Hello, my name is Brad Haaning I am one of the programmers for Bugby. I am going to UW-Stout to get a degree in Computer Science, and I am trying to get into the video game industry.
A goal when it is active.
The first thing I worked on for Bugby was the goals, the big glowing stone arches. From the start, the idea was that there would be multiple goals on the field and that only one of them at a time would be active. Something important is that the goals would launch a player and the ball after scoring a point. Programming the goals was more involved than you may think.
The first and most important element was getting the goals to score under the correct conditions. That involved tracking whether the player has the ball or not, determining which team the player is on, and then creating a hitbox that the player must touch to score a point. Then there is switching the active goal after scoring or after a certain amount of time. That involved keeping track of all the goals in an array, turning off all the goals, randomly selecting one of them, and turning the chosen one on. Finally, the goal must launch the player and ball after scoring. After scoring, detach the ball from the player, then apply a force to the ball and to the player, each in a different, randomly selected direction.
A goal in the editor. They are deactivated by default. The arrows represent directions the player and ball can be launched.
The goals are a fundamental element of the game and getting them to function properly took a lot of work. It took almost four months to get the goals to have all the functionality, and the team was vital in getting the goals to where they are in the final product.