Algodoo

Overall, it's a pretty good scene, but I have a couple of suggestions to improve it.

1. It's always a good idea to show the instructions in the scene because most people cannot memorize what keys do what, especially if more than a couple. You can do that by making a text box that's glued to the background.

2. Many Algodoo users have only a laptop computer which typically do not have a number pad. So it's best not to use the num pad keys to control anything in the scene.

3. For moving left and right, it's traditional to use either the A & D keys (old school) or the Left & Right arrow keys (better choice). Up & Down arrow keys for up and down movement (or W & S keys IF you use A & D for left and right).

Other than that, you did a great job on the scene!

The front wheel rotates in the wrong direction. Also, A and D do not move the shovel because the brake is locked. You should mention that the brake locks/unlocks with the Z key.

Suggestion: Put travel limits on all of the movements because they allow the shovel to go too far when held. The Q key is a good example of this. Hold it down and the shovel becomes detached from the machine!

By the way, when you make just a few minor changes to a scene, you should use "Edit" instead of uploading a new scene. If you make a significant number of changes which affects the overall functions of the scene, then it's Okay to create a new scene and give it a different title or add "ver x.x" to the title like you did. If you see no need to keep the older version posted on Algobox, then please delete it. That will help to save space on the Algobox server.

Thanks!

Calm down. There's no need for this.

Okay, no problem.

Why did you upload a blank scene? And why did you give it a gibberish title (8uu8y ytwue)? And why did you make a gibberish comment (jhdhg,khjkgjhlgk.hkhl.lkbgññ)? If you are bored and have nothing better to do, then please go somewhere else and waste their server space instead of this one. If you decide that you can make a good scene with a title and description that other users can read and understand, then you are welcome to stick around.

Thanks,
Xray (Admin)

What are you testing?

Good job!

What do you mean "Finish this"? Is this a game? If so, you should give instructions how to play it. Thanks

You can do the same thing but much easier by using Thyme script (and you wouldn't have to swap cars behind the magic curtains!).

Are we supposed to try to figure out which dot is controlled by the arrow keys?

That middle set of gears is quite noisy, which is what happens when you try to mesh a gear that has round teeth with a gear that has square teeth.

Good demo.

Wow! This guy is FAST!

Very interesting game. I like your finger "joy stick". I've never seen anything like that before on Algobox. If you can devise some sort of scoring system, and game levels, this could become a very good and challenging game!

My best game so far is 370 points.


I found a glitch already. If you grab 2 or more items (one time I grabbed 2 chicks and an iPhone!) you get only the score of the first item that drops out the chute. I may just leave it that way.

MrGlinzz - Thanks for bringing that to my attention. I know what causes it, but by "fixing" it, another problem occurs. I'll have to think about this long and hard!

Thanks again!

EDIT: Issue fixed. Now if you pause the game, it's GAME OVER!

Game is challenging and fun! Nicely done!

Oh, by the way, I found that I could make the scene lag less and move a little faster by reducing the sim frequency from 100 to 60. That change doesn't seem to negatively affect the game play. So, unless you know of a problem that this would cause, it would be a good idea for you to reduce the sim frequency next time you make any edits to this scene.

Nice game! The only problem I found was the bridge that you made with a long spring and a number of boxes explodes when the white ball tries to cross it (maybe you wanted it to do that?). Except for that minor detail, you did a good job on it!

This doesn't seem to work. I tried the control key and mouse button as you specified, but nothing happens.

Wait for what? This has already been done MANY times before. The most recent one is HERE

Very nice effect! It would be a good idea to use "false" water in a scene that would otherwise lag badly with real Algodoo water. Maybe you could do a tutorial on how to make this false water?

It doesn't work. I think you forgot to enable the motor function in the axles.

Yeah, that's one of those "gotcha's" that I occasionally forget to do. That's why I always test my scenes by downloading them from Algobox instead of only testing them on my computer. I often catch problems that way.

Oh, by the way, the thing that was confusing at first was the scene starts out zoomed in very close to the drone, and so you cannot see the blue circle targets, and you don't even know that they are there, until you zoom way out. So, maybe it would help to put a note in the scene to zoom out before starting (or something like that).

Here's a tip for ya..... In all my scenes that use a timer script, I initialize the local variable to either zero or to sim.time while the scene is not running. You can do that in the "update" script window of any geometry that has one. It just so happens that "update" script runs all the time, even when the scene is not running. A couple of sample scripts to initialize a timer local variable are:

sim.running ? {}:{_timer = sim.time}

OR,

sim.running ? {}:{_timer = 0.0}

In YOUR case, the local variable would be _timeMarker.

Nothing happens. Are we supposed to press any keys to make it run?

He's had way too much caffeine.

HUH?

MrGlinzz - I tried that in a couple of scenes and people complained about it. So, unless absolutely essential (such as in my KEYBOARD DECODER V2 scene), I do not use that technique.

lucnan - There are already lots of "scene.my" tutorials in the forum. Search and you will find!

SCENE.MY.VARIABLE DEMONSTRATION]

Nice tutorial.
One question. In the last set of gears (on the right) the large gear has teeth that are shaped like a parachute, and the mating smaller gear's teeth are circular. Does the parachute shape have any functional value, such as to improve efficiency, or is it purely for cosmetic appeal?

I don't think it's actually "balancing". It's just jumping up and down. If I slow down the motor to zero, it just stands in one spot (not unstable at all)!