Okay, let’s dive into my little adventure with making an Android beach volleyball game.
So, I’ve always loved beach volleyball, and I thought, “Hey, why not try to make a simple game out of it?” I’m no pro developer, just a guy who likes to tinker, so this was a learning experience from start to finish.
The First Steps (and Stumbles)
I started by looking around for game engines. Unity seemed popular, but a bit overwhelming for a simple project. Then I stumbled upon Godot Engine. It’s open-source, seemed easier to learn, and had a 2D mode that looked perfect for my needs.
I downloaded Godot and started messing around. The interface was surprisingly intuitive. I watched a few beginner tutorials online – just basic stuff about setting up a project, adding sprites (the images for the game), and making them move.
Building the Basics
My first goal was to get a ball bouncing. Sounds easy, right? Well, it took a bit of fiddling with Godot’s physics engine. I created a “ball” sprite and gave it a “RigidBody2D” node, which basically tells Godot to treat it like a real-world object with gravity and stuff.
Then I added a “floor” – just a static rectangle at the bottom of the screen. I played around with the ball’s bounciness settings until it felt somewhat realistic (or at least, fun!).
Adding the Players
Next up, the players! I drew some very basic stick-figure players (my art skills are… limited). I imported them into Godot and, like the ball, gave them RigidBody2D nodes.
For movement, I decided to go with simple left/right controls. I wrote a little script (Godot uses a language called GDScript, which is pretty similar to Python) that responded to keyboard input. Pressing the left arrow key applied a force to the player, making them move left. Same for the right arrow key.
Making it a “Game”
Okay, so I had a bouncing ball and moving players. Now, how to make it an actual game? I added a net (another static rectangle) and started experimenting with how the ball should interact with the players.
This was the trickiest part. I wanted the players to be able to “hit” the ball upwards. I ended up using a combination of collision detection (Godot can tell when two objects are touching) and applying a small upward force to the ball when it collided with a player.
- Added simple score display.
- Made restart function after score.
The Result (So Far)
It’s still super basic, but it’s playable! You can move the players, hit the ball over the net, and (sort of) keep score. It’s definitely not ready for the Google Play Store, but it’s a start.
I learned so much about it. Next time, I want to add better graphics and maybe a AI.
