Question

I intend to make a simple flash game where you’re basically a ball rolling down a hill, and obstacles would appear and have to be dodged as you progress. The ball would not actually be moving, it would be in the center of the screen, and so the hill would have to work as a conveyor belt in a sense, with obstacles randomly appearing on the hill.

I know this is a vague question, but I can’t really think of how I would implement this. How I would make the hill appear as the though it were moving and then when an obstacle is put on, how it would move with the hill to create the illusion of the ball moving consistently.

I’m just trying to think of how the mechanic would work, so any advice would be helpful.

Thanks

Answer 1

The mechanics are called parallax scrolling.

Parallax scrolling is a special scrolling technique in computer graphics, wherein background images move by the camera slower than foreground images, creating an illusion of depth in a 2D video game and adding to the immersion. The technique grew out of the multiplane camera technique used in traditional animation since the 1940s.

Now, this describes a side scroller game. You use the same principles in a forward movement game. Objects further away from you move towards you more slowly than objects closer to you. Your focus is the horizon in a forward movement game.

You might get a better answer on the Game Development exchange site.