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Brick Breaker — VisualScript

A 3D Brick Breaker with the same table, controls and rules as the C++, C# and AngelScript versions, scripted the way a VisualScript project is scripted in practice: four small graphs, each on the object it controls, talking through messages. The scene, render pipeline and GameUI are authored assets. No gameplay C++ build, managed runtime or physics package is required.

Open in the editor

Requires Windows and Plasma Engine 0.12.0.

Get the project from the Plasma Launcher's Samples page (BrickBreaker, Visual Script), or clone this repository and use Add Existing Project. The first time the editor opens it, it offers to install the packages listed in Editor/Packages.ddl (VisualScript 1.3.2, GameUI 1.4.1 and Particles 1.9.1). Accept, and they are installed into the project's Plugins folder. Then open Scenes/Main.plScene and play.

A/D or arrows move, Space or left click launches, P pauses, R restarts. Escape closes the standalone Player (that is the engine's close key), so it is not a pause key here.

Build and play without the editor

.\Build.ps1 -Run

Or double-click Play.cmd. The script compiles the graphs, transforms the assets, and launches the engine's Player.exe. It uses the engine the launcher assigned to this project and the packages the editor installed. Pass -SdkRoot 'C:\path\to\engine' to use another engine, or -GameUiRoot and -ScriptPackageRoot to use built package folders.

The scripts

Script Lives on Does Nodes
Scripts/Paddle Paddle Reads Left/Right from its own input component and slides along the table, clamped to the rails. 24
Scripts/Ball Ball Sits on the paddle until Space, then flies: bounces off the rails, the back wall and the paddle's top face (the hit offset sets the angle), drains below the table. 121
Scripts/Brick Brick 1 … Brick 24 (one class, 24 instances) Checks every frame whether the ball overlaps it, tells the ball which face it came through, counts hits and hides its mesh when spent. 73
Scripts/GameManager Brick Breaker (root) Lives, score, round state, Restart and Pause keys, and the HUD blackboard. 127

The scripts never read each other's variables. They talk through plMsgGenericEvent messages:

From To Message Meaning
Brick Ball PushLeft, PushRight, PushUp, PushDown Leave the brick through this face. The ball only turns around if it is still heading into the brick, so two bricks hit in the same frame cannot cancel each other out.
Brick GameManager BrickDestroyed Score and remaining count.
Ball GameManager BallLaunched, BallLost Round state and lives.
GameManager every child (recursive) Reset, Pause, Resume Fresh table, freeze, unfreeze. Win and loss freeze the table with Pause; R sends Reset.

Public script variables show up on the script component in the editor: Speed on the paddle, InitialSpeed, MaximumSpeed and SpeedUpPerBrick on the ball, Hits on each brick (set it to 2 for a tougher brick), and StartingLives, BrickCount and PointsPerBrick on the manager.

Objects are looked up where they are used (GetParent, FindChildByName, FindComponentByTypeName) rather than cached in variables at start: the start event can run before neighbouring objects are ready, and the lookups are cheap.

Edit the project

Open any script in the node editor. Execution runs left to right along a lane, the values a node needs sit below and to the left of it, and a branch or event case that leaves the lane continues on a new lane underneath. Every graph has three entry points: OnSimulationStarted, Update and the OnMsgGenericEvent handler with a string switch on the message name.

Edit Scenes/Main.plScene for the camera, lights and table; UI/BrickBreakerHUD.plUiDocumentAsset for the HUD; and RenderPipelines/BrickBreaker.plRenderPipelineAsset for rendering. Keep object names and the table layout aligned when changing the scene: the ball and the bricks use the same measurements as the other language versions.

Things to know

  • Do not add comment boxes to these graphs yet: the VisualScript transform currently fails on a document that contains one.
  • An expression node needs at least one input; a constant-only expression fails to compile (its output type is never resolved).