In my final year of this Software Engineering program I'm in, I've had to take this easy math class called Mathematics of Graphics & Sound. It's basically just a really easy calculus/algebra course, real bird coursey in comparison to most math classes any of you guys going for a generic CS degree would have to take.

Anyway, after a lot of regular math class style assignments, we had to do this one actual programming assignment for it where we make a simulation of a golf ball trajectory using whatever language we feel like. The expectation was just to make a little graph program I guess, where you plot the line of the equation and animate it drawing over time and this is what most people did.

I thought that sounded really trivial and boring though, and couldn't get motivated to do it. Instead I decided it would be a lot cooler to make a little NES/SNES graphics representation of Alan Shepard Jr. hitting a golf ball on the moon during the Apollo 14 mission.

This version isn't the complete thing. I still want to add the actual moon lander and the american flag into the background. Also, I want to make the ball bounce after it lands as well as add some moon dust effects to the shot and the landing point. But she looks pretty good so far.


DOWN ARROW - starts simulation
UP ARROW - resets simulation

It's multiple layers that overlap with the higher/"farther" ones scrolling slower than the lower/"closer" ones. The sense of depth worked pretty well. This is the same sort of 2D graphics effect I want to use for everything in a 2D side scrolling jet game I want to make called Devils in Heaven which will be sort of like the game Sopwith2 on steroids and with working multiplayer.

The image I used for mountains in the back is stolen from this Soul of the Beast demo thing and the astronaut is sort of cribbed from the one on the Pixel Jam site, I just added the club. But the ground layers and the little shadowed earth in the distance I drew myself based on this picture. I'm pretty proud of that Earth.