Okay, so I’ve been wanting to mess around with making a simple beach volleyball game for a while now. I finally decided to give it a shot, and, man, it was a bigger project than I thought!
Getting Started
First, I needed to choose a game engine. I figured something simple like Unity would be good, since I didn’t need anything too fancy. Downloaded it and started poking around. I had used it a little bit a few years ago, so it was familiar, but I am rusty, so I watched a bunch of basic tutorials. After re-remembering the user interface, I started with a basic terrain. You know, just a big ol’ sandbox.
Adding the Beach and Net
I used the terrain tools to sculpt a bit of a beach, making it look kinda sandy. Next up, the net. That was pretty straightforward – just a stretched-out cube, basically. I found a net texture online, and slapped that on. It looked… okay. Not great, but good enough for a start.
Players and Movement
Here’s where things got a bit tricky. I created some simple capsule shapes for the players. Then I had to figure out how to make them move. I went with basic keyboard controls – WASD for movement, spacebar to jump. It took some fiddling with the physics to get the jumping to feel somewhat right. It’s still pretty floaty, but it’s a start!
- W – move forward
- A – move left
- S – move backward
- D – move right
The Ball
The volleyball itself was another capsule(just stretched). I added a Rigidbody component so it would react to physics. Then, I spent a ton of time trying to get the hitting to work. I wanted the players to be able to bump and set the ball. Finally after much trial and error, I ended up with a system where the player’s velocity is added to the ball when they collide. It’s not perfect, but it kinda works!
Scoring (and Giving Up)
I tried to add a simple scoring system. I put some invisible triggers on each side of the net. When the ball hit the ground trigger, the opposite side would score a point. The score display was just some text on the screen. It’s super basic, but it’s something. Honestly after a long time trying to work out the hitting of the ball with some bumps and sets, I gave up, at least for today.
What I Learned
Even a “simple” game is a lot of work! There’s so much to think about – physics, controls, scoring, visuals… It’s overwhelming, but also pretty fun. I definitely didn’t get as far as I wanted, but I learned a lot. Maybe I’ll come back to this project later and make it a real game. For now, it’s just a sandbox with some bouncy capsules and a floaty volleyball.
