Brick Blast

My Project 1 for MI 445! I I did some research on YouTube to see how different people went about making a game like this, then wrote down what I liked as inspiration, and begun. One example was instead of hardcoding levels, building a script that took spreadsheet-like input and made the levels, with numbers for brick hp values. I wanted to create a low fi relaxing version of brick blast games, since most of them are so over the top. I got my color pallette from coolors, using their generator to find complementary colors. Once I was satisfied, I used Claude to help generate/implement audio. It went with a procedurally generated audio, pitching up and down randomly on hit. After it was done, I asked it to break down step by step how the audio system worked, and was implemented. I learned a lot from this process. 

Key features:

Scalable Design: Levels and UI adapt and allow for more content to be created. This mirrors the workflow in class where a programmer may make a tool for the designers to use. Levels can be made from text files, and the UI adapts as more levels are added.  

Low-Fi Relaxing theme: I built Brick Blast around a more minimal and relaxing aesthetic, intentionally contrasting the flashy visual presentation common in many brick-breaker games.  All of it was designed intentionally to create a more minimal, relaxing experience. This was reinforced when prompting Claude to help with the audio.

Power-ups and special bricks (more hp): While a staple of most brick break projects, this went above and beyond the minimum of just having a paddle and bricks to break. There are 3 distinct powerups (extra life, wide paddle, multi ball), and levels of brick hp (1-multiple and invincible). This allowed for a much more FUN experience, which I believe is key when designing games. 

AI was used to assist with generating some of the audio assets and with implementing and explaining portions of the audio system. I reviewed the implementation and used the process to learn how the system worked.

Created by: Tyler Horvath