Armadillo Run forum

Here is a level I made some time ago, I decided to share..

I named it Clepsydra cause it's a bit the concept of a big clock.

Well, it could be named : "The Complete AR' Geek LVL" But I keep Clepsydra instead

In order to watch it properly and not lagging, you better have to close all applications but AR, then play it in "force mode", I found it improve the framerate a bit, but so it needs the dark background.
Run ok like that on my 2.6 Ghz cpu.

Hope you enjoy it!

Wow !

Nice one, takes a good while to watch. It ran perfectly on my PC - great work

Genius at work...

OK. Im not worthy! This was just awesome! Yet it was very inspiring. I can feel new ideas coming in the distance... If there was a contest in spectatorlvl making (hmmm?), this and "Force Clockwork" would be my two favorites! Keep on rocking in the free world, n.fav! This is Picasso-material!

Watching this level, I find myself thinking that it's a pity that the contests only reward flimsy constructions which really are not constructionally sound (since they are cheaper). In this level there are many parts that are made to catch or slow things even if they are coming in at different angles or velocities. Kind of like in real life.

I was wondering what some small randomness introduced into the game would do to the solutions. I don't mean randomness in how the physics work, but rather some element that moves in a slightly random way.

That way tweaking wouldn't work, and that may be a good or a bad thing. It would be nice to have the option though.

There is already randomness. Rubber and Rockets.

Also, on Extra - Pendulum, something strange can happen. Set it up like the current best, move it slightly, then undo. The cloth at the bottom may break in a slightly different way (I've seen three different).

Rockets - See Chaos Generator. Watching the various different solutions, the rockets move in different ways - ways you could never guess.

Rubber - Any level with long strings of rubber is really annoying, as things that shouldn't be influenced are. Try tweaking Mushroom to Move, or Casius - Pistons. Weird things happen. Also see Incredible Machines 7 - Crash Test. That one was really fun, I've got probably 40+ solutions to that. You can do something crazily insane (smallest bit of rope and it'll work.) Note how on my 356 solution to Mushroom to Move I hung a little rope from an anchor point to help the armadillo over it.

Attachments are my favourite two solutions from Crash Test that I created. Could physics have guessed either would happen?

Very impressive . I know what it took to make my armadillo conveyor work in "Counting to Four", and I only can imagine rubber being much more troublesome. I really like how you separate the different sizes of rubber on the fly and give them separate jobs .

Rockets - See Chaos Generator. Watching the various different solutions, the rockets move in different ways - ways you could never guess.

I can not run the levels at the computer I am using right now, so I may be getting this wrong. But you seem to imply that in different solutions, very different things happen, although the solutions differ just slightly. Right?

What I mean though, is that the *same* solution, run multiple times, would behave differently each time if there was a randomness-inducing element in it.

Or do you mean that rockets, for example, work just that way?

snowlord wrote:

Rockets - See Chaos Generator. Watching the various different solutions, the rockets move in different ways - ways you could never guess.

I can not run the levels at the computer I am using right now, so I may be getting this wrong. But you seem to imply that in different solutions, very different things happen, although the solutions differ just slightly. Right?

What I mean though, is that the *same* solution, run multiple times, would behave differently each time if there was a randomness-inducing element in it.

Or do you mean that rockets, for example, work just that way?

I know what you mean - sensitivity to initial conditions. Tossing in +/- 0.00001 to every variable each run for instance.

WOW
That is amazing. Very hynoptic to watch.
Excellent work

Ryo_Sangnoir wrote:There is already randomness. Rubber and Rockets.

I dont belive that - it looks chaotic but is not random. At least the same "random" happends every time you run the lvl.

Nothing is random in Armadillo Run, and nothing is random in the real world.

snowlord wrote:Watching this level, I find myself thinking that it's a pity that the contests only reward flimsy constructions which really are not constructionally sound (since they are cheaper). In this level there are many parts that are made to catch or slow things even if they are coming in at different angles or velocities. Kind of like in real life.

I was wondering what some small randomness introduced into the game would do to the solutions. I don't mean randomness in how the physics work, but rather some element that moves in a slightly random way.

That way tweaking wouldn't work, and that may be a good or a bad thing. It would be nice to have the option though.

This is a very very interesting Idea - this way the player would have to create some quality-constructions, so that it could cope with the natural randomness. But how should the lvl be accepted as solved? If a lvl suxeeds 8 of 10 times? If it was run 1000 times and suxeeded it still would be possible that it would fail that 1001'th time

It should be something that is implemented into the game. The game enginge could make 1000 internal simulations of the solution, and give you a pretty accurate percentage of success.

An 80% solution should have 20% of the starting cash substracted. A 50% solution would only have 50% of the starting cash.

Example:

Starting cash $1000
A mystical guy uses $100 makes a 80% solution. That gives the score 1000-80-200 = $720

Another mystical guy uses $200 and makes a 100% solution, wich gives him the score 1000-200-0 = $800

A tragic guy uses all cash and cant make it work at all. Score = 1000-1000-1000 = $-1000, and he leaves the forum in shame.

Nothing is random in Armadillo Run, and nothing is random in the real world.

Although I am not sure about that, "randomness" in AR could just be that a certain object behaves in, say, 1000 different ways, with each case every 1000th time, if you understand (Or 10000, or 100000, or 4711).

A tragic guy uses all cash and cant make it work at all. Score = 1000-1000-1000 = $-1000, and he leaves the forum in shame.

*lol*