I'd like to find some "magic numbers" for the classic helicopter game. For example the numbers that determine how fast the helicopter accelerates up and down. Also perhaps the "randomness" of the obstacles (uniformly distributed? Gaussian?). Where can I find these numbers?
p.s. I don't care about the particular platform... Flash on the desktop browser is just as good as some implementation on a mobile device.
Decompile the game to figure them out, but don't use any of their code, I would say the fall rate of an object cannot be copyrighted.
You have to think like a scientist. How would you determine physical constants in the real world if you didn't know them? Observation!
Here's a good example from Super Mario Brothers: http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2007/mariogravity.shtml
If you record video of some controlled experiments, you should be able to plot the curves of a game object's motion in a spreadsheet program, and then you can fit curves to it.
If you are implementing the game itself, put controls inside the game to tweak it while you play the game. Simple pushbuttons with "+" and "-" will do the job. Start playing and tweak the values as you go until it feels right. Also, remember to print the current value on screen. Whey you found the value, paste it into the code and remove the buttons.
The same for choosing the algorithm, make it possible to switch between them during gameplay and experiment until you figure out which option is the one you prefer.
Just try out values and tweak them until it "feels" right.
This is a bad question because this is done by experiment. The game developer was likely tweaking gravity/acceleration and horizontal scroll speed right until he finished the game. You tweak it to suit the difficulty you want the game to be at.
