March 29th, 9:00 AM. Chris's bedroom, once a sanctuary of sleep, was now the command center for Project Nebula. Pizza boxes from the previous night served as a testament to their dedication (and questionable dietary choices).
"Alright," Chris said, brandishing a marker and a whiteboard (salvaged from his younger sister's room). "Where do we go from here? The Wobbling Wonder is just the prologue."
Max, already wired on caffeine, paced the room. "More features! Definitely more features. Enemies, shooting, maybe some power-ups."
Tyrone, sketching in his notebook, chimed in. "And a real background. Not just a black void. Think scrolling space, nebulae, the works."
The whiteboard began to fill with a chaotic spiderweb of ideas.
"Okay, okay," Chris said, trying to impose some order. "Let's break it down. Milestones. Realistic milestones."
After an hour of heated debate, fueled by leftover pizza and boundless enthusiasm, they had a plan. A new 7-day sprint, pushing them beyond the basics.
Project Nebula - Sprint 2: Space Odyssey (March 29th - April 4th, 2025)
March 29th (Today): Scrolling Background & Parallax.
Create a seamless, looping background.
Implement parallax scrolling for depth.
March 30th: Basic Enemy AI.
Simple enemy movement patterns.
Collision detection with the player.
March 31st: Shooting Mechanics.
Projectiles (bullets, lasers).
Firing on player input.
April 1st: Enemy Spawning.
Create enemies at intervals.
Manage enemy count.
April 2nd: Basic Scoring System.
Points for defeating enemies.
Display the score on the UI.
April 3rd: Sound Effects & Music.
Add Background Music.
Add various sfx.
April 4th: Mini-Project 2: Shoot 'Em Up!
Combine all elements into a playable level.
"Ambitious," Chris said, surveying the whiteboard. "But doable."
Max smirked. "Bring on the parallax!"
Tyrone was already sketching background concepts. "Nebulae...here I come."
They dove in. Today's goal: scrolling backgrounds. Chris tackled the CanvasLayer node, learning how to create layers that moved at different speeds.
Max researched parallax scrolling, a technique to create the illusion of depth by moving background layers at different rates relative to the camera. He found some helpful tutorials and started experimenting.
Tyrone created a series of large, seamless space backgrounds, filled with swirling colors and distant stars. He learned how to tile textures, making them repeat seamlessly.
The process wasn't smooth. There were moments of utter confusion ("Why is my background moving sideways?"), accidental discoveries ("Whoa, that looks cool!"), and the occasional frustrated groan.
By 9:00 PM, they had a scrolling background. It wasn't perfect – the parallax effect was a bit wonky – but it was a vast improvement over the black void.
"It feels...bigger," Tyrone said, admiring their work. He master the basic of creating parallax.
Max nodded, already tweaking the scrolling speeds. "Almost like a real game environment." He got how parallax work and how to implement it in a code.
Chris stretched, feeling the familiar ache of a long day's work. "One step closer to a space odyssey." He noted that he get how canvaslayer work in Godot.
They were tired, but the momentum was undeniable. They were no longer just moving a sprite; they were building a world. And even if that world still had a slight wobble, it was getting more impressive every day.