Monster F

[0xKD]

If I remember correctly, there's a monster that gobbles you up if you stumble a few times/get slow. Could be a great addition. Also the 'F' key to go faster? I don't remember that one though

[basicallydan]

Thanks for the issue :)

The monster does in fact appear eventually. You have to wait until 2000m down before they appear, which I believe is how it works in the original. If you're desperate to be eaten though, feel free - just hit M ;)

As for F, it should work just fine - is it not working for you?

[0xKD]

I don't remember how F used to work and it seems to work intermittently (speeds up for a while then slows down). How does it work? (press once/hold/keep tapping). And yes, the monster appears on pressing M, but I noticed a few issues

• Game slowed down considerably if I spawned too many after travelling in excess of 1000m. Have to test this again.
• Each monster gobbles up different copies of you if more than 1 is spawned. Becomes apparent when they approach from different directions.
• They spew you out and you can continue the game a few times. Expected behaviour?

Not really major issues though.

Nice game btw. +1 for prompt response.

[basicallydan]

Ah, bugger. The slowdown and different copies issues are real issues. That's some good testing :) thanks - I'll sort 'em all out when I get some time!

As for the F speedup/slowdown I put that in because I felt like having F on all the time wasn't quite difficult enough. None of the obstacles are dynamic enough yet, when they become dynamic and move around a bit more I'll make it a permanent speedup.

And lives - well, I felt like it was necessary for keeping the game going since originally monsters spawned quite early. Basically, because of the lack of all the same features as the original I put in a few things to keep it a bit interesting :)

And ta, I appreciate that :D

[0xKD]

Well, that sorts things out. Have a good evening 😄

[basicallydan]

Thanks you too 😄

[fpcorso]

Is the monster still in the game? I tried and could not get him to appear. I went until nearly 10,000M with no appearances and even tried pressing "M" multiple times.

[basicallydan]

@fpcorso This doesn't sound right. It should appear after 2km, I'll have a look later and try to figure out where that bastard is! Sorry man!

Are you looking at this for the game-off by any chance?

[fpcorso]

If it helps, I am using Chrome 40.0.2214.115 (64-bit) on Linux.

[fpcorso]

Also, no for the "game-off" question. I had just stumbled across your repository today. What is the "game-off"?

[basicallydan]

Oh cool, just coincidence then! There's been a lot of traffic for the repo in the last 48 hours because of the official GitHub Game-off, wherein participants are supposed to find an existing game repo and fork it.

Anyway, I'll have a look at this and the bug you raised tonight, very surprising that this is erroring in Chrome :(

[fpcorso]

Ah, I will have to look into the game-off. This repo was actually featured in Versioning (Sitepoint's daily cool finds newsletter) in which they said "Skifree.js [github/basicallydan] is a version of the amazing free skiing game from the early 1990s built in JavaScript. " with a link to the repo.

[basicallydan]

Oh wow, that's nice :) maybe I should subscribe to Sitepoint! All the tech lists I subscribe to are comparatively very dry.

Anyway, on topic: I'm playing now and I'm hitting "M" and the monster is running straight out. Sorry if it's a stupid question but are you, by any chance, hitting Shift + M because I put the M in caps? Because that doesn't work for me. I didn't realise it was case-sensitive. I'll make sure that it isn't, but I'd be interested to know if that's how this happened.

As for the range and his appearance, it seems I deleted that functionality for some reason. I'll add it back in!

[fpcorso]

Hmmm....the issue may be slightly different than I originally thought. I had started pushing M before when I was at 10,000m. I did notice that if I pressed it a lot that the entire game slowed down so I had a hunch that they were being created but outside of frame. So, this time, I sat at the beginning and pressed M a bunch of times and they did start showing up.

The issue appears to be that my character is much faster than them so if I begin to go downward, they quickly fall off screen. Once I stop, they begin to catch up. That is before I even push F. Also, before when I was at 10,000m even when I stopped, I never saw them. So, perhaps, in addition to the speed issue, they may also be spawning near the top of the slope even when I am several thousand meters in.

[basicallydan]

You know, that is it! The monster is too slow. TBH I was assuming if it matched the speed of the player it'd be fine but actually since the monster's speed is the same in every direction, the velocity doesn't work the same as with the player so it ultimately ends up going slower. That'll be it! It makes having the F key to go fast kinda pointless.

Right, I can sort this :)

[geotheory]

The monster is still too slow!