Armadillo Run - Great physics game - now with POLL!

[Rankenphile]

http://www.armadillorun.com/demo/

This is not optional, kids.

Go download this demo, play with it and report back here by 2200 hours.

That's an order.

[Airbozo]

great, now I'm not going to get anything done tomorrow at work!

[maximan1]

Great now what? ARMADILLOS!!! WHATS UP WIT THAT!!! I mean...what has the world gotten to these days... :D I'll try tomorrow

[Slug Toy]

hooray, i suck at applied physics.

it took me 20 tries just to figure out the first level. i kept blowing up the links and things kept smashing and tearing apart. i did manage to not use all the money though... thats a good thing.

[d_stilgar]

I'm the winner. I may just end up buying this one. Can anyone beat my scores?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v333/d_stilgar/Highscores-1.jpg

[maximan1]

Grah This Is Crazy

[Rankenphile]

I recommend buying it, actually. It is only $20, and well worth it if you enjoy these kinsd of puzzles. I bought it last night and my fiance and I spent a lot of time building some great solutions. Plus it allows free-building and creation of custom puzzles.

If there is enough interest in this, maybe I'll set up a competition/puzzle sharing thread here. What do you guys think?

[OvRiDe]

Thanks Rank... you've kept me up all night AND cost me 20 bucks..

[Rankenphile]

That's what I'm here for!

:D

[d_stilgar]

OOOOooo! It's killing me. Can anybody beat my scores in the demo?

[FyR]

Quality find! Sendig this link to my dad and buying the full version :)

[Redbeard]

Rank, you definately found a great game. I'm impressed by the simple concept, and addicting nature.

[Slug Toy]

im getting better at it now... coming up with some impossible ideas.

as luck would have it, i just got accepted for a student visa card.... so i believe this will be on my list of purchases now.

[Rankenphile]

Ugh... I am SO stuck on Scoop.

If anyone can find a way to do it within the budget, let me know.

[FyR]

Im stuck on that too rank lol You should start a competition on some of the craziest ones.

[Rankenphile]

So, I'm adding a poll here. If there is enough interest, we'll get a little contest going.

[d_stilgar]

I say Demo only since that will be able to include everyone. I'm soon gonna buy it though. $20 seems a bit much, but it is pretty darn fun. Maybe do two comps, one for demo and one for full.

[Rankenphile]

The problem with Demo Only is that you cannot save your results or share custom levels.

I'll keep that in mind, though.

[AKA_RA]

So I look at this thread and think to myself, "theres no harm in seeing what the fuss is all about. I like physics. In fact, they're the only laws I dont break on a semi-daily basis." *shifty-eyes* HA, no harm indeed. It sure seems like a broke a law, considering I ended up paying money and spending time in a confined space thinking about the same thing over and over again. At least it was volentary this time. That and I didn't have to worry about getting shanked in the ribs with a sharpened tooth brush.

[Slug Toy]

why not have a competition for both the demo and the full thing? if you cant save scores, just take a screenshot.

interestingly, my demo saves things for me... every time i start it up the game reverts to its last setting.

[Rankenphile]

Hmmm... I'll look at that, Slug Toy. thanks for noticing it.

Okay, looks like we've got some interest going... I'll get a contest set up tonight or tomorrow night. Most likely it will require emailing or posting save files, which are only a couple of KB each, for proof of solution.

I'll let you guys know how it will work out in a little bit. Glad to see so much enthusiasm.

[FyR]

It would be cool to have a scoreboard and a section for the most ingenious ways of solving a puzzle - just for fun :)

EDIT: Rank, just finished scoop ;)

[Rankenphile]

Yeah, I got it, too. Hehe.

I had a blast with Motor, it took me forever to get one.

I'm stuck on Over and Under right now.

[Rankenphile]

Oh man, check these out. Some great examples of engineering.

Homeward Bound (http://armadillorun.com/levels/data/Homeward%20Bound.lvl)

Force Clockwork (http://armadillorun.com/levels/data/Force%20Clockwork.lvl)

Eternal Motion Machine (http://armadillorun.com/levels/data/Eternal.lvl)

[AKA_RA]

wow, those are pretty good. this has got to be one of the more interesting puzzle games ive ever played. ive gotten to void 15(lvl 45) between my last post and now. im almost sad that ive nearly beaten all the levels it came with. but im very greatful that there is the option to make your own levels and download ones that others have made

[FyR]

Yea motor was a good one, i think there are a number of ways you could of done it. Heres my solution:

http://www.yourfilehost.com/media.php?cat=other&file=Level_25___Motor.motor.lvl

Let me konw how you done yours. :)

Paul

[AKA_RA]

whats with being able to make things like "motors" using only metal rods and sheet metal. i dont know why it works, but "Force Clockwork" is a perfect example of what im talking about.

[FyR]

Just finished Void 15, what a nightmare that was. Think i was trying to over-engineer it. 5 levels to go :)

EDIT:AKA_RA i know what you mean, my dad restores clocks for a living and some of the stuff he goes on about makes my head hurt, the mysteries of physics eh :)

[AKA_RA]

lol, void 15 took me longer than it should have. when i went online to look at what other people had done, i felt really dumb. i had this horribly conplicated bridge cuz i could only get the armadillo about half way across using rubber peices. and i was over budget so the structural integrity of the bridge is hilariously unstable. btw, i decided to play around a bit and i made a "snowplow" with wheels and everything to push the armadillo around in the free build mode. i tried to make a tank but the cloth has clipping issues with the sheet metal peices.

EDIT: tank works almost perfectly with rubber treads, dont know why i didnt think of that before. only problem now is that the rockets are blowing up at random due to the tank bouncing

[FyR]

Yep i had a strange array of ropes and pulleys and bits of cloth :rolleyes: to begin with on void 15, ended up more simply than i imagined but took me a day or two to realise. Trouble is with that level is, the budget is tiny compared to the distance you gotta travel.

Been thinking of building some sort of stuff in free mode aswell, id love to build a couterweight
trebuchet!

New comp, best way to kill the armadillo! lol

EDIT: Just finished the 50 levels, it gives you an end score mine was: $6189

[AKA_RA]

i tried building a trebuchet, problem i had was getting it to not snap in half. but my goal today is to see how far i can launch that armadillo without it it snapping.

[FyR]

I just saw that eternal motion machine thing, its not based of physics, its exploiting a glitch in the game, hes made a triangle of metal with another pice of metal trapped inside halfway through another piece, the game trys to push this piece out but cant because its held there so the thing spins by itself.

Wiki:Energy is a conserved quantity: it is neither created nor destroyed, but only transferred from place to place or from one form to another.

So in reality its an inposibility for somthing to just start moving by itself.

AKA_RA: Try adding tension to the metal bars at the top and compresion to the metal bars at the bottom of the tebuchet to give it extra strengh

[AKA_RA]

i noticed later that it was a glitch being exploited, and even though that could potentially screw up a contest, it would also kinda suck if they fixed it and made some of the downloadable content none functional. mainly because so many people use this exploit to either finish puzzles way under budget, or make really interesting custom levels.

[FyR]

Yea i saw they were saying the same on the unofficial forums, id run two versions if they fixed it coz its too cool to let go, i just uploaded mt first level. Its called "Recycling" and it should be in the new levels section if it gets approved in a day or two. Check it out :)

Paul

[Slug Toy]

I just saw that eternal motion machine thing, its not based of physics, its exploiting a glitch in the game, hes made a triangle of metal with another pice of metal trapped inside halfway through another piece, the game trys to push this piece out but cant because its held there so the thing spins by itself.

Wiki:Energy is a conserved quantity: it is neither created nor destroyed, but only transferred from place to place or from one form to another.

So in reality its an inposibility for somthing to just start moving by itself.

AKA_RA: Try adding tension to the metal bars at the top and compresion to the metal bars at the bottom of the tebuchet to give it extra strengh

ok, two thoughts on this.

energy... yes its not created or destroyed, but it IS transfered. i dont think its a glitch in the game that causes the motion, in fact i think the game is doing its job perfectly, and i dont think it can be fixed without having to make things a lot more complicated (for the coders at least). im sure some people have probably figured this out, but heres what is probably going on. since there are the pieces of metal going through each other, this is detected as a collision and is translated into an equal and opposite force. since there is no way of actually separating the pieces, its basically an infinite collision. so the glitch is in the design, not the game. and it cant be fixed because that would mean screwing around with the collision detection, and that would probably make utter nonsense out of the other properly functioning bits.

and the other thought....the tension and compression might not be a good idea. as soon as you start doing that, you're basically adding one stress to offset another, and in the game the two stresses appear to have an additive effect and not a cancelling one. ive tried this approach in the demo, and every time i have something that "should work in real life" it over stresses everything and i end up with lots of cracks and booms and i get a good laugh in slow motion.

[FyR]

energy... yes its not created or destroyed, but it IS transfered. i dont think its a glitch in the game that causes the motion, in fact i think the game is doing its job perfectly, and i dont think it can be fixed without having to make things a lot more complicated (for the coders at least). im sure some people have probably figured this out, but heres what is probably going on. since there are the pieces of metal going through each other, this is detected as a collision and is translated into an equal and opposite force. since there is no way of actually separating the pieces, its basically an infinite collision. so the glitch is in the design, not the game. and it cant be fixed because that would mean screwing around with the collision detection, and that would probably make utter nonsense out of the other properly functioning bits.

I think the exploit works not because of collision but due to the fact a piece of metal is halfway through another piece and it tries to push that piece out, metal does not act like this in reality, in a way its acting like water would do with an air bubble. The psysics engine is not doing its job properly because its not possible in real life so it shouldnt be possible in a game made around the laws of physics.

I think the bug is with the metal allowing to pieces to co-exist in the same space at the same time. If they do overlap the engine should see it as a join rather than anything else.

Its easy to fix, according the the designer, although im not a programmer, all you would have to do is write that metals are allowed to overlap but they are classed as joined if they do. Since when metals collide they do not merge, they bend then break it shouldnt cause problems with collision system.

To your second point you made, ive noticed a few of strange things aswell, like when you edit a level and its working properly, if you adjust the boundrys it messes everything up! Also you could have a fully working level and you add a timer to somthing that messes totlly unrelated stuff up aswell.

Mind you, it is only at version 1.1 which is not bad going, im sure the designer will iron out the problems in future updates although i dont hold out much hope on some of the custom levels submitted to still be working on the new versions :)

[Rankenphile]

Not so. The bug is in the way tension and exerted force is handled.

Observe:
Infinite Engines, a level I designed (http://rankenphile.com/files/infinite_engine.lvl)

It shows how you can force an engine to be infinite by using a bar laid over a steel sheet, tied at one end to an anchor and at the other to a piece of elastic that exerts constant force. The force causes acceleration, and is directly correlated to the amount of tension provided. I made two engines using this principal, with two indicators to show the force exerted to an outside body, as well has to provide some counterforce to prevent it from over-accelerating and exploding.

[Slug Toy]

not because of collision but due to the fact a piece of metal is halfway through another piece

that IS effectively a collision as far as a game is concerned. only difference is that in games where nothing has gone wrong, two objects dont start inside each other, and a collision is limited to a momentary impulse acting on the surface.


The bug is in the way tension and exerted force is handled.


i would agree with this, after having seen the very odd things that happen when you try to pre-stress things.


once again... i dont know if this can be fixed very easily because im sure these are global implementations of real world physics, and if you start messing with that, everything else will start behaving in weird and wonderful way, and not just tensions and collisions.

[Cool1Net6]

Thanks guys. The moment I download this I play it for a whole day, strait.

-Cool-