Snow Tubing

Often I think about control mechanisms in real life that are fun. Being winter and all I was thinking about snowy games and I was thinking how much fun it is when you snow tube to just drag your hand by the side of the tube to turn.

So I threw together this demo:
Penguin Snow Tube

Of course in reality I would have art for the full rotational movement of the character. But at least he swings around the point where he touches the snow. The velocity slows depending on the amount of time your are turning to some extent. Some bumping a skidding would be nice to add as well.

Many Things

Lately I have not been posting but I have been working on some interesting projects. My previous webcam prototype is being made into a full game for release. This is the first game I have programmed myself in over a year. I was able to do all the things I outlined in my previous post like difficulty adjustment, gaps of inactivity and compensating for differing webcam light levels.

I have been experimenting further with alternate inputs like webcam and microphone. I have other designs that use the webcam that I hope to develop soon.

Here is a small test for microphone input:
Dandelion

While Flash can only detect volume, there is a great deal of space for game mechanics. I am working with currently with matching, louder, softer and volume over time.

Since Flash 8 has been out for over a year and I have done very little with the capabilities of bitmap effects, I have been messing with that a bit. This is just perlin noise used as a displacement map.
Perlin Noise Effect

It is disappointing that these effects are so CPU intensive. All these new toys that I cannot play with. I am trying to add these to my games but I must design around them. I have to create scenarios where game code and effect code do not take place at the same time. Its not difficult but its just an extra step for design and a different way of doing things for the programmers. Also these types of effects are always "if we get time we'll do it" kind of things so designing around them could often be a waste of time because they will never get implemented.