Archive for the ‘TönnenKlapps’ Category

TönnenKlapps – not entirely unlike a virtual piñata beating game for XBOX controllers

Thursday, March 17th, 2011

TonnenKlapps_Title_500

A couple of weeks ago some friends and I competed in the very cozy Indie9000 game jam in Aalborg, Denmark. The theme was Fastelavn, a celebration where danish kids beat innocent barrels to pieces with sticks.

We figured it would be fun to make a virtual edition of this custom – so we did! :)

In this version up to four players use an Xbox controller and try to beat the colored staves in the barrel using the button on the controller in the corresponding color. The timing must be right too, as the bat can only hit a single position.

ingame_2

Highlights of the code are:

- dynamic detection of new controllers added and existing ones removed
- simple emulation of a spinning 3D barrel by drawing single staves back to front using individual colors

Here you can see the 36 different transparent PNGs used to simulate rotation:

rotating_barrel_160 

Here you see Lars trying to get a feel for where the bat would hit the barrel while learning 3D modelling:

Lars

Here you see the team (myself excluded) and a group of playtesters:

playtesting

It was fun to make, and we were nominated in Best game, Best graphics and Best sound – yay!

The game is published to Codeplex on http://tonnenklapps.codeplex.com/, so head there for sourcecode and a game of barrelwhooppin’ TönnenKlapps! :)