I have added some new apps to my Web site. One, a bit serious, the other, less so.
The serious one: a technology demonstration, showing that it is not black magic to use a Web camera and try to extract from its feed an estimate of a person’s heart rate and (less reliably) respiratory rate. The measurement is not perfect, of course, but it works surprisingly well at least some of the time.
Meanwhile, I also resurrected an old project of mine, one I initially did in 1993: itself a resurrection of an even older game from back in the heroic 8-bit days. I was inspired by a DOS version on Usenet, itself derived from an earlier X11 version; it became my first “full-featured” Visual C++ project, originally developed for Windows 3.1. A 32-bit version followed two years later, and that was the basis of my current, Web-based reimplementation. I called my version Rubble Rush, to avoid infringing on the original’s (still extant, as far as I know) trademark.
These implementations also showcase how easy it is, using modern JavaScript, to develop solutions with real-time interactivity, also using real-time media streams to boot.
it took me some time to figure out the site mentioned is vttoth.com (rather than spinor.info) – but both apps work quite well! I was unsure about testing the first as at my workplace i have a dim light and keep laptop on the knees in a rocking chair – but nevertheless it seemingly calculates heartbeats perfectly (I had slightly higher than normal rate and this was detected exactly). Breath rate also is seemingly correct when I tried for the second time to keep steadier and counted inhales. Really looks like magic (especially that two parameters are measured simultaneously).
The game is something i never heard of though it looks like fusion of sokoban and digger. After good dozen of attempts I was able to pass the first level. Needless to say I immediately perished miserably in the second one. I wondered for a bit for exact rules to which boulders obey, thinking that probably some kind of programming puzzle could be made for my site. Not sure I got all the details correctly yet, hopefully I can try to experiment with these boulders later without the goal of completing the round…
I wonder where music comes from. When I tried to create some simple games the music and sounds were always a difficult question.
Minor observations. It looks like “Restart” button doesn’t always work (for me it never worked, I reloaded the page). But perhaps it should work when game is over, I don’t know for sure yet. The hero sometimes won’t push the boulder on the first (and second, and third attempt) though there is an empty space behind it. Succeeds eventually but it takes time.
Heh. Thanks for reminding me: the original post had images that linked to my Web site, but I then replaced both because there were some minor visual improvements, and forgot to re-add the links.
The game was originally called Boulder Dash, one of the most famous games of the 8-bit era. However, the title I believe is protected (trade mark) so I just refrained from referencing it.
The tunes I used are royalty-free tunes from Pixabay. Restart Level works only when the game is not paused; it kills your character (1 life lost). It’s to be used if you trap yourself with no escape. And yes, all levels are solvable. But the game is unforgiving, good 1980’s style.