My first ever project was across the country on the east side of Canada, working in a new studio set up doing EA Sports games. We had taken over the previous NBA Wii game which did not use the Wii’s pointer. Let me say that again, the previous game for the Wii, did not use the POINTER ON THE WII.

Ok, so I wrote C++ to pull the numbers, and then some smoothing code to keep it from jumping all over the place. Also rotation to allow the cursor to rotate, just for kicks.

The fun part was rewriting the UI and then using the backboard concept, I wrote up a little minigame as you click through the menus. Depending on where you click, the ball shoots and goes into the hoop or bounces off the rim, or whatever. It was the senior engine guy’s idea but I wrote it up using actual physics properties in projectile motion, accelerations and modelling the front side back rims, backboards. It was quite elaborate! Ha.

Here’s a video of two people clicking through quickly, you may not notice it really, but the whole arc is dynamic.

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