🎮 WDC #12 Let's Play Whac-a-Mole™️

[domhnallohanlon]

@catsarisky

83 blocks on the main screen

Really nice implementation (and theme) @catsarisky - I like how the characters moved around on the screen, it makes the game that bit more challenging. @christina_wong will be delighted to see this I think!

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@codeswept

Done with mine! It’s called (drum roll) GUAC-A-MOLE

Brilliant, thanks @codeswept! I thought this might be a bit easier but the way the board gets reshuffled after every turn kept me clicking until the end.

I know you mention you’re planning a few updates, but one thing I noticed was that I ran out of numbers towards the end of the game.

[codeswept]

Oh no! I’d just put until numbers until hundred for testing. Will change that immediately. Thanks for the note!

@domhnallohanlon

I thought this might be a bit easier

Everybody who tested the app were not expecting it to be that confusing. Neither did I, as a matter of fact.

[catsarisky]

I love the title screen. Super cute.

On my very small iPhone SE, it crashes a moment after I click the first tortilla. So I’ll have to try on a bigger screen instead, I think.

Updated: In Chrome, it crashes with an out of memory error. Did you accidentally add an endless loop when you fixed Dom’s missing numbers?

[codeswept]

@catsarisky

Super cute.

Thanks!

@catsarisky

Did you accidentally add an endless loop

Oops, spot on Will try and fix it. I’m trying to see how I can get the game to carry on without either using the infinity math block OR getting undefined after some time.

[codeswept]

Fixed it! Is it working now?

Now you can play forever, as long as you haven’t fed all the moles.

[catsarisky]

Yes! 12 seconds, but on 2+2. That reshuffle is evil.

[codeswept]

That’s actually half of my lowest score on 2+2… Took me 24 seconds.

@catsarisky

That reshuffle is evil.

Hahaha… that’s my specialty.

[catsarisky]

When I slide the lower slider bar, for example, to try 3+3, it looks like the number of moles increases dramatically. Might have another bug to squash there.

I think I overshot and slid the slider backwards when the behavior happened? Maybe? The slider seems very sensitive - maybe the range is too big?

[codeswept]

Uh oh… let me check that out.

@catsarisky

slid the slider backwards

No, you didn’t. I don’t like it either, but I increase the slider’s max value to multiples of the step by you selected. I’m going to change that- it’s confusing and annoying for the user. Thanks for reporting!

[codeswept]

Fixed. It’s working at my side, is it working for you?

P.S: Thanks for all the bug alerts @catsarisky! They’re really helpful, and I’d have probably not noticed if you @domhnallohanlon hadn’t pointed them out.

[catsarisky]

Yes, working now! 3 + 4 in 23 seconds.

[codeswept]

Oh wow! You’re really quick at that… 3+4 would probably take me 2-3 minutes.

[tatiang]

11 seconds for 2+2.

When I switch it to Step of 3, Start at 2, the lowest # tortilla is 6. Shouldn’t it be 5?

[codeswept]

Let me try it at my end, and tell you the results.

[tatiang]

Iced Tea Toss

Inspiration: This is an homage to a game I used to enjoy as a kid, Tapper.

How to play: The idea is that customers are lining up at a bar to be served iced tea. You’re the bartender and you have to move up and down (arrow buttons) and serve iced tea (tea button) to each customer before they get to the end of the bar. But be careful! If you toss an iced tea and there’s no customer to catch it, the glass is going to break and you’ll be fired.

Developer Experience: I had a lot of fun making this and a fair amount of frustration. I understand the canvas components so much better now but small math glitches are causing major problems in my game. The grid that the movement is based on is divided into 100 pixels but the math bugs alter that so that things go a bit haywire. You can even pitch a curve ball for some strange reason…

Regardless, I hope you enjoy it! I spent so much time trying to fix the math/movement that I didn’t get as far in the development as I wanted to. So there’s no game over screen or restart button. But enough excuses!

PLAYABLE DEMO → Web App: bit.ly/icedteatoss2

I recommend playing it on a mobile device.

[tatiang]

@codeswept Love the word play theme, the graphics, the math aspect… very well done!

[codeswept]

Thanks! Am trying the fix the 2+3= 6 issue.

[Thg]

I tried to do this using a futuristic retro style

Although I will give up (I’m using a browser + cable + mouse at home), I went ahead with some of them in the cyber café I created some sprintes with blender and the initial logic (in cyber they close early because of the pandemic, so the way is to use the cell phone + otg).
in the browser it was a little better than in the app, app very slow and full of bugs

It is the first time that I use the canvas and I had difficulties with some logic because the visualization of the web and the application behaved differently in the y, x axes. I spent many hours switching between the tabs of the android kkkk trying to find out. After adding more timers, it was very slow and acting differently from the initial one, (it may be because the sprintes are high resolution or additional timers, I don’t know, but this is very slow and full of kkk bugs).
But the WDC design I wanted to try was a futuristic retro style, thanks.

[codeswept]

Wow! Really interesting game, and love the UI. Took me a while to figure out how the game worked, but after I did, I had a blast playing it. Just a question, though: When I was at the topmost bar, The iced tea got tossed down to the third-from top bar. Was that intentional?

Absolutely love the game, though! I played it seventeen times already!

Just a suggestion: Would it be possible for you to add a play again/reset option once we lose the game? Every time I lost, I’d have to cross out the tab, go back to Community, and click on the link again. It was kinda annoying. Otherwise, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, it’s a marvel of an app. I played it on my tab, and the experience was great!

[tatiang]

Well thank you, I appreciate it! I was a little embarrassed to share it because it doesn’t work very well.

The “curve ball” you described is a bug related to a sprite’s y positioning. I mentioned it on the forums a day or two ago but just reported it on GitHub here: Sprite's y position is altered · Issue #880 · thunkable/thunkable-issues · GitHub.

I think I’ll keep working on the game but honestly it’s a little distracting to have sprites end up in random positions. I have iced tea pitchers that are supposed to go on the right edge so it looks like the bartender/player is reaching for them and then tossing the glasses of iced tea. But when I add them to the canvas, they up in random positions. Same goes for the score which was supposed to be at the top. And the y=0 bug from the link above causes so many problems: the bar area doesn’t line up, the iced tea glasses get thrown below the bar, the customers don’t appear in the right place, on and on…

Anyway, I’m glad you like it and I’ll post an update when I have one!