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Project Overview

The Ball Game project is a Java-focused application built to simulate physics mechanics inside a custom 640x480 pixel window wrapper. The application renders a large 200-pixel radius blue ball moving across a vibrant cyan display container box. A white real-time debug overlay is drawn directly onto the viewport window canvas using a Courier New monospaced font string tracking configuration to display current coordinate pairs and velocity data.

Technical Architecture & Multi-Threading

The framework leverages core Java standard libraries to separate graphics management from computational coordinate tasks. By creating an isolated runtime thread, the system ensures real-time processing remains smooth and uninhibited:

// Start the ball bouncing (in its own thread)
Thread gameThread = new Thread() {
    public void run() {
        while (true) {
            // Calculate the ball's new position
            ballX += ballSpeedX;
            ballY += ballSpeedY;
            
            // Boundary checks and position updates happen here...
            
            // Refresh the display
            repaint(); // Callback paintComponent()
            
            try {
                Thread.sleep(1000 / UPDATE_RATE); // milliseconds
            } catch (InterruptedException ex) { }
        }
    }
};
gameThread.start();

Physics Engine & Loop Control

The structural movement math relies on strict bounding box evaluations executed inside a timed loop interval. When boundary edges are breached, vectors are flipped cleanly to produce a bounce response:

// Check if the ball moves over the bounds. If so, adjust the position and speed.
if (ballX - ballRadius < 0) {
    ballSpeedX = -ballSpeedX; // Reflect along normal
    ballX = ballRadius;       // Re-position the ball at the edge
} else if (ballX + ballRadius > BOX_WIDTH) {
    ballSpeedX = -ballSpeedX;
    ballX = BOX_WIDTH - ballRadius;
}

// May cross both x and y bounds simultaneously
if (ballY - ballRadius < 0) {
    ballSpeedY = -ballSpeedY;
    ballY = ballRadius;
} else if (ballY + ballRadius > BOX_HEIGHT) {
    ballSpeedY = -ballSpeedY;
    ballY = BOX_HEIGHT - ballRadius;
}