Staring in awe at Pulp Pong

The fourth tutorial in the list of links is a blog post describing one developer's successful attempt at re-creating Pong using Pulp.

I didn't get very far on my own

• I re-created the single room
• I placed text for both players' scores in the room

Inspecting the JSON file in pulp

Thankfully, the author made PDX and JSON files available for download.

I snagged the JSON file and loaded it in a new pulp game.

Layers and tiles

• World tiles to make the card screen
• One item tile for the score divider
• Sprites for player 2 and the ball
• Player tiles for the paddle body, top and bottom
• No Exits

Sounds

• A one-note sound for when the ball collides with a wall or paddle
• A four-note sound for when either player scores

Scripts

• These files are intimidating, but accessible
• The author has written some very helpful comments
• A lot of it is understandable
• The tough part is following all the custom functions

In awe

• I admire the author's ability to simulate smooth animations for the ball and player paddles
• I'm impressed by all the edge-case handling, especially when the ball tile overlaps a paddle tile
• Oh, and switching between a CPU player 2 and human player 2 based on whether the crank is docked or not

The complexity of managing tiles

• Designing a playdate game in pulp seemed simple at first
• This game's scripts are proof that the tough part is in swapping tiles and accounting for the correct tile being in the right place at all times
• So, the good news is the code will likely often require conditionals to check tile types at target location
• The bad news is the complicated mess of nested conditionals that could amass in even a simple game like this

I think it's time

• I gotta make something from scratch
• I gotta practice writing PulpScript
• I gotta think of some simple game

Good luck, self. Remember, it's supposed to be fun!