From the Forum — Issue #126

03 June 2016

From the Forum — Issue #126

Welcome to the latest installment of From the Forum. In this series, guest blogger Alex Jackson highlights outstanding threads from the Corona Forum. The goal is to bring attention to the most captivating, interesting, and thought-provoking discussions taking place in our very own backyard.

Please visit the forum to join these conversations or start your own!

Math libraries

Shorthand geometry has never been my strong suit. I’ve always struggled with the area of a triangle, circumference of a circle, or any number of esoteric vector math functions. However, it’s vital to have some grasp of these concepts when engaging in extensive game development — but going back and forth between trigonometry documentation and your code is no way to live! That’s why it’s so nice that there are several math libraries for us to leverage. Extending the usefulness of Corona’s baked-in math library, we can start using some simple shorthand functions, easing us into the proverbial bathtub of complicated arithmetic scenarios.

Check out the original thread here to grab some info on math libraries. Have a helper module of our own? We’d love to hear about it!

Dusk 1.0 beta

One of the first posts we highlighted in the From the Forum series was the up-and-coming developments of a little software studio called Gymbyl Coding. Over the years, Caleb, the main man at Gymbyl, has gifted the Corona community with awesome modules to extend the usefulness of the already-useful Corona SDK.

One of the main focuses of Gymbyl in the last year has been their Dusk game engine. What started out as a basic tile management system evolved into a fully-realized library that has helped many new and veteran developers quickly produce fantastic games.

Now, Dusk 1.0 has entered beta testing and it’s your chance to help Gymbyl kick the tires. Head down to the original thread to get in on this great opportunity!

Stopping objects with a touch

When prototyping simple object movement mechanics in your games, it’s easy to become entranced by the siren song of updating coordinates during the “moved” phase of a touch function. Dead simple, but it isn’t as extensible when you start dealing with physics objects.

Physics objects need some additional TLC to work with a user’s touch interaction, and this is what initiated the birth of the physics touch joint. This joint lets us modify the location of a physics object without Box2d throwing a fit.

Check out the original thread that discusses one approach to using touch joints, and stick around for other samples that RoamingGamer drops on us. That guy is the gift who keeps on giving!

About Alex

Alex Jackson is an indie developer and the founder of Panc Interactive, specializing in retro-style gaming. He has created several mobile applications, enjoys long walks on the beach, pixel art, and reading the Corona forums. Contact him by email or follow him on Twitter: @pancinteractive. Check out his new game Segreta on iOS, Android, Windows Phone and Amazon devices.