Talking about Mikey Hooks game, Box2D, Game development, HTML5, Javascript and Phaser.
It’s being a long time since I showed you how to create a hook like the one used in Mikey Hooks using AS3 + Box2D and AS3 + Nape. It’s still a great game concept, so let me show you how to create the same thing using Box2D + Phaser. Despite being an extremely good looking effect, it’s very easy to create an hook using Box2D, you just have to play with distance joints. Let’s have a look at what we are going to do in a few lines of code: You can’t control the ball, but click and hold the mouse on a static green body to fire the hook, release to destroy it. Here is the commented source code, have a look at it, you will be impressed about how easy can be the creation of this effect.
// the game itself
var game;
// the ball
var ballBody;
// the joint
var ballJoint;
// function to be executed when the window loads
window.onload = function() {
// starting the game itself
game = new Phaser.Game(800, 600, Phaser.AUTO, "");
// creation and execution of "PlayGame" state
game.state.add("PlayGame",playGame);
game.state.start("PlayGame");
}
var playGame = function(game){};
playGame.prototype = {
// function to be executed onche game has been created
create: function(){
// initializing Box2D physics
game.physics.startSystem(Phaser.Physics.BOX2D);
// making the debug draw show joints
game.physics.box2d.debugDraw.joints = true;
// setting gravity
game.physics.box2d.gravity.y = 500;
// the ground
var groundBody = new Phaser.Physics.Box2D.Body(game, null, 400, 595, 1);
groundBody.setRectangle(800, 10, 0, 0);
// adding some random bodies
for(var i = 0; i < 10; i++){
var randomBody = new Phaser.Physics.Box2D.Body(game, null, game.rnd.between(100, 700), game.rnd.between(100, 400), 0);
randomBody.setRectangle(game.rnd.between(27, 75), game.rnd.between(25, 75), 0, 0);
}
// the ball
ballBody = new Phaser.Physics.Box2D.Body(game, null, 400, 550, 2);
ballBody.setCircle(10);
// waiting for player input then call addHook function
game.input.onDown.add(addHook);
},
render: function(){
// this is the debug draw in action
game.debug.box2dWorld();
},
update: function(){
// if there is a joint, make it shorter by 1%
if(ballJoint){
ballJoint.SetLength(ballJoint.GetLength() * 0.99);
}
}
}
function addHook(e){
// this is how we get an array of bodies at a certain cordinate, in this case player input coordinate
var currentBody = game.physics.box2d.getBodiesAtPoint(e.x, e.y);
// if there is at least one body (but it can't be more than one in this example)...
if(currentBody.length>0){
// if the body is not static (it's not the ground)
if(currentBody[0].static){
// waking up the body (it won't work on a sleeping body)
ballBody.data.SetAwake(true);
// adding a distance joint
ballJoint = game.physics.box2d.distanceJoint(ballBody, currentBody[0]);
}
// update listeners
game.input.onDown.remove(addHook);
game.input.onUp.add(removeHook);
}
}
function removeHook(){
// update listeners
game.input.onUp.remove(removeHook);
game.input.onDown.add(addHook);
// destroying the joint
game.physics.box2d.world.DestroyJoint(ballJoint);
}
Never miss an update! Subscribe, and I will bother you by email only when a new game or full source code comes out.