Okay, so I’ve been messing around with this idea for a “duck volleyball” game. It sounded silly at first, but the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to see if I could actually make it happen. I mean, who wouldn’t want to see ducks playing volleyball?
Getting Started
First things first, I needed some ducks. I’m no artist, so I just grabbed some free duck sprites online. They’re kinda goofy-looking, but hey, that adds to the charm, right? Then, I needed a net. That was easy enough, just a simple rectangle for now.
Basic Movement
I spent a good chunk of time just getting the ducks to move. I wanted them to flap around realistically. I added basic up, down, left, and right controls using some simple keyboard inputs. It was surprisingly tricky to get the movement to feel “right” – not too fast, not too slow, and with a little bit of that duck-like waddle.
- Up: Made the duck flap upwards.
- Down: Made the duck descend.
- Left/Right: Moved the duck sideways.
It took some tweaking, I messed around with the speed and stuff until it looked okayish.
Adding the Ball
Next up, the volleyball! Again, I just used a simple circle sprite. I made the phycics for the ball basic—it bounces! I had to play around with the bounce physics for a while to make it feel somewhat realistic (as realistic as a duck volleyball game can be, anyway).
I coded it so the ball would bounce off the edges of the screen and, of course, the net. The trickiest part was getting the ball to interact with the ducks.
Duck Hits
This is where things got interesting. I wanted the ducks to be able to “hit” the ball with their heads or bodies. I started with a simple collision detection: if the duck sprite overlaps with the ball sprite, the ball changes direction.
It took a bit to figure direction changing out, but eventurally, the duck hit the ball!
Making it a “Game”
Simply, to make a “Game”, I need to add score to it. So, I made the simply score system.
Right now, it’s super basic. The ball just bounces around, and the ducks can kinda hit it. There’s no scoring, no AI, no real “gameplay” yet. It’s more of a… duck volleyball simulator, I guess?
But, it’s a start! I can see the potential here. It’s already kinda fun to just watch the ducks flap around and try to hit the ball. Next, I need to figure the followings:
- Scoring: How do you even score in duck volleyball?
- AI: It would be cool to have the ducks play against each other.
- Maybe some power-ups? A super-fast duck, maybe?
So, there’s that, I think the Duck Volleyball Game has potential. I really try to figure out how to make it more fun!
