Okay, so “a noel tennis,” huh? Sounds… interesting. I gotta admit, I had absolutely no clue what that even meant when I first saw it. So, naturally, the first thing I did was hit up the search engine. Turns out, it’s some kind of Christmas-themed tennis game. Who knew?
I figured, why not give it a shot? I mean, I like tennis (watching it, mostly), and Christmas is alright. So I started digging around to see if I could actually make something like this. I’m no game developer, but I’ve dabbled in some basic coding before.
First, I needed to pick a tool. Something simple, something I could wrap my head around. I remembered messing with a drag-and-drop game maker a while back – perfect! Let’s call it “GameMakerThingy.” It’s got a bunch of pre-built stuff, so I wouldn’t have to code everything from scratch.
Then came the assets. You know, the pictures and sounds. I’m terrible at drawing, so I just grabbed some free Christmas-y images online. Snowflakes, Santa hats, a tennis ball with reindeer antlers – you get the idea. For sounds, I found some jingle bells and a “boing” effect that seemed good enough.
Next, I started building the game itself. It was pretty basic:
- I made a snowy court using a big white rectangle.
- Then I created two paddles – one for the player, one for the computer. I made them red and green, because, Christmas.
- The tennis ball was that reindeer-antler one I found.
- I set up some simple rules: move the paddle up and down, hit the ball, don’t let it get past you.
The coding part was surprisingly easy. “GameMakerThingy” had these little blocks you could connect to make things happen. Like, “If ‘up arrow’ key is pressed, move player paddle up.” That kind of stuff. I spent a good hour just making the paddles move smoothly.
The AI for the computer player was… well, let’s just say it wasn’t very smart. I just made it follow the ball up and down. It was easy to beat, but hey, it’s a Christmas game, it’s supposed to be fun, not frustrating!
I added some scoring, too. Every time the ball got past a paddle, the other player got a point. I made it so a little “Ho ho ho!” sound played when you scored. Festive, right?
The End Result
After a few hours of tinkering, I had something that… kinda resembled a tennis game. It was rough around the edges, definitely not something you’d see in a store, but it worked! You could move your paddle, hit the ball, and even score points. It truly was “a noel tennis.”
It was a fun little project, and it reminded me that even simple things can be enjoyable to create. Maybe next time I’ll try adding some power-ups. A Santa that throws snowballs at your opponent? A reindeer that kicks the ball extra hard? The possibilities are endless!
