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Reality Check
Thu Feb 22, 2007 10:21 pm

I plan on making this game for my Gr. 11 ISU.
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http://addictinggames.com/hellofsandfallinggame.html

I know its a big project but I'd like to try.  I've already went to the forums and make sure I won't be breaking the copyright of it or anything.  I won't duplicate it exactly but I want to get as much of it as I can.  I plan on using Eclipse to make it.  Now, I'd like to know a couple things before I start:

1) I thought of ways to check for the interaction of the particles but I couldn't think of an efficient way.  The only way I got was to make an object for each element and store each particle of an element in an array.  I'd then continuously search through every particle and act accordingly when a particle touches another.  Is there a more efficient way?

2) The other thing I haven't thought of yet is how I'm going get the particles to flow down the wall.  Would I figure out the angle of the wall and act accordingly or is there a better way?

3) Finally, in the game, when you have a straight (90 degree) wall and dump some particles on it, it starts to create a pyramid effect much like it would in real life.  

Once again, I haven't even started coding and just getting down some preliminary thoughts.  Are there any suggestions for me?

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klopyrev
Thu Feb 22, 2007 11:04 pm

Re: I plan on making this game for my Gr. 11 ISU.
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Well, that game is just a simulation. Where a particle will move is affected directly by what's underneath it. You have a state, which is the condition of the board at a point in time. You have to continuously generate the next states. To implement a state, my first instinct is to refer to each grain by a grid coordinate. Then, you could store all the grains in the board in a HashSet and then generate a new HashSet from the previous one at each time. Basically, what this could do is given a hashset, you can generate the next state by iterating through it and for each of the particles, seeing where it could fall. Why a HashSet, you may ask... Well, for each particle, you have to know all of its neighbours to be able to figure out exactly where it will go. A HashSet makes it easy to check if a particle is on the board. As for implementing this is concerned - I suggest you try it out and if you get stuck, just ask me and I will be glad to help. As for the physics part of this, I don't have the time right now to figure out how it works, but I'll think about it.

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Reality Check
Fri Feb 23, 2007 7:57 am

Re: I plan on making this game for my Gr. 11 ISU.
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I appreciate your help.  I'll get started in about a week (too busy this week).
