kyro 12 years ago

Quite a coincidence that I see this tonight. I was on the bus today and noticed someone playing a game on their phone, something simple where you have to trace over a pattern as closely as you can. It was frustrating to watch because every time the user wanted to repeat a level or move on to the next, they were forced to tap through a couple of intermediary screens with flashy stats that took up as much time to get through as playing a level. Contrast that to this game where starting over takes me 0.0 seconds. You jump right back into gameplay, forgetting all the frustration that came with messing up on your previous attempt. More games should take note.

  • stormbrew 12 years ago

    Including the original flappy bird. Drove me nuts.

  • catmanjan 12 years ago

    A lot of games use the delay to cause frustration on purpose. Kinda like the old arcade games that didn't have continues.

  • ahoy 12 years ago

    Ah, but then when will you show users ads, or prompt them to buy 20 gems?

    • poopsintub 12 years ago

      It's a very valid point, but you can't fit everything at once, on the same screen. Current and high score, goals, etc. They add to user experience and satisfaction.

      • jasomill 12 years ago

        For some users, for some games. In many casual games, a "zero-delay" option would be a nice feature, and a nice bonus for a "remove ads" in-app purchase.

  • gibybo 12 years ago

    I was thinking the same thing after I failed the first time. Most people might not think of this sort of thing because 'hey, the interstitial shows you important information and it only takes a second', but the ability to just continue immediately after messing up makes the game tremendously more enjoyable.

shmageggy 12 years ago

I would describe this as multiplicative rather than logarithmic. 2×2×2×2...

Or maybe exponential if you consider your score to be 2^(number of walls you've jumped).

I don't get logarithmic, though.

  • drcode 12 years ago

    I think the term is "geometric"

    • judk 12 years ago

      Geometric is the same as exponential. It is just a geometric interpretation instead of algebraic.

      • jasomill 12 years ago

        Pedantically,

            s_n = k (-1)^n
        

        for

            n = 0, 1, 2, ...
        
        

        and nonzero constant k is a non-constant geometric sequence that doesn't exhibit exponential behavior.

  • orcasauce 12 years ago

    After around 4096 it starts tapering off, hence logarithmic.

  • albertjorlando 12 years ago

    This is the exponential function, 2^x. Where the independent variable is the number of walls jumped. For instance, after 30 jumps, your score/tile reads 1073741824, or 2^30.

    • dllthomas 12 years ago

      Or it's the logarithmic function lg(x), where the independent variable is the score and the dependent variable is roughly proportional to the number of times you've clicked.

      • albertjorlando 12 years ago

        Well yes, logbase2(x), where x is your score, does equal the number of wall jumps. But that doesn't account for how the game is laid out. Your score is a result of the number of jumps you've made. The number of jumps you've made is not the result of your score. Therefore, despite these two functions being the inversely related, the correct relationship is 2^x. That is just my opinion though.

        • dllthomas 12 years ago

          I agree "exponential" would have been a more natural choice.

          "Therefore, despite these two functions being the inversely related, the correct relationship is 2^x."

          There is no "correct relationship", there is a relationship that (depending on choice of variables) we can describe as y=2^x or y=lg(x).

          • jjaredsimpson 12 years ago

            Sure, score = 2^walls iff log_2(score) = walls. So, being equivalent statements, one alone can not be correct.

            However, as you said, one choice of describing the relationship is certainly more natural. The exponential description assigns a score to every natural number. While the logarithmic description does not.

            I would interpret correct in the way that it is sometimes said, "the correct way to think about X is..." which doesn't say other ways of thinking are wrong, but limited or not illuminating.

  • TazeTSchnitzel 12 years ago

    I chose the name without any thought, really.

    An early version of the code did use log2() on the score internally, but now it does pow(2) externally.

chch 12 years ago

It is a bit odd when the numbers go into scientific notation. :)

http://i.imgur.com/Q2qHoSs.png

Also, it seems that at a certain point length, the two score boxes will shift to being on top of one another instead of side by side[1], which moves the whole playfield's place in the window. Adds a bit of an added challenge!

[1] http://i.imgur.com/BW6RV2e.png

jlas 12 years ago

Cool. I'm on a MBP with 1280x800 resolution and tapping up on the keyboard moves the page to the top, which cuts off the bottom of the game board. A little annoying :(

TazeTSchnitzel 12 years ago

Inspired by this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7431180

I literally just made the display code use Math.pow(2) on everything, after discovering that changing the internal score by doubling instead of incremental would increase the speed exponentially with each hop, rendering it unplayable.

gburt 12 years ago
  • computer 12 years ago

    I suspect you know this, but either way: you should initialize your arrays in R to the proper length-- dynamically growing them within a for-loop as you do with values, func and results in optimxWrapper is extremely slow in R, as it creates a new array every loop, copying the old one.

    • harmegido 12 years ago

      I feel like I'm failing at R if I'm using a for loop typically.

      • gburt 12 years ago

        The for loop is a dirty hack to deal with a bug I didn't want to invest time in for one-off code. I wish I had cropped this out of the screenshot...

  • gone35 12 years ago

    Nice. I thought I was the only one using end-of-line semicolons in R! Don't listen to the haters/purists that tell you against them.

    Note though you missed the first two statements of 'somaWrapper' and in the return statement of 'optimxWrapper'.

higherpurpose 12 years ago

Is it just me or do the arrows not lock to the game and push the scrollbar up, making you not see the whole game? The previous game had the same problem.

Thirdegree 12 years ago

Alright, now I understand the appeal of flappy bird.

____miah 12 years ago

I guess things like this can't be avoided. anyway, great idea, but I think you can add features that let's the flying tile hit numbered tile that can get the score higher. just suggesting. or not.

rafeed 12 years ago

Haha, this is surprisingly easier to get to 2048 than the original 2048.

glennos 12 years ago

Only spent 5 seconds playing, but this is brilliant. Well done :)

EGreg 12 years ago

This was clearly developed on a very large monitor ... because when I press the up arrow, it scroll the document up and I can't see the bottom of the board.

I got 8096 btw!

  • flaxin 12 years ago

    and the rest of us [1366X768] are left behind

    i can't believe you got 8096, i got like 8

    edit: a new high, 16

izzydata 12 years ago

Got to e+99, now what. Shouldn't it just end at 2048?

hacknat 12 years ago

I'm sorry, isn't this just flappy bird?

davidgerard 12 years ago

Awaiting Doge and Dr. Who versions.

  • agildehaus 12 years ago

    50% complete: http://doge2048.com/

    • sb23 12 years ago

      I'm too slow to read the pop ups when combining doges. Still looks great otherwise!

    • userbinator 12 years ago

      That was far more amusing that I thought it would be. I'm not entirely sure why, but just I can't stop laughing at all the doge faces staring at me...

    • javajosh 12 years ago

      Cool. This version is more challenging since it's hard to remember the ordering of images. Also, I had to cheat to see the "final" image, the derp. That was a motivation, too: I wanted to see what the next image would be!

sl1e 12 years ago

Only issue is when you press up it scrolls all the way up during the game and it gets cut off.

nnnnni 12 years ago

This is actually significantly better than Flappy Bird because it has ACCURATE hit detection.

  • Kiro 12 years ago

    Why do you think the hit decetion is off in Flappy Bird? I think it's very accurate and fair and that that's one of the reasons it became such a hit.

0-o 12 years ago

>9000.

anigbrowl 12 years ago

OK, I LOLed this time.