ponk_starter

2025 feb 27b
pong game in Snap! on ipad!

Suggestions: 
—Gliding paddle bounces off walls.
—Stage (or control buttons) tell paddle to reverse path up or down.
—Private blocks of “getReady”, “moveALittle”, “checkWalls”, “bounce”, “checkPaddleHit” (in ball).

Ingredients needed:
From dark blue ”Motion”:
  — (x position)
  — (y position)
From purple “Looks”:
  — “switch to costume…”
From tan “Control”:
  — “if”
  — “repeat”

From blue ”Sensing”:
  — (mouse y)
  — ([x position 🔽] of [paddle tr 🔽])

From green “Operators”:
  — “<“
  — “>”

From orange “Variables”:
  — Make a variable…
  — “set…”
  — “script variables…”
  — “change …”


Optional ingredients:
From purple “Looks”:
  — “switch to costume (stretch [ball 🔽] x:(66) y:(100) %)”

Questions for thought:
— Who should detect paddle-ball impact?
— What stops the action? Neg score?

Step 1: putting click detection into stage scripts (for paddle movement w/o mouse)

Optional suggestions:
—Ball starts with slight dY: easier to predict its path. With “wait 0.05” I’m liking dX is -5, dY is -1 at first.
–Squish while bouncing is summoned by broadcast w/o wait, for speed. Uses script variable so we can tinker with speed.
—Get point for paddle hit ball.
—Lose point(s) for paddle misses ball.
—If paddle hits ball, change not just dX but also dY. Perhaps more dY if hit is farther up or down from center of paddle.
—Paddle tiltable for angle of hit?!?!
—Bricks that disappear.
—Paddle accelerates if you click ahead of it. (More ddY if touch farther from paddle center, or repeatedly?)
—Ball accelerates after time.
—More balls. More paddles?

iPad notes:
—Long click (instead of right click or control click) to get pop-up menus.
—Long click on scripts window to make new command.
— Gear on upper left allows adjustment of block size.
— Box-in-box at left edge above stage screen will give us more room for scripting (smaller stage).
— iPad text editing doesn’t seem to use virtual-space-bar-as-cursor. Have to click to move cursor.
— Sometimes the list of command blocks disappears from left side: solution is touch a color category at top left (motion or looks or whatever).

starter & game by M. Roam, 2025