Message #358

From: Jesse Thompson <jesset@gmail.com>
Subject: More ideas
Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 02:13:16 -0800

Say I do like that "spin dragging" concept. Much like Google Earth. :)

Here are some feature proposals that capture my imagination based on that…

• Lock spin.. you get it spinning, enable this, and it keeps spinning even
while you click cubies to solve things
• spinning controls.. perhaps some rudder-style panel to control spin
velocity? I’m sure you’re using some internal variables to define the spin.
Such controls would simply tweak those values.
• Wander.. imagine the spin variables smoothly changing over time, giving
you unique views, changing up the gimbals? Combine this with a constant
"solve" / "randomize" / "repeat" loop and you’ve put together one hell of a
screensaver! Perhaps the wandering behavior could have another control
panel of some kind.
• W dimention spin variable.. hard to define with the standard spin/drag of
course, but with the advent of lock -> ( rudders || wander ) mapping it to
mouse movements would not be nessessary. It would be fairly intriguing to
see that green hyperface peek in from time to time! :)

I do have a reason for such odd requests besides making the puzzle into a
lava lamp. I’ve found that as fun as the speed game of "ctrl-1 (random
scramble one move) -> guess how to undo the move" is, it is even more
interesting with the hypercube spinning. Except of course that to try a
solution makes the cube stop spinning. For me the visualization of solving a
moving cube is quite intriguing, and even helps in some way my brain to
grasp the dimentionality of it all. My occipital lobe gets real time
examples of which cubie stickers are "adjacent" to which and why.

Thoughts?

If I get flustered enough to remember how to code in Java (it certainly
helps to be tweaking a live app, man I hate swing’s inconsistancies ;) would
you accept a patch?


How was everybody’s Christmas? :)