So, I decided to give this “holiday hockey” thing a try. I’d seen some stuff online and thought, “Why not?” It seemed like a fun little project.
Getting Started
First, I needed to figure out what exactly I was doing. Was it a game? An animation? I decided to make a simple interactive animation of a hockey puck sliding across the screen, maybe hitting a few obstacles. Simple enough, right?
I grabbed my trusty old laptop, fired up my code editor, and just started messing around. I didn’t have a grand plan, just a vague idea. I spent a good hour just trying to get a basic circle (my “puck”) to move across the screen. Lots of trial and error, lots of googling “how to move things on a screen”. I am still learning a lot of things.
The Messy Middle
After I finally got the puck moving, I thought, “Okay, now for some obstacles.” This is where things got a bit hairy. I wanted the puck to bounce realistically, but my math skills are… well, let’s just say they’re a work in progress.
- Challenge 1: Getting the angles right. The puck kept bouncing off at weird angles, or sometimes just getting stuck.
- Challenge 2: Making it look smooth. The movement was jerky and unnatural. It felt very… amateurish.
- Challenge 3: Keeping my code organized. It quickly turned into a jumbled mess of variables and functions. I spent more time untangling my own code than actually adding new features.
There were moments when I felt like throwing my laptop out the window. But I kept at it, taking breaks to watch some actual hockey games for “research” (and to calm my nerves). Slowly, very slowly, things started to come together.
The “Aha!” Moment
The big breakthrough came when I stumbled upon a tutorial about collision detection. It was like a lightbulb went off in my head. I finally understood how to make the puck bounce properly! It took a few more hours of tweaking and refining, but eventually, I had a puck that moved smoothly and interacted with obstacles in a (somewhat) realistic way.
The Finished Product (Sort Of)
It’s definitely not perfect. It’s still a bit rough around the edges, and there are probably a million ways to improve it. But you know what? I’m proud of it. I made something that actually works! It’s a small, silly little animation, but it’s mine. And it was a whole lot of fun (and frustration) to create. I feel great!
So that’s my “holiday hockey” adventure. A messy, chaotic, but ultimately rewarding experience. Would I do it again? Absolutely. Maybe next time I’ll even add a scoring system… or maybe not. We’ll see.
