ds1935’s blog

In addition to coding like a madman, I flew over an ocean and saw some trees.

Callois describes his 4 categories of play in the shape below, although i don’t see it diagrammed as such. Categories on the diagonal axis are incompatible, categories on the same side of the vertical axis are related to each other in one rough fashion, and categories on the same side of the horizontal axis are related to each other in another rough fashion. I’m playing with labeling the axes.

I wish the ‘deliverables’ of thesis class were more creatively structured. I’d love to give a presentation on what’s broken about my ideas, or about three radically different ways to think about what I am thinking about. I am tired of presenting my broken unfinished ideas in a presentation format that lends itself to making unfinished thoughts look like they’re trying to be certainties.

In other news, here are some graphs of what I am thinking about:

here’s code for a 2-player* version of the pinball, which I hope to hook up to foot pads today.

q and p control the top flippers, and z and m control the bottom flippers.

http://itp.nyu.edu/~ds1935/thesis/twoplayer 

*of course, with the keys i am using, it’s not playable on-screen as a 2 player game…

mike learning to use a footpad to control pinball flippers:

http://itp.nyu.edu/~ds1935/thesis/pinballmike.mov

screen shot of me trying a couple of pinball ‘moves’

http://itp.nyu.edu/~ds1935/thesis/pinballscreen.mov

(once you have the applet in focus) any key flips the flippers.

clicking in the screen brings the mouse to that location.

http://itp.nyu.edu/~ds1935/thesis/flipbump/

The code is cludgey and it’s still full of bugs, but it is something to work with. Clicking the mouse makes both flippers move up, but the flippers don’t affect the balls properly.

http://itp.nyu.edu/~ds1935/thesis/simplestpinballphysics/

ETA: For this one, the ‘flipper’ is *much* better, although it is currently one-sided, and i’m avoiding edge problems by making the edge of the flippper be off the screen. For this, hold down a key to make the flipper move up. Clicking in the screen makes the ball move to the mouse.

http://itp.nyu.edu/~ds1935/thesis/flipper/ 

Ideally, the ball should always be above the flipper; nonetheless, there are still times when it ends up getting skipped over and ends up below the flipper. I don’t know why, and the code is full of too many bits and bobs right now. This one also shows the flaws of the bumpers, but it should be easy to fix them now. Next step: clean up, make things work together.

A first pass at making some components for a pinball game–balls and bumpers. click in the screen to add more balls.

http://itp.nyu.edu/~ds1935/thesis/bumpers/