked about z-order in SVG (there isn't any) and showed how to make clouds fly by, creating the illusion that the Fox is flying.

Today's post wraps up things. Three final parts are added:

1. Pipes are moving and the Fox must avoid them.

2. A way to detect if the Fox collides with the pipe.

3. The result of any Fox/Pipe collision.

Here's what it will look like when the Fox is flying:

Here's the Fox about to hit a pipe:

And here is the exploded Fox after he hits the pipe a second later:

And so, here is the code, all 408 lines. (Not too much, really, and I hope it is well-enough organized to follow along. A lot of this code is reused from other posts.)

<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<title>
    Floppy Fox Part 3
</title>

<style>

    #mySVG
    {
      width: 360px;
      height: 620px;
      position: absolute;
      top: 0px;
      left: 0px;
    }

</style>

<script>

// --- Global variables ---

// Width and height of board in pixels
var boardWidth = 360;
var boardHeight = 620;
var boardWidthPixels = boardWidth + "px";
var boardHeightPixels = boardHeight + "px";

// URL for W3C definition of SVG elements
var svgURL =
    "http://www.w3.org/2000/svg";
var svgLink =
    "http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink";

// Variables for fox initial position.
var foxX = boardWidth / 2 - 100;
var foxY = boardHeight / 2;
var foxH = 50;
var foxW = 50;

// Cloud initial x coordinate value.
var cloud1X = boardWidth;
var cloud2X = boardWidth / 2;

// Pipe globals
var uPipeLength = 260;
var lPipeLength = 260;
var pipeWidth = 50;
var uPipeX = boardWidth - pipeWidth;

// Use requestAnimationFrame.
var requestAnimationFrame =
window.requestAnimationFrame ||
window.mozRequestAnimationFrame ||
window.webkitRequestAnimationFrame ||
window.msRequestAnimationFrame;

// --- Event listeners ---

// Page load event listener.
window.addEventListener("load",
    runFirst, false);

// Runs when page loads.
function runFirst() {

    // Define the game board as SVG element.
    gameBoard =
      document.
        createElementNS(svgURL, "svg");

    // Width and height of SVG board element.
    gameBoard.width.baseVal.valueAsString =
      boardWidthPixels;
    gameBoard.height.baseVal.valueAsString =
      boardHeightPixels;
    gameBoard.id = "mySVG";

    // You must append the board to the body.
    document.getElementById("pageBody").
      appendChild(gameBoard);

    // Add a background element for color.
    gameBack =
      document.
        createElementNS(svgURL, "rect");
    gameBack.x.baseVal.valueAsString =
      "0px";
    gameBack.y.baseVal.valueAsString =
      "0px";
    gameBack.width.baseVal.valueAsString =
      boardWidthPixels;
    gameBack.height.baseVal.valueAsString =
      boardHeightPixels;
    gameBack.style.
          setProperty("fill","Thistle","");

    // Attach the background to game board.
    gameBoard.appendChild(gameBack);

    // Create cloud1.
    cloud1 =
      document.
        createElementNS(svgURL, "circle");
    cloud1.cx.baseVal.valueAsString =
      cloud1X + "px";
    cloud1.cy.baseVal.valueAsString =
      "400px";
    cloud1.r.baseVal.valueAsString =
      "50px";
    cloud1.style.
          setProperty("fill","blue","");

    // Attach cloud1 to the game board.
    gameBoard.appendChild(cloud1);

    // Create cloud2.
    cloud2 =
      document.
        createElementNS(svgURL, "circle");
    cloud2.cx.baseVal.valueAsString =
      cloud2X + "px";
    cloud2.cy.baseVal.valueAsString =
      "200px";
    cloud2.r.baseVal.valueAsString =
      "50px";
    cloud2.style.
          setProperty("fill","green","");

    // Attach cloud1 to the game board.
    gameBoard.appendChild(cloud2);

    // Mouse down event listener
    gameBoard.addEventListener(
      "mousedown", foxJump, false);

    // Import SVG fox image.
    // Set height, width, x, and y.
    myFox = document.
      createElementNS(svgURL,"image");
    myFox.setAttribute("height",foxH);
    myFox.setAttribute("width",foxW);
    myFox.setAttribute("x",foxX);
    myFox.setAttribute("y",foxY);

    // Use different namespace for xlink.
    myFox.setAttributeNS(svgLink,
      "href","fox.svg");

    // Add the fox to the game board.
    gameBoard.appendChild(myFox);

    // Pipes
    // Upper Pipe
    // Define the pipe.
    uPipe = document.
      createElementNS(svgURL,"rect");
    // Set the values.
    uPipe.x.baseVal.valueAsString =
      uPipeX + "px";
    uPipe.y.baseVal.valueAsString = "0px";
    uPipe.width.baseVal.valueAsString =
      pipeWidth + "px";
    uPipe.height.baseVal.valueAsString =
      uPipeLength + "px";
    uPipe.style.setProperty("fill","red","");
    // Attach it to the board.
    gameBoard.appendChild(uPipe);

    // Lower Pipe
    // Define the pipe.
    lPipe = document.
      createElementNS(svgURL,"rect");
    // Set the values.
    lPipe.x.baseVal.valueAsString =
      uPipeX + "px";
    lPipe.y.baseVal.valueAsString =
      uPipeLength + 100 + "px";
    lPipe.width.baseVal.valueAsString =
      pipeWidth + "px";
    lPipe.height.baseVal.valueAsString =
      uPipeLength + "px";
    lPipe.style.setProperty("fill","red","");
    // Attach it to the board.
    gameBoard.appendChild(lPipe);

    // Start the game loop.
    gameLoop();
}

// Game loop.
function gameLoop(){

    // Endless loop requestAnimationFrame.
    requestAnimationFrame(gameLoop);

    // The fox waits to drop.
    // Only you can save him.
    foxWait();

    // Move the clouds.
    moveClouds();

    // Move the pipes.
    movePipes();
}

// Game over!
function gameOver() {

    // Make the fox big!
    myFox.setAttribute("height",200);
    myFox.setAttribute("width",200);

    //Wait wait a short time!
    foxBlowUpTimer =
      setTimeout(foxBlowUp, 700);
}

// Fox blow up!
function foxBlowUp() {

    // Reset fox values.
    foxX = boardWidth / 2 - 100;
    foxY = boardHeight / 2;
    foxW = 50;
    foxH = 50;

    // Reset fox position.
    myFox.setAttribute("height",foxH);
    myFox.setAttribute("width",foxW);
    myFox.setAttribute("x",foxX);
    myFox.setAttribute("y",foxY);
}

// Move the pipes.
function movePipes() {

    // Move the pipe X value.
    uPipeX = uPipeX - 2;

    // Check if pipes off left edge.
    if (uPipeX < -50) {

      // If too far, send to right side.
      uPipeX = boardWidth;

      // Resize pipes.
      // Generate random change.
      change =
        Math.
          floor((Math.random()*60)+1) - 30;


      // Calculate new pipe lengths.
      uPipeLength = uPipeLength + change;
      lPipeLength = lPipeLength - change;

      // If upper pipe is too short, back up.
      if (uPipeLength < 100) {
        uPipeLength = uPipeLength - change;
        lPipeLength = lPipeLength + change;
        console.log("UPPER PIPE TOO SHORT");
      }

      // If lower pipe is too short, back up.
      if ((uPipeLength + 100) >
          (boardHeight)) {
        uPipeLength = uPipeLength - change;
        lPipeLength = lPipeLength + change;
        console.log("LOWER PIPE TOO SHORT");
      }

      // Draw upper pipe if new size.
      uPipe.height.baseVal.valueAsString =
        uPipeLength + "px";

      // Draw lower pipe if new size.
      lPipe.y.baseVal.valueAsString =
        uPipeLength + 150 + "px";
      lPipe.height.baseVal.valueAsString =
        lPipeLength + "px";

      // Display current values.
      console.log(uPipeLength,
        lPipeLength, change);
    }

    // Test for upper pipe collision.
    if ((foxX > uPipeX) &&
        (foxX < (uPipeX + 50)) &&
        (foxY < uPipeLength)
        ){

      console.log("Hit upper pipe. Ouch!");

      // Game is over.
      gameOver();
    }

    // Test for lower pipe collision.
    if ((foxX > uPipeX) &&
        (foxX < (uPipeX + 50)) &&
        (foxY > (boardHeight - lPipeLength))
        ){

      console.log("Hit lower pipe. Ouch!");

      // Game is over.
      gameOver();
    }

    // Draw pipes at new x location.
    uPipe.x.baseVal.valueAsString = uPipeX;
    lPipe.x.baseVal.valueAsString = uPipeX;
}

// Move the clouds.
function moveClouds() {

    // Move cloud 1.
    cloud1X = cloud1X - 0.5;

    // Does it go off the edge?
    if (cloud1X < -100) {
      cloud1X = boardWidth;
    }

    // Move cloud 2.
    cloud2X = cloud2X - 1;

    // Does it go off the edge?
    if (cloud2X < -100) {
      cloud2X = boardWidth;
    }

    cloud1.cx.baseVal.valueAsString =
      cloud1X + "px";
    cloud2.cx.baseVal.valueAsString =
      cloud2X + "px";
}

// Fox is waiting to fall.
function foxWait() {

    // Make the fox fall after one second.
    foxFallTimer = setTimeout(foxFall, 1000);
}

// Fox is falling.
function foxFall() {

    // Make the fox fall one pixel.
    foxY = foxY + 1;

    // Does he hit the floor?
    if (foxY > (boardHeight - 50)){

      // Calculate new position.
      foxY = (boardHeight / 2) - 50;

      // Game is over!
      gameOver();
      console.log("Fox hit the floor!");
    }

    // Draw the fox.
    myFox.y.baseVal.valueAsString =
      foxY + "px";

    // Report progress.
    console.log("Fox is falling.");
}

// Fox is jumping.
function foxJump() {

    // Fox jumps up!
    foxY = foxY - 20;

    // Does he hit the roof?
    if (foxY < 20) {

      // Calculate new position.
      foxY = (boardHeight /2) - 50;

      // Game is over!
      gameOver();
      console.log("Fox hit the roof!");
    }

    // Otherwise, draw the fox.
    myFox.y.baseVal.valueAsString =
      foxY + "px";

    // Report progress.
    console.log("Fox is jumping.");
}

</script>
</head>
<body id="pageBody">
</body>
</html>

Most of this code is explained in the previous two posts, but here is the new stuff:

Globals

I added a few globals to keep track of the pipe data. There are two pipes. They move from right to left (but at a different speed from the clouds).

// Pipe globals
var uPipeLength = 260;
var lPipeLength = 260;
var pipeWidth = 50;
var uPipeX = boardWidth - pipeWidth;

The upper and lower pipes are given a length. This length will change to simulate new pipes that are of different lengths. This change happens off-screen, every time the pipes are hidden. When they come back on the right, their lengths will be changed, but the gap will be the same so the Fox has a fighting chance to get through.

The width of the pipe is a constant: 50 pixels.

I needed a value that would reflect the upper pipe's x value at the bottom point of the pipe. This will be used to calculate whether the bird hits either pipe. Essentially I needed a base point to measure from, and this seemed handy.

Adding the Pipes

I added two pipes, using SVG rectangles. Notice that I had to add them after the clouds and the Fox. The pipes are in the foreground. As I wrote about the last time, the order you define SVG object becomes the z-order. The last one defined is the object in front of the rest. We want the clouds behind the pipes and the Fox might as well be there too.

Here's the code for the two pipes:

    // Pipes
    // Upper Pipe
    // Define the pipe.
    uPipe = document.
      createElementNS(svgURL,"rect");
    // Set the values.
    uPipe.x.baseVal.valueAsString =
      uPipeX + "px";
    uPipe.y.baseVal.valueAsString = "0px";
    uPipe.width.baseVal.valueAsString =
      pipeWidth + "px";
    uPipe.height.baseVal.valueAsString =
      uPipeLength + "px";
    uPipe.style.setProperty("fill","red","");
    // Attach it to the board.
    gameBoard.appendChild(uPipe);

    // Lower Pipe
    // Define the pipe.
    lPipe = document.
      createElementNS(svgURL,"rect");
    // Set the values.
    lPipe.x.baseVal.valueAsString =
      uPipeX + "px";
    lPipe.y.baseVal.valueAsString =
      uPipeLength + 100 + "px";
    lPipe.width.baseVal.valueAsString =
      pipeWidth + "px";
    lPipe.height.baseVal.valueAsString =
      uPipeLength + "px";
    lPipe.style.setProperty("fill","red","");
    // Attach it to the board.
    gameBoard.appendChild(lPipe);

Moving the Pipes

This is in two parts. The first part is a call to a pipe moving function from the game loop. This call takes place every time through the loop. This line does it:

    movePipes();

The actual function both moves the pipes and checks for collisions. First we move the pipes and check to see if the pipes move off the left edge. If they do, we start them over again but change the lengths by a random amount so that the pipes give a different challenge every time the Fox encounters them. In addition, a check is made to make sure that the pipes aren't too short or too tall. When making a game, you have to think of every possibility and deal with it.

Here's the code for moving the pipes, checking for off-screen motion, resizing the pipes, and then checking to make sure that the resizing went okay.

// Move the pipes.
function movePipes() {

    // Move the pipe X value.
    uPipeX = uPipeX - 2;

    // Check if pipes off left edge.
    if (uPipeX < -50) {

      // If too far, send to right side.
      uPipeX = boardWidth;

      // Resize pipes.
      // Generate random change.
      change =
        Math.
          floor((Math.random()*60)+1) - 30;


      // Calculate new pipe lengths.
      uPipeLength = uPipeLength + change;
      lPipeLength = lPipeLength - change;

      // If upper pipe is too short, back up.
      if (uPipeLength < 100) {
        uPipeLength = uPipeLength - change;
        lPipeLength = lPipeLength + change;
        console.log("UPPER PIPE TOO SHORT");
      }

      // If lower pipe is too short, back up.
      if ((uPipeLength + 100) >
          (boardHeight)) {
        uPipeLength = uPipeLength - change;
        lPipeLength = lPipeLength + change;
        console.log("LOWER PIPE TOO SHORT");
      }

      // Draw upper pipe if new size.
      uPipe.height.baseVal.valueAsString =
        uPipeLength + "px";

      // Draw lower pipe if new size.
      lPipe.y.baseVal.valueAsString =
        uPipeLength + 150 + "px";
      lPipe.height.baseVal.valueAsString =
        lPipeLength + "px";

      // Display current values.
      console.log(uPipeLength,
        lPipeLength, change);
    }

Essentially here is how it goes:

1. The pipe moves 2 pixels to the left.
2. If the pipes go off the left edge, the pipes are resized.
3. Is the upper pipe too short? If so, ignore the change.
4. Is the lower pipe too short? If so, ignore the change.
5. If all is well, draw the upper pipe.
6. If all is well, draw the lower pipe, basing it on the upper pipe.

Note: the pipes are drawn in this part only if they are being resized. Otherwise the pipes are redrawn every time the game loop runs and that code will be at the end of the function.

Testing for Collision

Still in the same function, we need to now test to see if the pipe hit the Fox (which is the same as the Fox hitting the pipe, but because the Fox is flying, it is easier to test from the pipe's point of view). Here are the tests, base on simple calculation.

    // Test for upper pipe collision.
    if ((foxX > uPipeX) &&
        (foxX < (uPipeX + 50)) &&
        (foxY < uPipeLength)
        ){

      console.log("Hit upper pipe. Ouch!");

      // Game is over.
      gameOver();
    }

    // Test for lower pipe collision.
    if ((foxX > uPipeX) &&
        (foxX < (uPipeX + 50)) &&
        (foxY > (boardHeight - lPipeLength))
        ){

      console.log("Hit lower pipe. Ouch!");

      // Game is over.
      gameOver();
    }

This simply check for the x and y values of the Fox and each pipe. It is simpler to test each pipe separately. If they collide, the game is over and a separate function is called. Note that I've used the console.log here a lot. It was invaluable in determining whether things collide and where they are. Don't leave home without it!

Draw the Pipes Every Time

The pipes need to be drawn so they move every time through the game loop. But this is separate from the drawing that takes place if the pipes move off the left edge. Here's the simple drawing:

    uPipe.x.baseVal.valueAsString = uPipeX;
    lPipe.x.baseVal.valueAsString = uPipeX;
}

Ending the Game
I had fun deciding how to do this. When there is a collision with the pipes or the Fox hits the top or bottom of the screen, the gameOver function is called. This just does two things:

1. Make the Fox big. Really big. He blows up!
2. Then a quick timer call takes place so the Fox won't stay blown up too long.

Here's the code for that:

// Game over!
function gameOver() {

    // Make the fox big!
    myFox.setAttribute("height",200);
    myFox.setAttribute("width",200);

    //Wait wait a short time!
    foxBlowUpTimer =
      setTimeout(foxBlowUp, 700);
}

And the final code sets the Fox back to normal size and puts him back to the starting position. The game continues. Here's that code:

// Fox blow up!
function foxBlowUp() {

    // Reset fox values.
    foxX = boardWidth / 2 - 100;
    foxY = boardHeight / 2;
    foxW = 50;
    foxH = 50;

    // Reset fox position.
    myFox.setAttribute("height",foxH);
    myFox.setAttribute("width",foxW);
    myFox.setAttribute("x",foxX);
    myFox.setAttribute("y",foxY);
}

So that's it for the Flying Fox! I hope you've enjoyed this walk through a simple game and if you get a chance, check out all the other games that were inspired by Flappy Bird at http://itch.io/jam/flappyjam.

Friday, February 21, 2014

Game Jams (Game Programming)

I got so excited by the currently running Flappy Game jam (twitter #flappyjam) organized by Ivano Palmentieri and hosted by Itch.io (http://itch.io). Some game jams are in-person gatherings but many of those allow online participation and then there are jams like Flappy that were organized to be online only.

Flappy Jam was created to nullify some of the bad feelings around the Flappy Bird game (which came out of nowhere and became a mega hit and then was pulled off the store and then had a zillion imitations). The deadline is Monday, February 24, but at last count there were 470 entries and I'm sure the weekend will bring more. The point is to do some kind of difficult to play game that vaguely has something to do with Flappy Bird.

Well, I didn't plan to enter, but I was already intrigued by the idea of Flappy Bird and for the game that I'm writing about now to show off some of the cool things that SVG can do, I decided to enter my game, Flying Fox.

Probably not the greatest game entered (in fact, maybe the worst, if that is possible), but I am happy that I was able to use some SVG tricks to make a game somewhat similar to Flappy Bird. The circles are clouds, the red things are pipes, and the fox has just hit a pipe and blown up. The pipes and clouds are moving from right to left (all at different speeds) and the fox is a nice SVG drawing from Nicu.

I've written two posts about this game already:

http://firefoxosgaming.blogspot.com/2014/02/flying-fox-part-1-game-programming.html

http://firefoxosgaming.blogspot.com/2014/02/svg-and-z-order-game-programming.html

I'll finish the third and final post early next week, but the code was finished and Flappy Jam needed one more entry! Well, probably not, but it is fun to be part of something big and goofy. Check out Flappy Jam at http://itch.io/jam/flappyjam.

If you page through the entries, you'll be amazed at the variety of entries and platforms. I often find variations on a theme fascinating. And if you want to see the original game, well, you can't, but there are some clones in the Firefox OS Marketplace that are very similar. In particular, this one looks just like Flappy Bird: https://marketplace.firefox.com/app/flappy-bird

So my own entry is here: http://itch.io/jam/flappyjam/rate/2878 but you can read about the code next week!

The other game jam that I've joined in is called One Game A Month and is at http://www.onegameamonth.com/. The idea is that you just do one game a month, any kind, and enter it. There's lots of game information on the site and the founder, Christer Kaitila, is a cool guy also known as @McFunkypants on Twitter. My games for @OneGameAMonth (also known as #1GAM) are at http://www.onegameamonth.com/thulfram, but they are just cleaned-up copies of the games I write about here and with any luck I'll be writing at least one game a month and explaining how the code works.

Christer Kaitila also wrote a very cool book about real-life game jams that I highly recommend called The Game Jam Survival Guide which is really useful if you ever go to a live one (and useful even if you don't). Amazon has it at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007R0NTF4?ie=UTF8&camp=213733&creative=393177&creativeASIN=B007R0NTF4&linkCode=shr&tag=animonan-20.

So Game Jams are cool and there are jams all over the world, but Game Jellies are coming soon!

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

SVG and Z-Order (Game Programming)

Actually this is Part 2 of Flying Fox, my soon-to-be-entry in the #FlappyJam thingee and my next for #1GAM. But even more important, some further work on using SVG in games.

Often when designing a game, you need to decide what draws on top of what. In other words, if you think of a game as a set of moving objects in layers, you need to know what is in the layer closest to the viewer and what is farthest away. Often this just works out to be what is in the background and what is in the foreground. For HTML5 games written in Canvas, everything depends on what order you blast the bits to the canvas.

But for SVG, your objects exist in layers. In fact, each object has its own layer. But how do you determine which layer is closer and which layer is farther? In CSS, you have the concept of z-order, and you can change the layers dynamically. If you're doing a lot of changing which order the layers display, CSS might even be a good choice. But I'm investigating SVG at the moment. I would have expected SVG to have a z-order property because so much of SVG leverages CSS. Well, there isn't one. You can't just do something like:

objectName.style.zOrder = 10;

The sad truth is that there isn't any such thing and if something is planned, it's not here now. The z-order of your objects is strictly controlled by the order your objects are defined. In the code I have for you today, the object will be defined in this order:

SVG object
background object
cloud
another cloud
flying fox

I'm adding in a few clouds. Why? To give the illusion that the flying fox is flying. The clouds are whizzing by at different speeds, and the fox isn't really moving but we want to pretend. Refer back to the first post on Flying Fox at http://firefoxosgaming.blogspot.com/2014/02/flying-fox-part-1-game-programming.html.

Here's what the screen will look like with today's code:

The fox (courtesy of Nicu) is flying and the green and blue clouds (circles) are floating as he flies. The clouds move from right to left. And here's what it looks like when the fox flies in front of the green cloud:

And, again, when the fox flies in front of the blue cloud:

I'm sure you can do prettier clouds yourself, especially if you draw them in Inkscape and then import them into your game (as shown in Part 1 of Flying Fox).

Here's the complete code:

<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<title>
    Floppy Fox Part 2
</title>

<style>

    #mySVG
    {
      width: 360px;
      height: 620px;
      position: absolute;
      top: 0px;
      left: 0px;
    }

</style>

<script>

// --- Global variables ---

// Width and height of board in pixels
var boardWidth = 360;
var boardHeight = 620;
var boardWidthPixels = boardWidth + "px";
var boardHeightPixels = boardHeight + "px";

// URL for W3C definition of SVG elements
var svgURL = "http://www.w3.org/2000/svg";
var svgLink = "http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink";

// Variables for fox initial position.
var foxX = boardWidth / 2 - 100;
var foxY = boardHeight / 2;
var foxH = 50;
var foxW = 50;

// Cloud initial x coordinate value.
var cloud1X = boardWidth;
var cloud2X = boardWidth / 2;

// Use requestAnimationFrame.
var requestAnimationFrame =
window.requestAnimationFrame ||
window.mozRequestAnimationFrame ||
window.webkitRequestAnimationFrame ||
window.msRequestAnimationFrame;

// --- Event listeners ---

// Page load event listener.
window.addEventListener("load",
    runFirst, false);

// Runs when page loads.
function runFirst() {

    // Define the game board as an SVG element.
    gameBoard =
      document.createElementNS(svgURL, "svg");

    // Width and height of the SVG board element.
    gameBoard.width.baseVal.valueAsString =
      boardWidthPixels;
    gameBoard.height.baseVal.valueAsString =
      boardHeightPixels;
    gameBoard.id = "mySVG";

    // You must append the board to the body.
    document.getElementById("pageBody").
      appendChild(gameBoard);

    // Add a background element for color.
    gameBack =
      document.createElementNS(svgURL, "rect");
    gameBack.x.baseVal.valueAsString =
      "0px";
    gameBack.y.baseVal.valueAsString =
      "0px";
    gameBack.width.baseVal.valueAsString =
      boardWidthPixels;
    gameBack.height.baseVal.valueAsString =
      boardHeightPixels;
    gameBack.style.
          setProperty("fill","Thistle","");

    // Attach the background to the game board.
    gameBoard.appendChild(gameBack);

    // Create cloud1.
    cloud1 =
      document.createElementNS(svgURL, "circle");
    cloud1.cx.baseVal.valueAsString =
      cloud1X + "px";
    cloud1.cy.baseVal.valueAsString =
      "400px";
    cloud1.r.baseVal.valueAsString =
      "50px";
    cloud1.style.
          setProperty("fill","blue","");

    // Attach cloud1 to the game board.
    gameBoard.appendChild(cloud1);

    // Create cloud2.
    cloud2 =
      document.createElementNS(svgURL, "circle");
    cloud2.cx.baseVal.valueAsString =
      cloud2X + "px";
    cloud2.cy.baseVal.valueAsString =
      "200px";
    cloud2.r.baseVal.valueAsString =
      "50px";
    cloud2.style.
          setProperty("fill","green","");

    // Attach cloud1 to the game board.
    gameBoard.appendChild(cloud2);



    // Mouse down event listener
    gameBoard.addEventListener(
      "mousedown", foxJump, false);

    // Import SVG fox image.
    // Set height, width, x, and y.
    myFox = document.createElementNS(svgURL,"image");
    myFox.setAttribute("height",foxH);
    myFox.setAttribute("width",foxW);
    myFox.setAttribute("x",foxX);
    myFox.setAttribute("y",foxY);

    // Use different namespace for xlink.
    myFox.setAttributeNS(svgLink,"href","fox.svg");

    // Add the fox to the game board.
    gameBoard.appendChild(myFox);

    // Start the game loop.
    gameLoop();
}

// Game loop.
function gameLoop(){

    // Endless loop with requestAnimationFrame.
    requestAnimationFrame(gameLoop);

    // The fox waits to drop.
    // Only you can save him.
    foxWait();

    // Move the clouds.
    moveClouds();
}

// Move the clouds.
function moveClouds() {

    // Move cloud 1.
    cloud1X = cloud1X - 0.5;

    // Does it go off the edge?
    if (cloud1X < -100) {
      cloud1X = boardWidth;
    }

    // Move cloud 2.
    cloud2X = cloud2X - 1;

    // Does it go off the edge?
    if (cloud2X < -100) {
      cloud2X = boardWidth;
    }

    cloud1.cx.baseVal.valueAsString =
      cloud1X + "px";
    cloud2.cx.baseVal.valueAsString =
      cloud2X + "px";
}

// Fox is waiting to fall.
function foxWait() {

    // Make the fox fall after one second.
    foxFallTimer = setTimeout(foxFall, 1000);
}

// Fox is falling.
function foxFall() {

    // Make the fox fall one pixel.
    foxY = foxY + 1;

    // Does he hit the floor?
    if (foxY > (boardHeight - 50)){

      // Calculate new position.
      foxY = (boardHeight / 2) - 50;

      // Alert and reset.
      alert("Fox hit the floor!");
      console.log("Fox hit the floor!");
      return;
    }

    // Draw the fox.
    myFox.y.baseVal.valueAsString =
      foxY + "px";

    // Report progress.
    console.log("Fox is falling.");
}

// Fox is jumping.
function foxJump() {

    // Fox jumps up!
    foxY = foxY - 20;

    // Does he hit the roof?
    if (foxY < 20) {

      // Calculate new position.
      foxY = (boardHeight /2) - 50;

      // Alert and reset.
      alert("Fox hit the roof!");
      console.log("Fox hit the roof!");
      return;
    }

    // Otherwise, draw the fox.
    myFox.y.baseVal.valueAsString =
      foxY + "px";

    // Report progress.
    console.log("Fox is jumping.");
}

</script>

</head>

<body id="pageBody">
</body>

</html>

The only new parts of the code are:

Two new globals
Two clouds
Call from the game loop to draw clouds
The function that draws the clouds

New Globals

I added two globals to keep track of the x-coordinate of the clouds. Since they only move from right to left, you only need to change one value for each to move the cloud.

// Cloud initial x coordinate value.
var cloud1X = boardWidth;
var cloud2X = boardWidth / 2;

These are defined by their relationship to the initial board width, in numerical values (not pixels, but they will be converted to pixels to draw using them).

Cloud Objects

The clouds are just SVG circles.

    // Create cloud1.
    cloud1 =
      document.createElementNS(svgURL, "circle");
    cloud1.cx.baseVal.valueAsString =
      cloud1X + "px";
    cloud1.cy.baseVal.valueAsString =
      "400px";
    cloud1.r.baseVal.valueAsString =
      "50px";
    cloud1.style.
          setProperty("fill","blue","");

    // Attach cloud1 to the game board.
    gameBoard.appendChild(cloud1);

    // Create cloud2.
    cloud2 =
      document.createElementNS(svgURL, "circle");
    cloud2.cx.baseVal.valueAsString =
      cloud2X + "px";
    cloud2.cy.baseVal.valueAsString =
      "200px";
    cloud2.r.baseVal.valueAsString =
      "50px";
    cloud2.style.
          setProperty("fill","green","");

    // Attach cloud1 to the game board.
    gameBoard.appendChild(cloud2);

You can read more about circles in the post on SVG Bouncing Balls Part 3 at http://firefoxosgaming.blogspot.com/2013/11/bouncing-svg-part-3-game-programming.html.   The cx value (x coordinate for the center) is defined by the global cloud1X or cloud2X and then must have the "px" added to it to convert it from a number to a pixel number. SVG is finicky about the kind of number it wants. And always make sure that once you define an object with its coordinates, shape, size, and color, that you add it to an existing SVG object that is connected to the main SVG object.

Game Loop

You need a single call to the cloud drawing function:

moveClouds();

This will be called every time that requestAnimationFrame runs the loop, and this is where the animation changes take place: the bird flies based on your tapping the screen and now the clouds move every time the loop runs.

Moving the Clouds

The clouds move with function:

// Move the clouds.
function moveClouds() {

    // Move cloud 1.
    cloud1X = cloud1X - 0.5;

    // Does it go off the edge?
    if (cloud1X < -100) {
      cloud1X = boardWidth;
    }

    // Move cloud 2.
    cloud2X = cloud2X - 1;

    // Does it go off the edge?
    if (cloud2X < -100) {
      cloud2X = boardWidth;
    }

    cloud1.cx.baseVal.valueAsString =
      cloud1X + "px";
    cloud2.cx.baseVal.valueAsString =
      cloud2X + "px";
}

First a number is subtracted from the current cloud x-coordinate. You can use decimals to have it go slower.

Next you check to see if the cloud went off the left edge. You want to check to make sure it's all the way off the screen, so check to see if the position is at -100, which is twice the radius of 50. If it is, then reposition the cloud to equal the width of the screen (boardWidth) and it will be redrawn the next time through the loop. Notice that the second cloud is subtracting 1 instead of 0.5, so that it will move faster. This kind of motion (called parallax) gives the illusion of distance, because clouds further away give the appearance of moving at a different speed.

How lovely it is to be a cloud!

Next time: we've got a flying fox and moving clouds, but it's only pretty to look at, and not a game. We need to add obstacles that the fox can try not to crash into. Or maybe a game review. Who knows? Stay tuned but not iTuned!

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Flying Fox Part 1 (Game Programming)

Okay, I'm interested in Flappy Bird, but not because of the success and drama. What interests me is that it is a one-finger game. This works for touch and I think has something to look at. So I'm now going to create a similar game that just uses a finger to move the hero forward.

But I've been intrigued by this ever since I reviewed Captain Rogers. You could say that Captain Rogers is the same as Flappy Bird, in that you are flying through something and avoiding something and that the mechanism is the same. At first I didn't like the game because it was too hard, and I don't like Flappy Bird either. But the mechanic is interesting, so I'm going to create a game that uses touch and moves an object through an always-scrolling maze. But I need something that flies. How about a fox?

This is an image created by Nicu Buculei of Romania, who has been doing cool SVG tutorials for years. This image grew out of a tutorial called Pac-Man baddies with Inkscape and is available on the OpenClipart.org site (where I get all my clip art from). I really love SVG and this game will be done in SVG, using our fox-like friend, who can magically fly.

In earlier SVG game posts, I've just concentrated on shapes like squares and circles, but it's time to take wings and fly. But how to use a beautiful work of art in SVG? You can see the source code for this work of art at http://openclipart.org/detail/19560/game-baddie:-fox-by-nicubunu and I won't paste it in here because it takes up several hundred lines. Now Nicu didn't plot out the art by hand, he used Inkscape, which makes the details of the SVG art hidden, and all you need to do is use the art.

The game will let you keep the fox flying by tapping on the screen. Here's a screen shot of what it looks like on my Geeksphone Peak (now running in FxOS 1.2):

Tap and he flied upward. Don't do anything, and the fox falls! In later posts I'll show how to scroll and how to draw in the obstacles, but being able to import an SVG file is enough for now.
Here is the code for Part 1.

<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<title>
    Flying Fox Part 1
</title>

<style>

    #mySVG
    {
      width: 360px;
      height: 620px;
      position: absolute;
      top: 0px;
      left: 0px;
    }

</style>

<script>

// --- Global variables ---

// Width and height of board in pixels
var boardWidth = 360;
var boardHeight = 620;
var boardWidthPixels = boardWidth + "px";
var boardHeightPixels = boardHeight + "px";

// URL for W3C definition of SVG elements
var svgURL = "http://www.w3.org/2000/svg";
var svgLink = "http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink";

// Variables for fox initial position.
var foxX = boardWidth / 2 - 100;
var foxY = boardHeight / 2;
var foxH = 50;
var foxW = 50;

// Use requestAnimationFrame.
var requestAnimationFrame =
window.requestAnimationFrame ||
window.mozRequestAnimationFrame ||
window.webkitRequestAnimationFrame ||
window.msRequestAnimationFrame;

// --- Event listeners ---

// Page load event listener.
window.addEventListener("load",
    runFirst, false);

// Runs when page loads.
function runFirst() {

    // Define the game board as an SVG element.
    gameBoard =
      document.createElementNS(svgURL, "svg");

    // Width and height of the SVG board element.
    gameBoard.width.baseVal.valueAsString =
      boardWidthPixels;
    gameBoard.height.baseVal.valueAsString =
      boardHeightPixels;
    gameBoard.id = "mySVG";

    // You must append the board to the body.
    document.getElementById("pageBody").
      appendChild(gameBoard);

    // Add a background element for color.
    gameBack =
      document.createElementNS(svgURL, "rect");
    gameBack.x.baseVal.valueAsString =
      "0px";
    gameBack.y.baseVal.valueAsString =
      "0px";
    gameBack.width.baseVal.valueAsString =
      boardWidthPixels;
    gameBack.height.baseVal.valueAsString =
      boardHeightPixels;
    gameBack.style.
          setProperty("fill","Thistle","");

    // Attach the background to the game board.
    gameBoard.appendChild(gameBack);

    // Mouse down event listener
    gameBoard.addEventListener(
      "mousedown", foxJump, false);

    // Import SVG fox image.
    // Set height, width, x, and y.
    myFox = document.createElementNS(svgURL,"image");
    myFox.setAttribute("height",foxH);
    myFox.setAttribute("width",foxW);
    myFox.setAttribute("x",foxX);
    myFox.setAttribute("y",foxY);

    // Use different namespace for xlink.
    myFox.setAttributeNS(svgLink,"href","fox.svg");

    // Add the fox to the game board.
    gameBoard.appendChild(myFox);

    // Start the game loop.
    gameLoop();
}

// Game loop.
function gameLoop(){

    // Endless loop with requestAnimationFrame.
    requestAnimationFrame(gameLoop);

    // The fox waits to drop.
    // Only you can save him.
    foxWait();
}

// Fox is waiting to fall.
function foxWait() {

    // Make the fox fall after one second.
    foxFallTimer = setTimeout(foxFall, 1000);
}

// Fox is falling.
function foxFall() {

    // Make the fox fall one pixel.
    foxY = foxY + 1;

    // Does he hit the floor?
    if (foxY > (boardHeight - 50)){

      // Calculate new position.
      foxY = (boardHeight / 2) - 50;

      // Alert and reset.
      alert("Fox hit the floor!");
      console.log("Fox hit the floor!");
      return;
    }

    // Draw the fox.
    myFox.y.baseVal.valueAsString =
      foxY + "px";

    // Report progress.
    console.log("Fox is falling.");
}

// Fox is jumping.
function foxJump() {

    // Fox jumps up!
    foxY = foxY - 20;

    // Does he hit the roof?
    if (foxY < 20) {

      // Calculate new position.
      foxY = (boardHeight /2) - 50;

      // Alert and reset.
      alert("Fox hit the roof!");
      console.log("Fox hit the roof!");
      return;
    }

    // Otherwise, draw the fox.
    myFox.y.baseVal.valueAsString =
      foxY + "px";

    // Report progress.
    console.log("Fox is jumping.");
}

</script>

</head>

<body id="pageBody">
</body>

</html>

A lot of this code is similar to other SVG posts I've written, and here's a brief outline.

Shell

Uses the standard HTML5 shell for SVG. For a detailed explanation, see this post: http://firefoxosgaming.blogspot.com/2013/11/bouncing-svg-part-3-game-programming.html.
I have some globals, I set up an event listener, and then start running the game when the page loads.

Game Loop

The game runs in a game loop, using requestAnimationFrame for the basic display timing.

Action

Every time through the game loop, the program goes to a waiting routine that waits one second. After the second has passed, the fox falls a small amount. If the fox hits the ground, the game is reset.

Touch

But to keep the fox from falling, you can tap the screen. I use the mousedown event in much the same way I did in the post Touch and SVG Spirals. Tap on the screen, trap the tap with an event handler, and then move the fox up. But be careful. If the mouse hits the roof, the game is also reset.

SVG

The real meat of this is importing the SVG image. Here's the code that does this:

    // Import SVG fox image.
    // Set height, width, x, and y.
    myFox = document.createElementNS(svgURL,"image");
    myFox.setAttribute("height",foxH);
    myFox.setAttribute("width",foxW);
    myFox.setAttribute("x",foxX);
    myFox.setAttribute("y",foxY);

    // Use different namespace for xlink.
    myFox.setAttributeNS(svgLink,"href","fox.svg");

    // Add the fox to the game board.
    gameBoard.appendChild(myFox);

This code is in three steps:

1. Create an SVG element called myFox using the SVG image element. Define the height, width, x, and y values to give it a location and size. foxX and foxY will determine where the fox is placed.

2. Then we must import the fox, which is in a separate file called fox.svg. We do this by using a magic technology called XLINK. One of the tricks to working with SVG is to remember that under the hood, SVG is XML, not HTML. Even though HTML5 has graciously allowed SVG to come and live in their house, SVG is still an XML animal. And XLINK is a linking protocol that was designed for XML. To use XLINK, you must introduce a separate namespace. SVG has one and now XLINK does too. Up in the globals, I defined svgLink as the namespace for XLINK, so you must use that when you invoke it, because it isn't part of HTML5 or SVG. But it works just fine. You import it by adding the href attribute to the SVG object myFox and then supply the URL, which in this case is just the filename, fox.svg. Complicated, but you only need to learn it once.

3. Then, once you've created the SVG image and imported the art into the image, you just need to add the image to the main SVG object, gameBoard. The image is now part of the SVG drawing and you can manipulate it all you want through JavaScript.

The fox is now ready to fly. Load this into your phone, watch the fox fall, and then tap to keep him from falling to the floor or hitting the roof.

Background

I had one problem with this that I needed to fix. In my last post when I was raving about how cool App Manager was, I showed a preliminary screen shot of the game I'm writing about now.

You'll notice that the top and left edges show a white margin. That's not what I wanted, and it made me dig out my old code from my post on screen sizes: http://firefoxosgaming.blogspot.com/2013/10/how-big-am-i-game-programming.html. Turns out that I hadn't measured the screen with my code and the new code showed this:

My inner screen size was now 360 x 620 pixels. So I added an SVG rectangle that I could color just to show a completely solid background, helpful to see where the fox is. Here's the code I used:

    // Add a background element for color.
    gameBack =
      document.createElementNS(svgURL, "rect");
    gameBack.x.baseVal.valueAsString =
      "0px";
    gameBack.y.baseVal.valueAsString =
      "0px";
    gameBack.width.baseVal.valueAsString =
      boardWidthPixels;
    gameBack.height.baseVal.valueAsString =
      boardHeightPixels;
    gameBack.style.
          setProperty("fill","Thistle","");

    // Attach the background to the game board.
    gameBoard.appendChild(gameBack);

Standard stuff, just a rectangle. Define it, attach it, color it "Thistle", and you're done.

But when I loaded it into my phone, it still had that damn margin. I check and all browsers give you a margin when you throw an SVG object at them.

But when things don't work, there is the cousin of SVG, known as CSS! By simply giving the SVG board an ID, I could then place it exactly where I want it to go with some simple CSS. I understand browser manufacturers wanting to give a little margin (I don't think this was always true), but I want the game to go right to the edge.

So I added this CSS and everything fit perfectly:

<style>

    #mySVG
    {
      width: 360px;
      height: 620px;
      position: absolute;
      top: 0px;
      left: 0px;
    }

</style>

How cool is that? The mixture of HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, and SVG is really rocking. And thank you to Nicu for sharing with the world how to draw SVG and make it look good.

But it also makes me see that you have to be sure of what your screen is. I'm thinking I might clean up my "How Big?" app and putting it in the Marketplace for other programmers. We will be having more phones, tablets, and devices.

Next up, scrolling the screen.