Richmond eats Escargots

[richmond62]

Well, personally I would not recommend them; extremely disappointing: and certainly not part of a 'sattvic' diet.

HOWEVER, a while back a 'small blob' who was attending my ESF school turned up early and was singing the praises of some daft game (or series of games) called Snail Bob:

https://www.1001games.com/puzzle/snail-bob
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This made me moderately sick (especially the horrible, repetitive music); and I remember trying to point out to a 9 year old that "that sort of thing" did not appeal to 'mature' types like me.

Later it occurred to me that while I did not like Snail Bob as such, the game had potential as something to 'clone' in xTalk as a programming exercise.

[richmond62]

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If we perform what people who like to dream up jargon might call a 'functional analysis' of scene #1 of the game it can be broken down into essential components:

1. The snail (which is animated) that moves forward.

1.1. Preferably there should be a START button which should start the snail animation.

1.2. Preferably clicking on the snail when it is moving should stop it moving, and when it is not moving a click should start it moving.

2. A 'pipe' from which the snail emerges.

2.1. A 'pipe' into which the snail disappears having completed the scene.

3. A toggle switch that raises and lowers a log on a chain.

4. Some sort of lift/elevator toggled by a button.

For reasons of simplification I am not bothering about a score.

[richmond62]

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I have just popped in a button so you can see all the image resources stored out of sight at the bottom of the stack:
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[richmond62]

Here is that stack:

Click on the RUN button to make the snail move.

Click on the snail when it is moving to make it stop.

Click on the snail when it is not moving to make it move.

Look at the field that sometimes contains an 'x'.

[tperry2x]

Oh, I think I got the wrong idea - I thought you meant you'd made a platformer (2D-controller) with this character, using the keyboard to control it. No problem. Was only trying to avoid duplicated effort.

[richmond62]

It is perfectly possible to replace those mouse-clicks with keys: and Snail Bob is a 2D game that in its origianl conception is both key controlled and mouse-clicked:
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The snail's movement is key-controlled, while the 2 things ringed with those white broken-line circles are activate with mouse-clicks.

If you think that would be OK: let one of your children have 15 minutes on the original game: and watch them.

[tperry2x]

Ah, okay - got you.
I see what you mean, it's mostly a point and click kind of thing but can use keys too.
However, the original (as far as I can make out, here) allows me to click on things once the snail is moving.

On the stack version, you can't click anything while the snail is in motion as it's just a continuous loop.

snail.gif (1.21 MiB) Viewed 47617 times

[richmond62]

From a pedagogical point of view reinventing the wheel is going a bit far: but copying the functionality of a computer game/program is a useful learning process.

As one has NO access to either the underlying code of something one is copying, NOR access to whatever was going on in the minds of the original designers one has to come up with one's own (possibly original) ways to achieve the same thing.

While copying a picture might be fairly trivial, copying the functionality of what is to all effects and purposes a locked box is far from trivial.

[richmond62]

Screenshot 2025-02-26 at 12.27.31.png (389.08 KiB) Viewed 42478 times

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This demonstrates a way to implement the barrier:
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The 'log' and the 'pulley' are simple images, while the 'lever' is a graphic rectangle with a series of 3 images (stored off screen) used as its backGroundPattern:
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Screenshot 2025-02-26 at 12.35.14.png (53.5 KiB) Viewed 42476 times

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The script in the lever graphic simply resets the position of the 'log' image and the backGroundPattern of the graphic:

Code: Select all

on mouseUp
   if intersect(img "SR", img "log", 4) then
      put empty into fld "STATUS"
   end if
   set the backGroundPattern of grc "LL" to the id of img "lever2"
   set the top of img "log" to 270
   wait 5 ticks
   set the top of img "log" to 250
   wait 5 ticks
   set the top of img "log" to 230
   wait 5 ticks
   set the top of img "log" to 210
   set the backGroundPattern of grc "LL" to the id of img "lever3"
   wait 5 ticks
   set the top of img "log" to 190
   wait 5 ticks
   set the top of img "log" to 170
   wait 5 ticks
   set the top of img "log" to 150
   wait 5 ticks
   send "mouseUp" to img "SR"
end mouseUp

[richmond62]

The RESET button "pulls" the snail back to its starting position and chnages the backGroundPattern of the 'lever' graphic:

Code: Select all

on mouseUp
   set the loc of img "SR" to 40,400
   put empty into fld "STATUS"
   set the backGroundPattern of grc "LL" to the id of img "lever1"
   set the top of img "log" to 290
end mouseUp

OBVIOUSLY this stack does NOT feature the animated snail of the previous stack . . .

'Uncle Richmond' is NOT going to do ALL the work (as I SHOUTED once at a load of extremely passive children waiting for me to spoon feed them):
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[richmond62]

Screenshot 2025-02-26 at 20.12.16.png (252.12 KiB) Viewed 42224 times

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More on its way shortly . . .

Or "MORON" its way; depending on your point of view.

[richmond62]

Click the red button when the snail arrives at the lift.
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