Bouncing Along in the C1 Garden
It’s been quite some time since I released the last C1 download, and it’s certainly time to jump back into fixing up the food sources! I am working on improving the honey, yet I had several questions and requests about one particular COB: The carrot variation, also known as the bouncing carrot. This food item functions almost exactly like a standard carrot, except for the fact that it bounces when dropped. Rather a neat concept! It is a fairly easy update, owing to the fact that most of the coding was completed with the updated C1 carrot. Thanks to Malkin for pointing this out on several different occasions! But I’m not quite ready to release it…
The CAOS code to make an object bounce is surprisingly long, but not too confusing! From my initial glances, I’m really intrigued with the idea that gravity and physics in Creatures 1 can be simulated via coding. I plan on experimenting a little bit so I can learn more about how this works. In the meantime, I would love to hear what others think of the bouncing carrot! Would you prefer it to be a different color to easily distinguish it in the garden? Is its current bounciness wrong in any way? Should it have a different nutritional value than the standard carrot? I never use the carrot variation because I’ve found it to be more annoying than useful.
Another thing I’d like to test out is to give nearby Creatures a slight decrease in boredom (and maybe more) just from hearing the bouncing. A toy or bouncing carrot only conveys a feeling of fun to the Creatures who activated it. I’ve always disliked this, because when a group of Norns and Grendels are playing with a toy, only one member of the group can actually enjoy the benefits of the toy. There are other considerations here, though, especially in regard to incorrectly associating decreases in needs with something else. It’s just an idea I have, so we’ll see where it leads! Experimenting is the best way to learn more about CAOS. I’ll likely have a more in-depth discussion of how bouncing works in CAOS terminology sometime prior to the release. It might seem very long, yet a lot of it includes codes to do simple math functions like adding or subtracting. It’s not all that bad, thankfully!
Oops, I guess I just kept forgetting where I’d posted the question. Sorry!
I’d love to learn more about how C1 emulates physics – I seem to recall that gravity, etc. was a feature from C2 onwards???
I love that the bouncy carrot ‘hides’ among its companions. I don’t think it really needs to be too much different from an ordinary carrot in terms of its nutritional value.
Interestingly enough, it seems that the musical instruments only work on creatures who hear it, not creatures who play it… and there is a tension there with ‘oh, I’m not doing much, but I’m suddenly less bored and tired! I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing!’ Something that creatures can’t pick up and carry might be less likely to be monopolised than the ball, top or trumpet, too?
I recently released a C1 cob (after only 10 years…) for the CCSF, a blue drum. In it, the listeners get a small benefit, but the player gets a larger benefit. Hopefully that will encourage creatures to play with it, rather than just listen.
I’ve also posted up a caos walkthrough of it on my blog as a ‘bonus feature’.
I hope you had a happy Christmas!
Not a problem, and no need to apologize! It was such a good idea that you had to post it a few times. Ha!
I believe you’re right about gravity coming into play in C2 and C3/DS. In C1, if you drop an object really high up, it won’t actually fall: It “begins” its actual descent very close to the ground.
I have some more ideas on what can be done with the bouncing carrot. I’m almost leaning towards what you mentioned, where the Creature who drops it and makes it bounce doesn’t actually receive any benefit. The reason? Over time, Creatures might learn that dropping a food item is supposed to reduce their boredom, but the majority of food items don’t act this way. However, giving a benefit to anyone within earshot of a carrot happily bouncing along seems reasonable!
Congratulations on your new C1 COB! I’ll definitely have to try it out. I’m sure I’ll read through the CAOS walkthrough, too. Now that I understand a decent amount of the codes, it’s fun to see exactly what it can do!
I hope your Christmas was very nice, too! Mine was wonderful, aside from the fact that I picked up an awful virus. I was going to make a new video today, but my voice sounds awful and it hurts to talk. Yet I should have some time for talking more about how bounciness is accomplished with CAOS!