Questions about old games

[johnno56]

Per chance that I may have opened, what is commonly called, a can of worms? Admittedly, I am aware of the inefficiency of using "pixel()' for collision detection, but was stunned to see it run so quickly. Kind of like the "Swan" scenario... From the "outside", a swan seems to glide effortlessly across the pond, but underneath the legs are working furiously....

I am going to have to re-think this collision issue... Are we familiar with the theory of Occam's Razor? "Occam's razor states that the simplest explanation is preferable to one that is more complex. Simple theories are easier to verify. Simple solutions are easier to execute."

I always tend to fall back to the simplest collision method, Axial Aligned Bounding Box. What if the landscape was made up of rectangles of various sizes and assign each rectangle its own "zone"? I am not sure if the Zone command has been used like that before, but surely, it has to be more efficient than checking collisions by using "pixel()"? It would make for a "boxy" looking landscape, but if the overall "style" of the game was more "minimalist", say monochromatic, it might work.

I would like to use the phrase, "thinking outside the box", but 'that' would be too corny, right? Now where did I put my paper and crayons... This will either be fun or a flop... I would prefer fun... lol