Winoid - Arkanoid with Windows UI (FrooxArchive #9)

Hello everyone!

I hope everyone’s week has been going well so far. I’ve been unexpectedly busy with some things, so today’s FrooxArchive entry is something simpler, but hopefully interesting - a simple game of arkanoid/breakout that uses the Windows UI for its visuals, with (nearly) original C++ sources included!

https://github.com/Frooxius/WinNoid

I made this project around 2010, when I was still in high school. I went to a vocational school (it’s a bit like a high school that focuses on a particular occupation) with focus on electrotechnics and programming. During the 3rd and 4th year, we had programming classes every week, with a practical lesson in the computer lab.

Since I already knew how to code by this point, usually finishing the assigned task only took me a few minutes of the lesson, leaving me with plenty of time to do whatever I wanted on the computer. Since the computer had the development tools installed, I just ended up messing around, creating silly things.

Since there wasn’t much beyond Visual Studio though (and no internet from what I can remember) the options were a little bit limited. However sometimes limitations like that are fun to work with, since you end up trying some creative things.

This game is the result of one of these limitations - using the Windows Forms API for game graphics! Buttons for the breakout blocks, progress bar for the paddle, radio for the ball, slider cursor for a powerup. Oh and the sound effects are default Windows notification sounds (which is totally not annoying at all)!

All the game logic is written in pretty plain C++ and is relatively simple. It has 3 levels, although the third one is just a random messy test. If you’d like to poke around the code, feel free to check out the GitHub repo. I’ve updated the code a little bit to work with higher DPI displays, but otherwise it’s about the same.

Back then, I was actually wanting to take this concept a bit further and create a series of “Windows UI” games, just to see how far it could be taken for this. For example creating a Tetris game out of checkboxes or a platforming game composed from a number of small windows on the screen, with each window serving as a platform, but I never ended up doing those.

Anyway, that’s it for this week! Sorry that it’s a bit smaller one this time, but hopefully still a fun one. And as always, let me know if you have any questions! I’ll see you next week!