Bungie Bill

[swpalmer]

It's a work in progress...  sadly I don't think I will have the time to finish it to the degree I wanted.  The sound needs some severe tuning and there are still bugs in the game play.

Use the mouse to throw your bungie-grappel.
When "hooked", click again to "let go".
Use left & right arrow keys to walk and influence your "swing"
Visit platforms with gold treasure to increase your score.
ESCape exits

Play Bungie Bill

[jbanes]

1. The "Play Again?" Dialog doesn't work right. It stays in the middle of your view asking you if you want to play again until you hit "no". If I were to venture a guess, I'd say you're forgetting to recenter the player.

2. The player "floats" in midair whenever he fires his grapple.

Q: Are you using MIDI or Procedural Sound for this? It sounds very neat.

[swpalmer]

1.  a recent bug.. it's been a while since I've had the patience to let it go that far

2.  A known issue...  but it helps to avoid another bug, where you immediately land on the platform you were on to begin with and so the grappel goes away.   It's that other bug that I really need to fix.

A: procedural... it's a bit random now.  I'm trying to get something that sounds sort of like an elastic band twang.

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[jbanes]

A: procedural... it's a bit random now.  I'm trying to get something that sounds sort of like an elastic band twang.

That's very cool. I don't suppose you'd mind sharing the precise method you're using?

[Malohkan]

The sound is cool, but I couldn't grapple anything to save my life.  I re-read the forum posts in hopes that I was just missing something important, but I can't get it to work.  I played for about 3 minutes doing nothing but trying to grapple and couldn't do it   is it bugged?

[f.l.x]

Awesome phisics for the rope, very... elastic i love it

when you shoot out of the screen, to the left or right, the rope carryes you away

great game, really impressive

[kappa]

great idea, and i have to agree with f.I.x great physics with the rope, however i've had some issues with getting the rope to work sometimes no rope comes out but the sound plays and sometimes a rope comes out a bit and stop not reaching mouse. but other than that very nice idea and sound is brilliant.

[asc]

Good idea, and the elastic rope is very nicely done.

I had the same problem of not being able to throw the grapple until I tried falling off a platform before throwing it. But then I discovered another bug - you don't need to hit anything to gain height. You stop falling when you throw it, and then it pulls you up even if it doesn't hit anything.

[Malohkan]

Ooooo now that I've tried hopping off before a throw I can grapple!  I don't know if that was your intention but it works   Neat game!  I lost this last game after waiting too long after a bad angled throw.  I swung up, then swung down and let go, launching myself off the bottom of the screen   Whoops!  Very cool game.

[f.l.x]

if you can spare a couple of bytes, could you make the grapel to loose on mouse released instead on clicking? it seems somehow more instintive

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[swpalmer]

Thanks for the feedback!

The problem with throwing the grappel while standing on the platform is the first major bug I need to fix.  You will notice that I fixed the "play again" issue, and while I was at it I tweaked things a bit so Bill will fall a bit more while throwing the grappel.. that just made the issue I mentioned above worse though.  When you collide with the platform you are originally standing on the grappel goes away.

Ah.. there.. just did  a few more tweaks and I think I have that fixed...

Try again!

It is NOT a bug that the grappel can pull you up even when it doesn't "hook"... the momentum of the grappel hook can pull you. (it's really heavy )

I will share the code for the sound at the end of the contest.  It's just a little frequency modulation.

[asc]

The bug is indeed fixed. No problems with grappling from platforms. It plays well. 

It is NOT a bug that the grappel can pull you up even when it doesn't "hook"... the momentum of the grappel hook can pull you. (it's really heavy )

Ah, but in that case, you should be propelled violently backwards when you throw it in midair.

[swpalmer]

Shhhhhh! 

[Vorax]

I love this!!  I am laughing my ass off here!   I love when you miss and get hauled off by your grapple!  It's hillarious!  I can't see what I am typing i have been laughing so hard tears are comming from my eyes!

It's alot of fun, pretty hard though. This gets my vote for fun factor alone

[DonaldEKnuth]

The most innovative game this year, i'm impressed!

[arne]

How much points do you guys get?
I stopped above 2000 points.
It gets a bit boring on the long run. Ok the speed increases, but maybe it could increase faster...
Another thing: does the speed increase with the points you make or with the time you play it?

[swpalmer]

Speed increases with time.

And I agree, it does get boring.  The gameplay isn't quite where I want it.  I.e. when you fire your bungie while in mid-air I wanted you to keep moving along your original trajectory, but (I think) the way the momentum is working as the new bungie un-reels it is stopping the player, making it too easy.

[Markus_Persson]

I don't know if this has been mentioned yet, but the rope is way, WAY too springy. It doesn't really feel like a rope at all.. more like a series of lead weights connected by insane-o-springs.

But I like the graphics. Small, cute and clear.

[swpalmer]

The "rope" IS an insane-o-spring bungie grappel   Actually the spring constant and ideal length of the springs is changed to make the bungie pull harder once the grappel attaches to a platform.  The idea being to fling Bill towards the platform.

It could use some fine tuning, I'm sure.

[Markus_Persson]

Instead of swinging around, you get whipped around.

Ah well.

[swpalmer]

Something that looks like "real" swinging is much harder to code.  Because the "rope" is approximated as a sequence of linked springs, I found it too difficult to get natural swinging motion AND have something anywhere near stable.

I could play around with the numbers and improve things I'm sure, but it takes more time than I can spare to get it "right".  Heck I don't even have a decent screen shot or web page

[Markus_Persson]

If the rope springs can only compress, but not expand, you might get closer to rope physics. (If that's the goal)

[swpalmer]

If the rope springs can only compress, but not expand, you might get closer to rope physics. (If that's the goal)

It's putting in any sort of "hard" constraint that creates the problem.  It then becomes a massive inverse kinematics problem, which I would love to know how to do, but I don't   (And I've looked for the info with Google.. but didn't find anything that spoke to my level.  It's been over ten years since I was doing any sort of advanced math in university.)

[jojoh]

...
 (And I've looked for the info with Google.. but didn't find anything that spoke to my level.  It's been over ten years since I was doing any sort of advanced math in university.)

It's funny how all the time, money and effort spent at university never really gets used until a Java 4K compo       I recognize it all too well... 

Great game, but I also think that the speed could be a bit faster/increase faster. There is a danger you get bored before it gets challenging... I think insane-o-spring bungie grappel is what it should be rather than rope, even though it might be a bit on the over insano side, but that's better than too little insan-o