Coffee & Code: Building Mario Power-Ups and Debugging Hitboxes in Flutter

Back on the Super Mario Bros. game to add some new, much needed features.

This time around, I am focused on giving Mario the ability to power up. If you are not familiar with the game, once the super hero digests a magic mushroom, he either become Super Mario, or Fire Mario, with greater power potential.

I’m running into bit of a problem with the transformation however.

Currently, the boundary box, or hitbox that surrounds Mario isn’t representative of his actual dimensions.

/// Current power types for Mario.
enum MarioType {
  mario,
  superMario,
}

This means the hitbox can’t properly detect Mario’s collisions with the ground when he’s of a greater size.

/// Update form type and size of Mario.
void _transform({required bool upgrade}) {
  if (upgrade) {
    switch (_marioType) {
      case MarioType.mario:
        size = Vector2 (Globals.tileSize, Globals.tileSize * 2);
        _marioType = MarioType.superMario;
        break;
      case MarioType.superMario:
        // TODO: Transform to fiery mario.
        break;
    }
  } else {
    switch (_marioType) {
      case MarioType.mario:
        // TODO: Die.
        break;
      case MarioType.superMario:
        size = Vector2(Globals.tileSize, Globals.tileSize);
        _marioType = MarioType.mario;
        break;
    }
  }
}

Some serious research is required…