Alright, buckle up, folks! Let me tell you about this “gem jewels 2023” thing I’ve been messing around with. It’s been a journey, lemme tell ya.
So, it all started when I stumbled upon this idea – basically, I wanted to create a little interactive thingy where you could drag and drop “gems” onto a “jewel” to create your own custom designs. Sounded simple enough, right? Wrong! Haha!
First, I spent a good chunk of time just gathering assets. I mean, you need some shiny gems, right? So, I went digging around for some free-to-use images, and then spent even more time cleaning them up in my image editor. Resizing, tweaking colors, making sure they looked all sparkly and nice. That alone took a few evenings.
Then came the fun part – or so I thought! I started coding. I decided to use [hypothetical framework/engine] ’cause it’s what I’m most comfortable with. I set up the basic scene, got the gems loading in, and then…the dragging and dropping. Oh boy.
Let me tell you, making something draggable isn’t too hard, but making it feel good is a whole other story. I had to mess with the offsets, the z-ordering (so the gems would appear on top when dragged), and the collision detection to make sure they actually landed on the jewel properly. There was a lot of trial and error, and a lot of cursing at my monitor, I won’t lie.
The trickiest part was the “snapping” effect. I wanted the gems to kind of “snap” into place on the jewel when you dropped them. So, I had to figure out how to calculate the nearest available slot on the jewel and then smoothly animate the gem into that position. That involved some basic math – distance calculations, angle stuff – which isn’t my strong suit, but I managed to pull through (thanks, Stack Overflow!).
After I got the core functionality working, I started adding some bells and whistles. I added a little “undo” button so you could remove gems, a “reset” button to clear the whole jewel, and even a “save” button so you could save your creations as images. Pretty neat, huh?
- Asset Gathering & Preparation
- Setting up base
- Drag and Drop
- Snapping Effect
- Add ons
Of course, it wasn’t all smooth sailing. I ran into a bunch of bugs along the way. Gems disappearing, the snapping getting messed up, the save button not working properly. But that’s all part of the process, right? I just kept debugging, kept tweaking, and eventually, I got everything working the way I wanted it to.
Lessons Learned
Biggest takeaway? Always plan things out a little more before you start coding. I jumped right in, which led to a lot of unnecessary backtracking and refactoring. Also, don’t be afraid to ask for help! There are tons of resources online, and people are usually happy to share their knowledge.
All in all, “gem jewels 2023” was a fun little project. I learned a lot, I got to play around with some cool technologies, and I ended up with something that I’m actually pretty proud of. And who knows, maybe I’ll even turn it into a real game someday!
So, that’s my story. Hope you found it interesting, and maybe even a little bit inspiring. Now go out there and create something awesome!
