Lesson 5: Let's Add Some Art
It bugs me that the ground just ends. Real quick, I'll ask to extend the ground to prevent that.
Jippity suggests a new drawGround() function that draws a rectangle 20 times wider than before. Piece of cake — looks better already.
Now feels like a good time to take a break from the cold, hard code and make our "bird" look like an actual creature. I have a few options:
- I can pick an image from Jippity's Asset Library.
- I can upload my own image to use in the program — I could even use another AI tool to generate one!
- I can draw my own sprite with Jippity's pixel art tool.
Let's draw. It'll be fun.
A masterpiece, to be sure.
But now I need some help again. How do I use code to get my image into my game and display the right way, in the right place?
Jippity preempts me here: it knows that I'm not drawing a bird for no reason.
The AI, without prompting, suggests a line of code to load the new image. I follow up by asking to replace the yellow square with the new birdSprite.
It ends up being an easy change. I pop in Jippity's suggestion and then I choose to scale up the bird by adjusting, by hand, its size value, and in no time at all, my cute little bird is soaring across the screen.
It's time to make the game more fun — I want the gliding the feel really good, so in the next part I will take off my artist hat and don my game designer hat. The AI will help make sure my code is sound, but I will have to experiment and tweak some numbers to get the game feel just right.
