Incredibeta

November 13, 2008 5:11 AM

Incredibots. Make crazy machines! Solve puzzles! Share with your friends! And that's just the beta. Similarly

Click "Play" to see my hastily assembled machine in action. Click "Stop Simulation" to stop it. Click on "Main Menu" to do your own thing.

posted by DU (36 comments total)

I found this yesterday and wanted to solve a few puzzles before submitting it so I could make more intelligent review-type remarks. But the challenges are hard enough that in 24 hours (of admittedly sporadic work) I've only really solved two of the easiest. Perhaps that information is review enough.
posted by DU at 5:12 AM on November 13, 2008

This is ace, and some of the things that can be done with it are awesome.
posted by Happy Dave at 6:06 AM on November 13, 2008 [3 favorites]

Is there a Flash physics toolkit or something? It seems there have been an awful lot of these floppy physics games lately, and building that from scratch seems an awful lot of groundwork to do for... well for a floppy physics game.

This one gets a special prize for being the first thing to crash Firefox 3 for me, though. As someone once taught me, "that means the code is working really hard."
posted by rokusan at 6:26 AM on November 13, 2008

...some of the things that can be done with it...

How did you make a balloon?? I tried lowering the density but it only goes to 11.

Is there a Flash physics toolkit or something?

The site credits Box2D but that seems to be C++. Maybe they ported? Or maybe there's a way to call/embed it?

crash Firefox 3

Hmmm...I'm on FF3 too with no problems. And Flash 10.0, which has major problems on my machines, is rock solid on this game.
posted by DU at 6:37 AM on November 13, 2008

Hmm, it also crashed (repeatedly) on opera 9.62, which surprised me... It's working really really hard. Perhaps it's a flash-crash, rather than a browser crash?
posted by mjg123 at 6:52 AM on November 13, 2008

I also saw it crash FF3. Things were going fine until I accidentally right-clicked in the flash window, and then FF melted down, forcing me to kill it.

Neat game, though.
posted by tocts at 7:02 AM on November 13, 2008

Ya - I installed the latest flash and it is working in ff3 but still not in opera. I read tocts' comment, and immediately tried right clicking (cf.). Don't do that.

DU: I love this kind of thing - thanks.
posted by mjg123 at 7:10 AM on November 13, 2008

If you're curious, a tank tread doesn't work on Climb. I just spent 30 minutes verifying that fact.

Damn you, DU!
posted by TypographicalError at 7:15 AM on November 13, 2008

I was indeed curious about that. Studded wheels don't work either, at least not for me. Maybe the right speed and spacing would work. I was hoping to balloon up, but I don't see how to do that. Now I'm working on a walker. (And by "working" I mean "not working" since I have REAL work I'm madly trying to get through first.)
posted by DU at 7:21 AM on November 13, 2008

Well, I got through it by taking a non-colliding rectangle, popping two huge circles on its end, and putting four tiny rectangles as studs. It ended up rolling right up that hill. Although, on the lowest speed setting, it was literally taking two steps forward, one step back.

I'm curious if the game would accept a catapult as a solution to that one, or if the whole bot has to reach the goal area.
posted by TypographicalError at 7:26 AM on November 13, 2008

Yeah, that's not clear. I tried a catapult and only made it about 1/3 of the way up. But a multi-stage crawler (like a rocket, but with wheels) would be another solution that could be arguably compliant depending on what "a bot" means.
posted by DU at 7:39 AM on November 13, 2008

BTW, the harder versions of the level are the exact same challenge...but now with limited "credits" to "buy" resources.
posted by DU at 7:40 AM on November 13, 2008

So I went back and looked at the tank on the first tutorial level. I was making treads a lot harder than they had to be. The rectangles you use for treads should actually be embedded in the wheel circles, so you get a fairly tight fit. However, the whole process still falls on its face.

It was still pretty interesting, building the tank tread the right way. And much faster. Here's the "right way" to build a tank tread, so far as I can tell.
posted by TypographicalError at 7:54 AM on November 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

mmmm spacing
posted by mjg123 at 7:54 AM on November 13, 2008

Weird. It didn't save my robot on the actual climb level. I suppose it's not important, since it didn't work, but now I can't go back and put studs on the treads to try to get it up there.
posted by TypographicalError at 7:57 AM on November 13, 2008

No robots are saved unless you explicitly save them. I think.

mmmm spacing

HACK :)
posted by DU at 8:11 AM on November 13, 2008

DU: "...some of the things that can be done with it...

How did you make a balloon?? I tried lowering the density but it only goes to 11."

Well, 1) I doubt Happy Dave did that. Mr. Monocle is the big demo movie thing, I think.

2) I'm pretty sure the balloon is just a circle riding along an invisible rectangle.
posted by TypographicalError at 8:27 AM on November 13, 2008

Yeah, I didn't make the balloon, someone on another board linked to it.
posted by Happy Dave at 8:47 AM on November 13, 2008

The answer to whether just a part of "a bot" counts as a solution is no.

Perhaps a higher percentage of "the" bot would work or perhaps the whole thing is necessary.
posted by DU at 10:41 AM on November 13, 2008

I was kind of hoping somebody would be more knowledgeable than me about the alleged Flash physics toolkit. Surely porting the C++ library would be a pain and a half?
posted by Michael Roberts at 12:15 PM on November 13, 2008

OK, Google is more knowledgeable than me (as always): http://box2dflash.sourceforge.net/

How cool is that?
posted by Michael Roberts at 12:23 PM on November 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

mmmm triangle

Lets see some more Mefi creations.
posted by Binliner at 12:31 PM on November 13, 2008

Or... the replay...
posted by Binliner at 12:35 PM on November 13, 2008

This kind of stuff is awesome.
posted by Vindaloo at 3:07 PM on November 13, 2008

No balloon, but... propellor?
posted by oulipian at 3:56 PM on November 13, 2008

Sorry, correct link!
posted by oulipian at 3:57 PM on November 13, 2008

That propeller is hilarious.

The ratchet-bot is cool and I had a similar idea but couldn't make it work. BTW, to post a whole replay you have to let it run the whole time before saving...
posted by DU at 4:36 PM on November 13, 2008

Rosakun and DU: Yeah, there's a Flash port of Box2D, and there's a lot of games like this that are little more than a pretty wrapper around it.
posted by egypturnash at 5:25 PM on November 13, 2008

Oh no, no, no, no...
Do you know how many weeks of my life I lost to Fantastic Machine?
posted by lekvar at 5:30 PM on November 13, 2008

mmmm spacing
posted by mjg123 at 10:54 AM on November 13 [+] [!]

a much faster climb solution
posted by xorry at 5:33 PM on November 13, 2008

umm.. that was not the right link.. strange
this one is
posted by xorry at 5:38 PM on November 13, 2008

If it can't drive your enemies before you, crush their armies, annihilate their cities, and swat their jets from the sky, it's not a robot.

THIS IS NOT A ROBOT.

Don't tease us like that.
posted by tkchrist at 6:26 PM on November 13, 2008

Damn, that Flash Box2D is awesome looking. Makes me wish I had more time in the day.
posted by DU at 7:11 PM on November 13, 2008

Further advances in propellor technology: Biplane Climb. Biplane Long Jump. Biplane Hurdles. Biplane Off-Road. Biplane Obstacle Course (this one is epic).

I'm working on solving Dump with the same robot now - I've gotten down to one shape left. Here's the robot!
posted by oulipian at 7:41 PM on November 13, 2008

How many tries do you need to take to get a biplane solution to work? It looks more like a random permutation machine than a general purpose solution. Which if you have the time is valid...
posted by DU at 4:47 AM on November 14, 2008

This is fun. I like fun!
posted by not_on_display at 7:01 PM on November 14, 2008