Breakout in Greenfoot

Barb Ericson ericson@cc.gatech.edu

Georgia Institute of Technology
September 2010

Breakout

What are the objects?

Open Breakout.html
in Breakout-export
And play the game
(use the arrow keys to
move the paddle and
hit the ball into the
bricks)
How do you lose?
How do you win?
What are the objects
in the game?
Breakout

The Breakout Game

Open BreakoutStart
There are Bricks,
a Message that
says we are
starting with Ball
1, a Ball, and a
Paddle

But if you click on

act or run nothing
happens
Breakout

Game Rules
Use the left and right arrow keys to move
the paddle
Use the paddle to hit the ball into the bricks to
get rid of them
Get rid of all the bricks to win the g
game
The ball will bounce off most of the walls, paddle,
and bricks

You get up to three balls to use

If you still have bricks after using 3 balls you lose
If a ball hits the bottom wall it is removed and a
new ball is added
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The Paddle Class

Paddle is a subclass of Actor
public class Paddle extends Actor

A paddle object has the following fields:

width of the paddle
height of the paddle
moveAmount amount to move the paddle
color of the paddle

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What can actors do?

Double click on the Actor class
This shows the documentation (API) for the
Actor class in Greenfoot
How does an actor check if it is hitting
(intersection with another actor)?
How do you get the current location of the
actor (x and y values)?
How do you set the current location?
How do you change the image of the actor?
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Moving the Paddle (add to act method)

Check if the left key is down and if so
move the paddle left by the moveAmount
if (Greenfoot.isKeyDown("left"))
{
setLocation(getX()-moveAmount,
setLocation(getX()
moveAmount, getY());
}

Check if the right key is down and if it is

move the paddle to the right

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The Ball Class

Ball is a subclass of Actor
public class Ball extends Actor

Each ball object has the following fields:

radius
width
color
velX (amount to move in X)
Set in the constructor

velY (amount to move in Y)

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The Ball's Act Method

Move the ball
Set the location using the current x and y and velX
and velY (amount to move in X and Y)

Check if hit any actors

If hit an actor and that actor isn't the message
g
Bounce off the object
Check if the object was a brick
if it was a brick remove the brick from the world and have the
world check if the player won (no more bricks)

Check if at any walls

Bounce off top or side walls
If at bottom wall remove ball and create a new one
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Move the Ball

The ball's y velocity is 2, but it is a field
velY

The ball's x velocity should be a random

value between 1 and 2 or -1 to -2
set in the constructor
velX

To move the ball

setLocation(getX() + velX,
getY() + velY);
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Checking if hit any Actors

Get an actor (an object of the class

Actor) that intersects with this one
Actor actor =
this.getOneIntersectingObject(Actor.class);

If the ball did hit an actor and the actor

isn't the message (object of the Message
class)
if (actor != null && !(actor instanceof Message))
{

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Bounce the Ball off an Actor

The actor must be a
paddle or a brick (if it
isn't a message)
So negate velY to
make it switch
di
direction
i iin Y
velY = -velY;

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If the Ball hit a Brick

Check using
if (actor instanceof Brick)
{

If the ball did hit a brick

remove the brick from the world
world.removeObject(actor);

check if won (last brick was removed)

world.checkIfWon();

}
}
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Checking Walls
If the ball hit the left wall bounce in x
if (getX() - radius <= 0)
velX = -velX; // negate velocity in X

if the ball hit the right wall bounce in x

else if (getX() + radius >
>=
BreakoutWorld.WIDTH)
velX = -velX; // negate velocity in X

if the ball hit the top wall bounce in y

else if (getY() - radius <= 0)
velY = -velY; // negate velocity in Y
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Checking Bottom Wall

else if (getY() + radius >=
BreakoutWorld.HEIGHT)
{

remove the current ball from the world

world.removeObject(this);

add a new ball to the world

world.newBall();
this also checks for the end of the game
}

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Additional Ideas
Add sounds
bounce sound and win or lose sounds

If the ball hits at the edge of paddle then bounce in x as

well as y
if the distance from the center of the ball to the left or right edge
of the paddle is less than or equal the radius of the ball

Speed up the velocityy

after each 7th hit with the paddle
double the x velocity

Make the paddle smaller over time

Change the ball color to match the last hit brick's color
Add a getColor() method to Brick

See the documentation for the Greenfoot classes

http://www.greenfoot.org/doc/javadoc/
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