Recently, I was at an arcade and got to once again play the oh-so-fun Star Wars Arcade. The one where you play through the Battle of Yavin, Hoth, and Endor (on ground and in space). Man I love that game. (And boy do I love the unlimited play card that let me do it all ).

But perhaps my favorite parts of that game are the two bonus levels. They're both duels where you play as Luke, with a lightsaber, from a first person perspective. The first one is against Boba Fett over the Pit of Carkoon, and the second is against Darth Vader on the Second Death Star.

The way it works is it shows you an arrow pointing in the direction to move the joystick, and if you do it correctly in time, you'll block their attack, and sometimes attack them. What makes it so great is that you really feel like you're blocking laser blasts and slashing at Darth Vader. It's really just a slow paced reflex test, but it feels so cool, because of the first person perspective.

That game and those levels are awesome, and they inspired me. I want a game to exist that's like those saber levels! Well, I'm an aspiring game programmer, so I figured, I ought to just try it out myself.

So I have.

Yesterday and today I've been working on a little prototype, just something that resembles that feel. Working with XNA, I have this little thing running now. It's simple, and it's ugly, but functionality comes first.

The saber is controlled just by moving the mouse around. Getting the positioning of the saber around the screen has been a huge problem. Aside from the mathematical trickiness, just figuring out how a lightsaber should be oriented at certain points was difficult. Let me know what you think of the results.

The collision of the "blaster bolts" is really simplistically and inaccurately done, but I think that's good because frankly, no one is going to be able to actually deflect blaster bolts. Except for, you know, a Jedi. But the way deflecting works will change. (To be more like the arcade version, where you're not reacting to the blaster bolts, you're reacting to the game telling you where the blaster bolts are going to be).

It's not a game yet, but it's a decent launching point for something I'm hoping will turn out pretty fun.

I have lots of these little projects I think of, start working on, and don't finish, but this one is too cool for that to happen to. So I'm blogging about it in the hopes some of you will hold me responsible for actually working on it.

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Also, please enjoy Granny-Wan's highly amusing blog that's chock full of... something, I'm sure.