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One of my “favourite” methods of procrastinating from schoolwork is with webcomics.

It’s far too often that when confronted with that quiz I have to study for, or that problem set that needs solving, or that assignment that I really shouldn’t be leaving to the last minute, I’ll instead take a “short break”, come across some new and interesting webcomic, and find myself hooked, clicking through its many-year-long archive one page at a time.

But this isn’t a story about procrastination. That’s just the backdrop. The story I want to tell is one of an interesting contrast, of “magic”, and of talent.

Yesterday I went out to see the cherry blossoms that had come into full bloom at High Park.

Last time, I showed you the simple but effective physics system that powered Lucky Shot. By the end of the article, we had a smooth, adjustable, and flexible movement system that we could apply to each of the AI enemies.  I also mentioned that the physics system took care of most of the natural-feeling movement of the game’s enemies, and that the underlying AI was comparatively simple. This is what I’ll be showing you in this article — how the physics and AI worked in tandem.

A while back, I posted a postmortem for my game, Lucky Shot. In it, I mentioned that one of the aspects that was most well-received was the AI. I myself found this amusing — while it was a good system, it was incredibly simple, only a small step above the enemies you see in a game like Super Mario Bros. So how did the enemies move so smoothly? A lot of it has to do with the movement system, and that’s what I’m going to cover in this article.

Before I get started, though, I’d just like to say that this likely won’t be anything new to anyone who’s programmed a physics system in a game before — in fact, if you have, you will likely see this as overly basic. And it is. This is meant more as a beginner’s introduction and as a showcase on how some very simple ideas can lead to some very nice behaviour. It does, however, require some knowledge of high-school level math and physics.

A while ago, I released my retro-gambling-shooter game, Lucky Shot, to the public. As I mentioned there, this wasn’t the first time the game had seen the light of day — it was created for the University of Toronto Game Design and Development Club’s 2011 Game Making Deathmatch. It won the grand prize in the judged competition, ranked fourth in the public showcase, and was generally well-received. And of course, more than anything else, it was a great learning experience.

Last year was actually the first time the club ran the public showcase. We held it during the Computer Science Student Union’s game night, and to take full advantage of it, we gave out feedback forms, asking people to rate each game and write a few words about it. I found that the reactions we observed and the feedback we got were even more valuable than the prizes given out. With that in mind, let’s take a look at how people enjoyed the game.