{"author_link":"\/author\/toeofdoom\/","author_name":"Toeofdoom","author_uid":"2397","comments":[{"author_name":"lingmops","author_uid":"3712","time":"May 2, 2011 @ 6:55pm","epoch":1304362200,"text":"10 points for involving SCIENCE! Bit confusing mind."},{"author_name":"Dmurph","author_uid":"4335","time":"May 2, 2011 @ 7:43pm","epoch":1304365080,"text":"I get the concept but there was too many things going on at once. It also slowed down my computer and it started freezing. Good graphics and sound tho!"},{"author_name":"code_glitch","author_uid":"4203","time":"May 2, 2011 @ 8:20pm","epoch":1304367300,"text":"No unity for linux :( shame i cant play the game..."},{"author_name":"Toeofdoom","author_uid":"2397","time":"May 2, 2011 @ 9:14pm","epoch":1304370540,"text":"It did end up pretty confusing, yeah. I would've liked to get more time to actually make the pinball machine, but the reaction system took a long time and I only switched to a pinball machine once I realised the platformer movement wasn't so great and I didn't think I had time for a decent set of platformer levels.\r<br\/>\r<br\/>For the performance, I found that it acted *much* better at a higher physics update rate - obviously that comes at a cost though. Pinball seems to be more sensitive to accuracy of physics than many games.\r<br\/>\r<br\/>If I had a solution for the linux issue, I would use it :( - but even using something harder like ogre + a physics library and sound lib means I would have to leave mac users hanging unless I found a way to cross compile."},{"author_name":"mpc174","author_uid":"2493","time":"May 3, 2011 @ 5:17am","epoch":1304399520,"text":"Innovative, but I couldn't figure out what was going on. Not exactly theme related. Nice graphics and music. Using molecular bonds is a funny concept, but I'm not a science guy. Good job turning something out after the initial concept failed."},{"author_name":"Winterblood","author_uid":"4051","time":"May 3, 2011 @ 9:58pm","epoch":1304459580,"text":"I like the idea of pinball chemistry...but I'm rubbish at pinball and haven't studied chemistry since school, so I was a bit lost. Nice graphics though! :)"},{"author_name":"Dark Acre Jack","author_uid":"2947","time":"May 3, 2011 @ 11:50pm","epoch":1304466300,"text":"Pretty lights and music.\r<br\/>\r<br\/>Yep, with tuning and polishing this could be quite interesting!"},{"author_name":"Toeofdoom","author_uid":"2397","time":"May 4, 2011 @ 5:52am","epoch":1304488020,"text":"Haha, I haven't studied chemistry since school either so you can imagine there were a lot of wikipedia lookups. Anyway, both the versions of the game I tried could sorta work, but have some issues to think through first. Such as how to have lots of atoms bouncing around but also separate &quot;signal&quot; from &quot;noise&quot;.\r<br\/>\r<br\/> If anyone's actually interested in seeing the platformer (and has the unity editor) you can grab the source package - it has the platformer level I was working on in there (go to open scene and choose testscene.unity)"},{"author_name":"hamster_mk_4","author_uid":"4265","time":"May 4, 2011 @ 6:29am","epoch":1304490240,"text":"As a concept Chemistry games sound fun, but this one went way over my head. I would have enjoyed it more if there were some sort of visual indicator that a compound was stable and could safely pass through the bottom."},{"author_name":"Kynrael","author_uid":"3913","time":"May 4, 2011 @ 3:48pm","epoch":1304523780,"text":"Theme not obvious, but I had some good fun seing the atoms link together. Racked up a 190k score, I don't know if that's any good ?"},{"author_name":"Milo","author_uid":"2934","time":"May 5, 2011 @ 12:37am","epoch":1304555520,"text":"Nifty, but my limited knowledge of chemistry and limited skill at pinball SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN MERGED. Really quite pretty, regardless of the fact that I don't know what I'm seeing."},{"author_name":"mjb67","author_uid":"4134","time":"May 5, 2011 @ 7:55pm","epoch":1304625000,"text":"Genius!"},{"author_name":"jonbro","author_uid":"1187","time":"May 6, 2011 @ 10:05am","epoch":1304676000,"text":"what the confused!!! it is like the craziest multiball ever, where you have to bind specific balls. I wonder if pinball skill would help.\r<br\/>\r<br\/>I think that when the platformer plan failed, just make a sweet pinball game and forget the whole science thing. You might be trying to load too much stuff on top of a mechanic."},{"author_name":"Toeofdoom","author_uid":"2397","time":"May 7, 2011 @ 7:56am","epoch":1304754660,"text":"I don't mind polishing up fairly normal games, but for this ludum dare I felt like trying something a bit unusual. Turns out I couldn't make it work that well within the time limit (although I did make some pretty good progress on the &quot;bonding system&quot;, all things considered) - but it's something I can come back to when I figure out how to make it accessible and awesome. :)\r<br\/>\r<br\/>To be honest the idea was that you would mainly try to hit heavier, solid atoms around and working with the others would be more about flow control, so a stream of flourine would hit a stream of... maybe lithium? Dunno if much will make flourine stable, realistically :P\r<br\/>\r<br\/>A similar thing could work for the platformer idea, but I also want to figure out a way to play as a light atom like hydrogen there. Perhaps those levels could take place in vaccuum chambers, for the most part, where there's no (or less) air to smash you around.\r<br\/>\r<br\/>190k is a fair bit higher than I've bothered to get, by the way."},{"author_name":"Endurion","author_uid":"103","time":"May 14, 2011 @ 8:19am","epoch":1305360840,"text":"The idea is a really good one. It looks good and sounds good. However the gameplay is boring. You can keep mashing Z\/X (why Z? think of other keyboard layouts!) and amassing points (and clogging up the table with atoms).\r<br\/>A good challenge would be to put built molecules into a target somewhere."},{"author_name":"mwest","author_uid":"24","time":"May 21, 2011 @ 9:33pm","epoch":1306013280,"text":"Cool graphics and music and it was interesting to see a pinball game :P...\r<br\/>\r<br\/>Just not much fun, but well done on trying something unusual in the first place!"}],"images":["ld20\/2397-836a3b170faae9d92648f0b1294e19cf.jpg"],"links":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.toeofdoom.com\/ludumdare\/20\/","text":"Web (Unity)"},{"url":"http:\/\/www.toeofdoom.com\/ludumdare\/20\/atomicpinballsource.zip","text":"Source"}],"metadata":{"g_key":"32977","g_author":"2397","g_event":"LD20","g_eventkey":"6","g_subevent":"COMPO","g_urlkey":"33007","g_title":"Atomic Pinball","g_status":"UCHK1","g_place":"139","g_commentcount":"16","g_site2_node_id":"0","g_hide":"N","g_has_icon":"Y","g_rqueue":"0","g_random":"0"},"nds":[],"node":null,"orig_images":["http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/compo2\/\/45257\/2397-shot0.png-eq-900-500.jpg"],"text":"Proud member of the submitted for the sake of submitting club.\r\nIncoherent mess factor is high.\r\nDanger to slow computers. Controls are Z and X or N and M.\r\nIt's dangerous for <Atom X> to go alone! Bond it with <Element Y> to make it stable! Bonded atoms don't explode as easily! (Note: Explosions not implemented)\r\n\r\nPlay pinball! (Mash buttons!)\r\n\r\nThis game changed halfway through. The music was made for a platformer and might have been good for that.\r\n\r\nThe source package is uploading as of now. If it isn't up by the time uploads close, comment, because that's a mistake :)<\/p>","title":"Atomic Pinball"}