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I’ve wanted to blog about this in the past, but I haven’t quite had the time nor was I satisfied with my blog to write the post. I have spent a good deal of this semester working on two projects, one of with is a game in Java called MegaPutt. MegaPutt is a putt-putt golf game (similar to Mini-Putt, but obviously coded in Java and not Flash). Like almost all projects in IST, it is a team project in which the goal is to demonstrate our knowledge of the material and object-oriented programming (OOP). About halfway through the course we had enough skills to begin working on the project.
For those of you fortunate enough to know me in real life, you know that I am an over-achiever. I put 100% into every project and will often go above and beyond the requirements. MegaPutt is no exception. I wanted to explore deeper the capabilities of Java than what we have covered in class. We decided to use a game engine as a foundation and build a 2D game on top of it. Various ideas were thrown around, but we settled on a mini-golf game.
We a few different engines, but perhaps the best was one from another class (halfway across the world). We found a Java Games Programming class taught by Dr. Philip Hanna. Perhaps the best part about this engine is that it was well documented and had numerous examples of how to use it. A simple pool game in the physics demo was what inspired us to try our hand with MegaPutt.
A sample hole designed by Christopher Griffith.
The game is nearing alpha stages right now. We have most of the code in place and are currently working on image resources. It takes a great deal of time to do just a single hole, let alone 18. I’ll leave you with an example of what we’ve achieved. This hole was designed by my friend, Christopher Griffith. Expect more posts regarding the development of MegaPutt, especially the implementation of cool features as well as problems we have encountered.