Game Design

So what sort of game shall we make? Do you remember Frogger? It was a cute little game where you helped a little frog hop across a busy highway, dodging trucks, cars, and other obstacles along the way. In this chapter, you're going to create a similar game. I decided on this type of game because of its simplicity. At this stage I don't want to swamp you with huge amounts of game code (although I'm sorely tempted to, even if just to show off what you can really do). For now, you'll just explore the components of a basic game, concentrating on how to use what you've learned in the previous chapters in a real game context. The game (dubbed RoadRun) presents the player with the challenge of helping a little wombat across a busy highway (see Figure 7.1). The player can jump to the next or previous lane using the up and down arrows, or along a lane using the left and right arrows. To keep things simple, I've decided to exclude the poisonous barbs the wombat could fire into the driver's eye (causing him to veer wildly and smash into other cars).