So I currently have the portal gun set up so that you shoot relative to the 5 key at intervals of 45. But I wanted to get other peoples oppinions and ideas about this, should I keep it at 45?  Should I try to get 22.5 degrees by using multiple keys?  Is there any other ideas you guys can think of?

We were all noobs at one time, whether you want to believe it or not But making mistakes is all part of learning, so share all your hilarious mistakes here!

Ill start

1) I used the product() and sum() commands to access List elements instead of L1(N)
2) I used masses of pixel tests to check a tile type

So after programing on-calc for a while, do you guys notice you can type on it as fast or faster than on a phone or other keyboard?  My friends keep telling me its unnerving how fast i can type on my calculator Wondering how other people compared.  I was able to type this program up in exactly a minute:

ClrHome
1->X
1->Z
1->A
"ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ->Str1

Repeat K=105

Output(Z,X,sub(Str,A,1

Repeat Ans
getKey->K
End

Output(Z,X,"

X+(X!=16)(K=26)-(X!=1)(K=24->X
Z+(Z!=8)(K=34)-(Z!=1)(K=25->Z
A+1-26(A=26->A

End

A seed was planted when SirCmpwn noted that he was writing a physics engine for his new game, and i insticntivly started working on my own.     Well collision was a bitch, and i went through many rewrites and many RAM clears before I even got a version that didnt crash every five seconds.  The trick was to make an engine that supported an undefined amount of polygons, but enough blabbering lets get to the specs:

Supported:
Rigid Body Physics Collisions
Friction between Objects and on Walls
NO Terminal velocity cap, objects can move as fast as they need to
Edge Sliding*
External Force Application

Planned:
Different sized objects
Objects with different masses
Built in subs for accessing different objects

And here are 3 screenshots i made to demonstrate my engine.  Note that the engine itself only handles the collision solver, anything extra like springs or buoyancy is handled by the client program.  Since the engine supports full external force application, you can attach boxes with strings, submerge them, remove gravity, or give them magnetic properties and the collisions solver will compensate.

Screenie 1:  Just a basic Demo with the plain engine.  In the beginning you can see an example of edge sliding, where boxes close to falling off with slide a bit to the right or left.  Its mostly to make box stacking more realistic because without it, boxes would stay still even if it was only partly on top of another box.  I am then applying gravity with the arrow keys to make them fly around the screen.

Screenie 2:  Now demonstrating the dynamic force application.  The code for the spring is not inside the Zedd engine, but the solver still can take in all the resulting forces of the spring and simulate the collisions accurately.  I am applying a force to one of the boxes with the arrow keys.

Screenie 3:  Now demonstrating more of the dynamic global effects you can achieve with Zedd.  I wrote a small bit of client code to handle buoyancy and let the boxes go into this tub of water.  Zedd handles the rest!  I am moving around one of the boxes and trying to stack them on top of eachother to show how well Zedd redistributes forces and transfers momentum.

RELEASE: I am not releasing the engine just yet.  There are still some bugs to hammer out, as well as implementing some screen partitioning to improve speed, because as of now, it runs a bit slow on the 6Mhz processors, and i think i can get some more speed.  I also need to implement a few more features, and write the handy subs to work with objects

GRAVITY:

One of the most basic Physics concepts that you might want to implement in a game is gravity.  Whether it be in a platformer, a pinball game, or something else, gravity is a common need.  So to start off, we need to ask ourselves, what it gravity?  Gravity acts on all objects on earth, and pulls the objects towards the surface, we all know that.  But its not merely as simple as decreasing the players position by 1 each frame, things don't fall that way*, as they fall they get faster and faster.  This phenomenom is known as acceleration and is the concept behind gravity and all accelerating physics.

Acceleration is measured in X Meters per second per second.  That is to say, every second, your velocity will increase by X Meters per second.  Since we live in the game world, it would be more somthing like X pixels per frame per frame.  That is to say, every frame, your velocity will increase by X pixels per frame.  Lets say your position starts at 0 and your velocity starts at -3 and you are in an empty world with 1 P/F/F
acceleration (1 pixels per frame per frame).  This chart shows your position, velocity, and acceleration for a few frames

Frame Position Velocity Acceleration
0 0 -3 1
1 -3 -2 1
2 -5 -1 1
3 -6 0 1
4 -6 1 1
5 -5 2 1
6 -3 3 1
7 0 4 1
8 4 5 1
9 9 6 1
10 15 7 1
The code for this would look something like

0->X
-3->V
1->A

While 1
Output(1,1,X)
X+V->X
V+A->V
End
Notice that even when the velocity is positive, the position can still be negative, and vica versa.  But you can see that the position starts off moving downwards, stops at -6, then starts moving upwards again.  Acceleration stays constant througout the entire simulation.  If you want to get really technical, you can go into how velocity is the derivative of position blah blah blah, but you dont need to know that in a game

HOW TO USE IT:

Implementing acceleration is simple, especialy if your acceleration is constant.  You only need a single variable for your position and one for your velocity.  If you want changing acceleration you could add a variable for that too.

Also note that X velocity is INDEPENDANT of Y velocity.  That is to say, if your character has a velocity in the X direction, and has gravity affecting it, since gravity is only in the Y direction (unless your game is uber cool) the Y acceleration will only affect the Y velocity will only affect the Y position.  Try this example program for size:

ZStandard
ZInteger
AxesOff
Clrdraw
0->X
0->Z
0->A
0->B

While 1
PtOff(X,Z,2
X+A->X
Z+B->Z
PtOn(X,Z,2
getKey->K
A+(K=26)-(K=24)->A
B+(K=25)-(K=34)->B
End
Its a fun example of the power of acceleration, see if you can add gravity to it!  You might have some interesting results.

WHAT TO WATCH OUT FOR:

Acceleration is not always applied, for example when you are standing on a platform, both your velocity and your acceleration are 0.  More on this will be covered in the next section 'Collisions'

Yeah, maybe I should try to make a program in java that allows you to input a desired tile, and then it finds the correct combination, or at least some that are close O.o

Well i made this game in Stats today, I was inspired, what can i say  Well it was a very interesting game to code, took a lot of time to figure out how to make it all work and still conserve speed.  The basic premise of the game is this:  You work a claw in a factory, boxes are brought in from the left and into storage compartments on the right.  Boxes of different types are represented by different number.  Three boxes of the same type become packages and are taken out of the storage compartments.  You can use your claw to move the boxes so that they make packages with others.  You get paid $5 for every box you handle and $100 for every successfull package.  If you jam the machine by overflowing any of the storage containers you are fired and lose the game.



The boxes were hard to code because there can be 2 on the screen at any given time, and in no particular order because you can hold onto a box for as long as you want  They are coded in as hardcoded objects, as in the engine would NOT be expandable.

The game has mutliple speeds, and multiple difficulty modes.  The different difficulties change how many different types of boxes you are sorting Easy-3 and Expert-6.  You have separate highscores for each difficulty modes, but are free to chose any speed for each difficulty mode.

I have not released the program yet, because as of now it is cluttered, in 6 subprograms, and horribly unoptomised, but I should have it out by the end of the night, or later if i'm slow

EDIT: Released version 1!  Should be free of bugs hopefully!
EDIT2: Released version 2! Now has survival mode and multiple bug fixes

So, surprisingly, in addition to the continued work on Serenity, I have found myself unexpectedly working on a new Game!  I actualy stumbled upon the concept/implementation quite by accident, but it sure has grown!  The game is going to be a sequel to my early Java game Castle Storm, which can be found in the Greenfoot Gallery here http://greenfootgallery.org/scenarios/360.  While the original Castle Storm was a RayCaster much in the same style as Doom and Wolfenstein, this new engine is brand new, and frankly, I'm very excited about it!

It uses a combination of Rasterization and RayTracing to get much better looking floor textures, as well as allowing a true UP/DOWN direction in the maps.  Worlds can now have tiles with different height, which allows for things like multiple levels, staircases, and even moving platforms.  The game also utilizes some new Mouse Look code like in a traditional FPS, but unfortunately this only works if you download the game and play it on Greenfoot. (You would need to install greenfoot first, although I will see If i can attatch a JAR file soon).  The game will work in the applet, but you have to use the arrow keys.

The game can be found here:
http://greenfootgallery.org/scenarios/1233

And here is a screenshot for the heck of it:


And I will see about getting that Jar file up...
EDIT: Ok I attached the Jar file, now you can play it without downloading Greenfoot!

Use WASD to move around, C to crouch, and Space to jump.  Mouse is used to Look around.
NOTE: If using the Jar file, you will need to calibrate the mouse in the beginning.  To do this, click in the center of the window, and then drag your mouse to the top left corner of your Computer Screen, not just the window.  Let go of your mouse, and it should snap back to the center of the window.  Press ESC to stop the simulation and free your mouse again, or press the right mouse button.