Using R Programming to Simulate the Incredible Pong Arcade Game

Unleashed in the market in 1972, Pong is one of the first computer games ever developed. Loosely inspired by tennis, Pong captured the worldwide gaming market soon after its launch. Instantaneously, it became a trending fad. Gaming enthusiasts became intrigued, they desired to delve deeper into the computer coding and system mechanisms mostly to understand the essence of arcade game development.

Today, R-Programming is extensively used to develop numerous board games. But the question to ponder on is – can we create traditional arcade games with R programming?

Well, of course we can! In this blog, we have recreated a 1980s arcade game but with R. The code written below simulates the historic game of Pong.

Playing R-Cade Successfully

The code applied here is based on Wacko’s Boing Program taken from the 1983 book Dr. C. Wacko’s Miracle Guide to Designing and Programming your own Atari Computer Arcade Games.  This book is marvellous! By clearly explaining how to write computer games using Atari Basic, the book is fun to read. It has a humorous tone, and the readers devour it.

The R code is well commented and seems to have a mind of its own! However, please note, the animation is a bit gawky, when it’s run in RStudio. For better animation, try to run it in native R Terminal.

Now, let’s take a step closer to coding R-Cade game:

 Video source – r-bloggers.com

The Pong Code

# Sound library
library(beepr) 

# Game parameters
skill <- 0.87 # Skill (0-1)
score <- 0
high.score <- 0

# Define playing field
par(mar = rep(1,4), bg = "black")
plot.new()
plot.window(xlim = c(0, 30), ylim = c(0, 30))
lines(c(1, 30, 30, 1), c(0, 0, 30, 30), type = "l", lwd = 5, col = "white")

# Playing field boundaries (depend on cex)
xmin <- 0.5
xmax <- 29.4
ymin <- 0.5
ymax <- 29.4

# initial position
x <- sample(5:25, 1)
y <- sample(5:25, 1)
points(x, y, pch = 15, col = "white", cex = 2)

# Paddle control
psize <- 4
ypaddle <- y

# Set direction
dx <- runif(1, .5, 1)
dy <- runif(1, .5, 1) 

# Game play 
while (x > xmin - 1) {
    sound <- 0 # Silence
    Sys.sleep(.05) # Pause screen. Reduce to increase speed
    points(x, y, pch = 15, col = "black", cex = 2) # Erase ball
    # Move ball
    x <- x + dx
    y <- y + dy 
    # Collision detection 
    if (x > xmax) {
        dx <- -dx * runif(1, .9, 1.1) # Bounce 
        if (x > xmin) x <- xmax # Boundary
        sound <- 10 # Set sound
        }
    if (y < ymin | y > ymax) {
        if (y < ymin) y <- ymin 
        if (y > ymax) y <- ymax
        dy <- -dy * runif(1, .9, 1.1)
        sound <- 10
    }
    # Caught by paddle?
    if (x < xmin & (y > ypaddle - (psize / 2)) & y < ypaddle + (psize / 2)) {
        if (x < xmin) x <- xmin
        dx <- -dx * runif(1, .9, 1.1)
        sound <- 2
        score <- score + 1
        }
    # Draw ball
    points(x, y, pch = 15, col = "white", cex = 2)
    if (sound !=0) beep(sound)
    # Move paddle
    if (runif(1, 0, 1) < skill) ypaddle <- ypaddle + dy # Imperfect follow
    # Draw paddle
    # Erase back line
    lines(c(0, 0), c(0, 30), type = "l", lwd = 8, col = "black")
    # Keep paddle inside window
    if (ypaddle < (psize / 2)) ypaddle <- (psize / 2) 
    if (ypaddle > 30 - (psize / 2)) ypaddle <- 30 - (psize / 2) 
    # Draw paddle 
    lines(c(0, 0), c(ypaddle - (psize / 2), ypaddle + (psize / 2)), type = "l", lwd = 8, col = "white") 
} 
beep(8) 
text(15,15, "GAME OVER", cex=5, col = "white") 
s <- ifelse(score == 1, "", "s")
text(15,5, paste0(score, " Point", s), cex=3, col = "white") 

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This post originally appeared on – www.r-bloggers.com/r-cade-games-simulating-the-legendary-game-of-pong
 
This post originally appeared on – blogs.sas.com/content/iml/2017/05/15/intck-intnx-intervals-sas.html
 

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