The Official Blog of Patcoola

May 11th, 2019

It’s not about Pong, it’s about what comes from Pong.

Game engines has really spoiled us developers, turning Pong into a 30 minute task. However, that doesn’t mean you have created Pong the right way. Back when Adobe Flash was popular; Flash presented a development environment that lead to many poor development practices. I took a step back and went back to basics. I took a calculated approach to recreating Pong. In fact I believe I did it a bit better. I added the paddle behavior from Brick Breaker and added perspective. Now the doors for many more game mechanics has opened.

November 12th, 2014

Using the PHP’s time() function to set the date in JavaScript. Useful for when the Website would like the visitor to be able to view the same date and time that the Website has.

In JavaScript we need to assign the argument zero to new Date(), then use the setTime() function with the server time multiplied by 1000.

October 3rd, 2012

A challenge with making Web Applications (Apps) that can be deployed on any Web page has been the conflict of existing elements of the host Web page.

Web pages have their own layout, design and naming scheme for CSS ids and classes. When designing a Web App, the App is designed as an individual Web page. Adding the Web App to the host layout will create conflicts.

August 16th, 2012

I have been playing around with key movement to move an object on the screen when an arrow key has been pressed.

I have four way direction keys and eight way direction keys.

First impressions, the first time I pressed an arrow key, the object moved across the screen at about 10 pixels per second (I think), the object moved at a very slow rate.

If this is true then Java Scripts cycles AKA frame rate is 10. Oh that sucks.

To over come the problem, I have a trigger and intervals system that works around the problem.

The added benefit of the trigger system, can determine if more than one key is pressed at a time, set the frame rate “cycles” per second and can easily stop all key movements in one place.

Java Script has two sets of key maps, Press and Down, both have a different key map.

Maybe in the future I’ll work out a way to dynamically set key events.