Day 3: Bit of Refactoring

2026-03-16

Continuing from yesterday, I made some small refactors of the existing code, and started working on understanding how to build an arena.

Development: Arena

The arena will be the setting for the game. The player will run around, gathering resources, and then uses those resources to cast spells and counter their opponent's spells. It should feel spacious, with opportunities to create space when the player is low on health or otherwise threatened. I envision large stones as the boundary walls, and I further envision a crowd on benches around the edges, watching the event. Within the arena, I currently plan for "trees", which for the player will just be brown pillars. However, all of this requires understanding and building a comprehensive collision-detection function. It should, obviously, restrict movement outside the arena, but it should also account for the pillars/trees.

Beyond collision, I also need to move the world around the player, not just the player. I've seen a technique for doing this: the player has a "personal bubble" of space, which moves with them. When that bubble hits an edge, it stops and the screen stops moving, but the player can move completely to the edge. I've heard it called a "bounding box", but I think that's a generic term for "space around thing which establishes boundaries."