For Plucky

(And shamelessly stolen from kynn)

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-101905airman_lat,0,2877850.story?coll=la-story-footer&track=morenews

GABA

This post has nothing to do with Gabbie or Gabber. It's about GABA or
Gravity Assissted Bicycle Acceleration, and I'm not just talking about riding downhill.

Actually, I suppose it's a bit more complex than gravity. It's also centrifical force at work, but anyhow, here it is:

I found a way to increase my flat-out speed even more and to fall uphill. I'm sure it's nothing new, but it's always pleasant to notice something, test it, and speculate on what is happening.

So. Here's my discovery. The fastest way to get between two points on a bicycle is a sine wave. If you hard zig-zag your bike, it accelerates and it takes almost no extra energy. What's happening is that as you lean your bike to one side, it falls (accelerates), you also get some centrifical force boost that I don't remember the formula for. Anyhow, the result is you're going faster (in an arc) but since you're a high center of mass over your bike and there's a gyroscopic effect happening on the tires, it's easy to shift it back the other way and your downthrust on the peddle while pulling up on the bike effectively gives you more pedal power too.

Of course, you're going further to go the same distance and much of your speed boost is eaten by the extra distance but you can pull out of your zigzag and let inertia carry you or keep peddling at the higher speed since it's not so hard to maintain a speed once you're there. On a flat out section, I increased my speed from 15 to 18MPH. I saw much bigger gains when combining this with pumping (well, a slight variant, where my center of gravity was staying relatively centered and I'm throwing the bike from side to side) In that instance, my all-out pumping speed went up from 20 to 25.

Of course, I've been pro bicyclers use the pumping method, so it's nothing new, but it's fun for me to think about how it works.

Sounding Off

So... Last week, I worked 30hours in a single sitting (from 9AM Thursday to 3PM Friday) After that, I slept.

The next day, I went to visit Ashy and the Atari was out but not connected. So we went out and found an RF switch and plugged it in and Hurray! It still works, even though I dropped it when moving it from the attic. The reset switch is broken off, but what's to worry about shoving a screwdriver into an electrical device between friends?

Anyhow, we played it and I got my butt kicked at just about every game except Video Pinball, though I mostly held my own at Outlaw.

It was so much fun but gawd the sound was annoying in a lot of the games.

Slowly, that's been percolating and got me thinking about audio. Audio is something I often tend to forget or at least be oblivious to. Suddenly, I wondered, 'What was the first video game with theme music?' A quick google search lead me to http://www.gamespot.com/features/6092391/p-2.html

I guess I have to step back and analyze, 'What do I consider music?" technically, the audio in Space Invaders and Asteroids is music. Not fantastic music by any means, but it is music. Of course, the real answer is 'Journey Escape', which I've never played and it's probably not entirely fair, since it's a game about the band Journey. 'SpyHunter' might be a better answer. This game definetely has music as opposed to a few bleeps played in a loop and I remember how impressive it seemed to me when I first saw it.

All this also gets me thinking about all the people I know who say or have said, "My friends and I are going to make a video game." Most have the graphical expertise and the programming skills, but I can't remember any offhand that have made plans for music. Nothing more than sound effects. Certainly, when I've built my own games, this has been a limitation of their scope. I think of the game in terms of images and sound effects and programming, but I've never really paused to consider the importance of music in making a good game, and yet, it's really an important aspect. Even for people who later turn off the music and listen to their own, their initial opinions about the game are influenced by the original score. This is important. It's what seperates a good game from a great game.

Definetely something to consider as I toy with the idea of building a couple of one-off flash games for my website redesign.

Reading this page also makes me want to get 'Seaman' and 'Kingdom Hearts' and try them out.