Examples

This section should contain some interesting examples of how things can be done with the scripting language. This shows how create a flag which gives time as a reward instead of point when it is taken. In this case the player gets 10 bonus seconds by taking the flag.

(define my-flag (add-flag 100 100 0 1 0.1))
(time-on-death my-flag 10.0)

And as you can see this trick works for many different types of animated objects like Mr Black's, Babies, Birds, Cacti and even the player themself!

(define my-flag (new-mr-black 100.5 100.5))
(time-on-death my-flag 10.0)

It's possible to start the level with the player permanently under some condition; for instance, to ensure the player begins tiny and with spikes:

(set-modtime (player) *mod-spike* -1.)
(set-modtime (player) *mod-small* -1.)

As Trackballs uses Scheme for its scripting language, mathematical and logical operations are also available, and permit the construction of complicated helper functions. The following code segment demonstrates functions which create two parallel pipes a fixed width apart and create a pair of invisible and instant teleporters.

(define make-pipe-link
  (lambda (x1 y1 x2 y2 z)
    (let* ((rx (- y1 y2))
           (ry (- x2 x1))
           (nrm (* 4 (sqrt (+ (* rx rx) (* ry ry)))))
           (dx (/ rx nrm))
           (dy (/ ry nrm)))
    (pipe (+ x1 dx) (+ y1 dy) (- z 0.1) (+ x2 dx) (+ y2 dy) (- z 0.1) 0.1)
    (pipe (- x1 dx) (- y1 dy) (- z 0.1) (- x2 dx) (- y2 dy) (- z 0.1) 0.1))))

(make-pipe-link 125.0 200.2 130.0 193.5 1.95)
    
(define make-teleport-pair 
  (lambda (x0 y0 x1 y1 r)
    (let ((last-cell 0))
      (smart-trigger x0 y0 r
        (lambda ()
          (if (not (= last-cell 1))
            (let ((px  (+ (get-position-x (player)) (- x1 x0)))
                  (py  (+ (get-position-y (player)) (- y1 y0)))
                  (pz  (get-position-z (player))))
              (set! last-cell 2)
              (set-position (player) px py pz)
              (camera-force-focus px py pz))))
        (lambda () (set! last-cell 0)))
      (smart-trigger x1 y1 r
        (lambda ()
          (if (not (= last-cell 2))
            (let ((px  (+ (get-position-x (player)) (- x0 x1)))
                  (py  (+ (get-position-y (player)) (- y0 y1)))
                  (pz  (get-position-z (player))))
              (set! last-cell 1)
              (set-position (player) px py pz)
              (camera-force-focus px py pz))))
        (lambda () (set! last-cell 0))))))
        
(make-teleport-pair 230 230 10 10 0.5)