Just a post here to say that I am working on games full-time for at least the next couple of weeks, and the time I have to develop my own game projects is basically zero, but I'm not complaining! So what can I talk about, publicly?
I have in fact learned enough in the last week, especially about Box2D (cheers to Mr. Catto), to where I'm realizing that many of the approaches I intuitively took to manipulating objects in my games were somewhat misguided and ham-handed. I owe more than a little thanks to the tutorials at iForce2D.net, and I still haven't exhausted the tutorials that site has on tap.
Basically, moving an object by directly setting its Linear or Angular velocity is for squares, for the birds, for rubes, it's bush league, it's a Gerry, it's beneath you. Move objects by applying forces to them over time, in the case of something you want to push up to its top speed, or by applying impulses, in the case of something you need to hit with the equivalent of a baseball bat.
Same thing with Angular Velocity; the cool kids use Torque. I'm just playing, there are of course many scenarios in which one might need to directly alter the velocity of body, but when you do so you have to be aware that you are in effect taking that body outside the physics simulation and treating it like some dag blasted UFO and in that case why bother with a physics system at all, Einstein?
In any case I hope to be back with more updates to Skeleton Wizard and Solar Trucker in the not-too-distant future.
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