Laser Hockey DS - May 2008

Filed under: Laser Hockey DS, Nintendo DS, homebrew

I have put the latest build of Laser Hockey DS online tonight. This version finally has a real physics engine courtesy of Box2D. Again, it looks identical to the last two builds but this one finally plays like a real game. Next month is all about the looks...gotta shrink those paddles.

Build 0.4.0

• Using Box2D for physics, still needs a lot of tweaking and bug fixing; it took almost two months but it's a huge improvement
• Re-initializing memory between screen changes to avoid a memory leak
• Remove remnants of old placeholder engine
• Using Box2D's body rotation for the sprite rotation
• Player two takes control of physics updates when ball is in his or her court, a vast improvement in responsiveness of game play for player two
• Select button now exits practice and multiplayer games

You can download it by clicking this link: LHDS_2008_05_31.zip

I am not going to provide any new screenshots as they are exactly the same.

Laser Hockey DS thumbnail appears on Joystiq

Filed under: Joystiq, Laser Hockey DS

DS Fanboy interviewed me during their Week of Homebrew and like all good Fanboy features, a recap was posted to Joystiq!

• Joystiq:
  DS Fanboy's week of homebrew
• My DS Fanboy interview:
  Homebrew dev dishes on the DS scene

Forward to the Past

Filed under: Laser Hockey DS, Box2D, physics

After re-re-re-thinking how we are going to replace the physics engine, we have finally settled with Box2D. We have an early preview version of the integration effort working and will release it at the end of the month. However, the release will likely be buggy (e.g., game freezing and strange collision behavior) while we iron out the bugs.