2. Sprites and Movement

Creating Sprites

The player (ship)

Given our thematic area for the game is in space, we want something that can be simply represented as a ship. If we draw inspiration from other classic titles like 'Space Invaders', we can see with the limitations of technology, they were able to convey the sense of a ship using a very simple sprite.

Example of a basic ship sprite

At a basic level, a spaceship can be embodied as a body which points in one direction. Naturally, the "pointy" apex of the object is instinctually the head of the ship. We can apply this in designing a very basic ship which is pretty much an arrowhead. Here's what I settled on:

Ship sprite for my game

The obstacles (asteroids)

Again, tying in with the space theme we have our obstacles that the player needs to overcome. At a first stage we'll be looking to implement asteroids. For some variety, I'll be creating three different sprites that are all forms of asteroids.

Defining Movement

Flying the ship

To define movement for our ship, we want to map key inputs to the translation of our ship object. Player will be using the keyboard with the arrow keys for flying the ship, and space to shoot.

Randomising the asteroids