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Umihara Kawase => Sayonara Umihara Kawase => Topic started by: sol-alpha on May 05, 2016, 12:06:51 PM

Title: Understanding the Traversal Mechanics of Sayonara Umihara Kawase
Post by: sol-alpha on May 05, 2016, 12:06:51 PM
(old video has been removed)

Here is the revised one: https://youtu.be/BelfE5AxQwA

I expect criticism which I don't mind because I may have applied certain physical laws wrong or just didn't finish explaining things well or correctly. I made the video because this is how I was able to get through the game in the first place when I realised that I could apply physics in the game. I'm sure this could help people who think this game is a platformer like Super Mario but don't know how to get past certain things.

When I get the time I'll upload another video which was from Super Mario Maker when I was playing that months before the Steam version of Sayonara Umihara Kawase because I was applying physics in that game too by making an Automatic Mario stage using Newton's First Law of Motion.

Edit: I meant to state, I was applying physics to Sayonara Umihara Kawase from January of this year when I started playing it. It took me until now to make this video explaining the mechanics of the game since the game got relisted on Steam thanks to Degigames. Otherwise, how am I gonna help get more people to play the game?

I'm sure you guys already knew this stuff about the mechanics for Umihara Kawase anyway since as I mention in the video, it's mainly for beginners or people who are stuck.
Edit: (The mechanics I am referring to are Newton's Laws of Motion, Hooke's Law, Pendulum Motion, Simple Harmonic Motion and force vectors.)

I didn't find out that the creator intently made the game with physics in mind until I was just checking to make sure when I was making the video yesterday.

http://www.usgamer.net/articles/indie-before-it-was-cool-the-umihara-kawase-story

Quote from: US gamer articleYou could even argue that physics are the whole point of the game. Certainly that's where Sakai's passions would seem lie; during our interview, the one time his reserved, quiet exterior cracked to reveal a spark of bright-eyed enthusiasm came when I mentioned Umihara Kawase's complex grappling mechanics.

"First of all, I'm good at making complex game systems," he says. "I designed the game myself, and I did it in a way where I could use my ability to come up with a complex game system. I built the game design around that skill.

Despite the intricacy of Umihara Kawase's design, Sakai feels his work went largely unnoticed. "A group of core fans and people who were interested in programming really praised the game," he recollects with evident disappointment. "But I feel like, in general, there weren't that many people out there who noticed the physics."


Edit: I have discovered demonstrations of the related physics on YouTube which is detailed in this post here: (click the link) http://kawasefan.net/forum/index.php?topic=57.msg774#msg774

Edit 2: I have posted a transcript of the video which can be found at this link: http://kawasefan.net/forum/index.php?topic=57.msg826#msg826
Title: Re: Understanding the Traversal Mechanics of Sayonara Umihara Kawase
Post by: sol-alpha on May 06, 2016, 12:24:57 AM
If there's really no problem with the video, I want to put it up on steam in the guide page. http://steamcommunity.com/app/378750/guides/
I do understand it may need more than 1 viewing to fully grasp it since I have to explain Newton's Laws of Motion, Hooke's Law, Pendulum Motion, Force Vectors, Simple Harmonic Motion, Kinetic and Potential energy etc

Edit: I'm thinking of removing the music used in the explanations with Umihara Kawase tracks since I had recorded those earlier which was going to be planned for something else.

The only other thing I can think of is changing the timing of the free-body diagram at the pendulum motion part because it seems jarring for it to appear suddenly while explaining forces.

Last one I remember is that I should add a centre when I did the graph depicting potential energy and kinetic energy incase people aren't reading and don't notice the arrows are line to when Umihara swings to the other side.

Any other comments would be helpful.
Title: Re: Understanding the Traversal Mechanics of Sayonara Umihara Kawase
Post by: sol-alpha on May 06, 2016, 08:28:55 AM
I have made my edits and will have the new version uploaded after 10 hours. (Can't do it now.)
It's annoying when you have crap internet because of where you live.
Title: Re: Understanding the Traversal Mechanics of Sayonara Umihara Kawase
Post by: sol-alpha on May 06, 2016, 07:19:14 PM
The new revised version of my video has been put up.

https://youtu.be/BelfE5AxQwA

Because I had no feedback from anyone, I just went through it and tried to explain as much as possible to make it clear for people. I am going to put this up on the guides for Steam now.
Title: Re: Understanding the Traversal Mechanics of Sayonara Umihara Kawase
Post by: KawaseFan on May 07, 2016, 05:55:07 AM
Sorry I hadn't watched until now - by the time I had a chance to watch it, you were uploading the new version.  Anyway, I think you've done a good job with it; definitely something that would be helpful for newer players, as you've mentioned.
Title: Re: Understanding the Traversal Mechanics of Sayonara Umihara Kawase
Post by: sol-alpha on May 07, 2016, 06:42:28 AM
Quote from: KawaseFan on May 07, 2016, 05:55:07 AM
Sorry I hadn't watched until now - by the time I had a chance to watch it, you were uploading the new version.  Anyway, I think you've done a good job with it; definitely something that would be helpful for newer players, as you've mentioned.

Thanks. The differences between this and the old version was , there was much less music during the explanations and I had this music playing instead https://youtu.be/4cOYxrPjq7E
because I've been playing the game Melty Blood on Steam and that beat is very rhythmic that I wanted to listen to that while reading the explanations.
However, I wanted to avoid having the video taken down (although it'd be unlikely) so I just recorded the tracks from the sound menu in Sayonara Umihara Kawase.

Another thing in the old video was I didn't have much diagrams or detailed diagrams. So I went to fix it up just acting as though it is like a physics presentation that I needed to have things explained very clearly for the general audience incase they aren't following what  I am saying.

I may have been rushing to want feedback because this video explanation was something that hasn't been done (I tried searching around and even looked on here if it wasn't done already) and it clearly explains why this game is so niche because as the creator of the game mentioned in that article that not many of his fans noticed the underlying physics in the game.
Title: Re: Understanding the Traversal Mechanics of Sayonara Umihara Kawase
Post by: sol-alpha on May 11, 2016, 07:11:28 AM
If anyone was interested. This was that Super Mario Maker stage I mentioned when I was trying to check what physics I could do. This was when Super Mario Maker launched in 2015 before I played Sayonara Umihara Kawase in January 2016 on Steam.

https://youtu.be/ZYPmaKQGufw

Edit: I forgot to mention, this was based off stages in Super Mario Maker called Automatic Mario where you usually don't press a button and Mario just goes for a ride. However most I saw had Mario riding a moving platform while things would bump into him sometimes.

That's when I went to test Newton's first law of Motion and after I saw that it worked, I then made an automatic Mario stage out of it.

Note: So the only times I did press a button is when I had to go through the pipes. That's all, everything else was moving Mario.
Title: Re: Understanding the Traversal Mechanics of Sayonara Umihara Kawase
Post by: KawaseFan on May 11, 2016, 11:08:45 AM
That's pretty cool!

That reminds me, I should get Super Mario Maker.
Title: Re: Understanding the Traversal Mechanics of Sayonara Umihara Kawase
Post by: sol-alpha on May 11, 2016, 12:14:19 PM
Quote from: KawaseFan on May 11, 2016, 11:08:45 AM
That's pretty cool!

That reminds me, I should get Super Mario Maker.

Thanks but, you'll get tired of Automatic Mario stages easily. There are a few good ones but, then they get boring because everyone jumps on the bandwagon to make one because they were the most popular thing at launch that having the most stars "likes" to your stage gets it on the top 10 or whatever of stages worldwide. (I just want to say maps instead of stages because of using the map editor in Warcraft III)

So this map I made only got like 66 stars which sounds like a lot but, I remember at launch the top worldwide stage which was an automatic mario by someone from france had I'm sure it had ~300,000 stars. I made other maps I liked better but, they could never get as many stars as 66, highest is in the 20s. I think it's because they are stages that are either challenging or difficult. That's all I felt like doing when I was making stages, the thing is you have to get people to "star" your map otherwise if it's unpopular (usually zero stars), Nintendo remove it after sometime to save on cloud storage I guess. (Your maps are still saved onto your Wii U, you may have to edit them later on if you want to reupload them.)

I made a Mega man stage that was very-like Mega man with regards to the platforming, (remember that there are custom skins so you can play mega man or pikachu or that babymetal j-pop band thing for some reason, etc.)

I made stages that were suppose to be a theme like one called dungeon escape, highlighting the first one as an ARPG even though it wasn't. The idea was you go down a pipe to a dungeon and you kill enemies to rescue people who would be in the "?" boxes since you can get mushrooms out that have a random skin, so you end up transforming to that other character during the game and continue on. You keep going through each dungeon until you beat the boss and then you have to escape by jumping through platforms that are the kind that fall down once you touch them but I decided to make it simple so you are less likely to fail. You escape the dungeon and then you see certain stuff happen and, if you hit blocks before you grab the flag at the end that it is suppose to hint what the message is at the end you would see. (So I was trying to tell a story with limited means sort of like how people go nuts about the dark souls games because of the "so much lore" which can only be found from exploring so it has to be interpreted about what happened in this place , etc.)

Then I made 2 maps based off of Battletoads (NES), one was the Rat Race stage where you had to run down frantically to disarm a bomb before the rat you race reaches it. Only downside was that the lack of verticality in Mario Maker maps meant they were smaller in scale.
The 2nd map was me using the name Dungeon Escape 2: Boo's Wrath which acted like Battletoads in the sense you had to run from something like in stage 11 (the stage before the final boss) to avoid getting killed and escape.

I then made an underwater map which had the difficulty of a Battletoads or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game from the NES that touching spikes would kill you.

Last one to mention, I made a puzzle map called Puzzle Escape: 2 Doors 2 Answers (I didn't mean to make it sound like a Zero Escape 999 game.) So it was literally a puzzle game, you had to figure out how to get out and you could get stuck in the very first move you make that you had to restart.

I could go on and on. Anyway, I stopped making maps at one point and when I came back to it months later because of updates to the game, for example they put in checkpoints finally, so I remade some of the difficult maps with a checkpoint added in to make it easier for people to finish. (You could only put 1 checkpoint per above ground/underground section.)

Then another update later on was Keys, they put in keys finally. This meant killing an enemy would drop a key so you could open a door. For Dungeon Escape, I had to make invisible blocks you had to find to hit so that a green shell would appear so you could break open a wall to get to the next cell.

Then other updates occurred that I lost track of, so I haven't been back to that game for a while.

However, I saw that Automatic Mario stages were no longer popular at the time I checked. They got replaced in popularity by.... I think it was stages where people drew very detailed things like pokemon or made stages where you can make music so they usually made songs to game's themes. I tried to make a music stage but it was so difficult figuring out the music blocks notes.

Edit: I didn't bother checking this out until now. https://supermariomakerbookmark.nintendo.net/pickup

Basically it's an advanced search feature for finding stages on Super Mario Maker. In case you don't like playing random ones.

Just searching through it more, basically you can bookmark maps you find online if you logged in with your NNID and then those bookmarked stages will appear in-game when the Wii U connects online so you can play them.

Title: Re: Understanding the Traversal Mechanics of Sayonara Umihara Kawase
Post by: KawaseFan on May 12, 2016, 11:26:53 AM
It sounds like you made some really interesting stages.  I hope I'm able to think of a few decent ideas.

Thanks for the link, that will be very useful.
Title: Re: Understanding the Traversal Mechanics of Sayonara Umihara Kawase
Post by: sol-alpha on May 12, 2016, 11:51:29 AM
Quote from: KawaseFan on May 12, 2016, 11:26:53 AM
It sounds like you made some really interesting stages.  I hope I'm able to think of a few decent ideas.

Thanks for the link, that will be very useful.

I thought that there'd be a search function where you could at least find something by typing the name but it's only got categories to choose from that you can search by which is disappointing.

Here's my profile on that site which has all the maps I made assuming anyone wanted to look at them and use the bookmark function to play it in-game on their Wii U.

https://supermariomakerbookmark.nintendo.net/profile/sol-alpha?type=posted

I'm thinking of maybe getting back into super mario maker after seeing how my maps had progressed so far with regards to stars. It seems you need at least 1 star on a map to keep it from getting removed because I haven't seen anything get removed since November when I was last on. I think I can make a maximum of 30 maps at the moment since that correlates with the medals earned which is obtained by getting stars. Since there is 10 medals in total, I'm sure the maximum number of stages you can upload would be 100 at that point. Oh, it's listed in the cheats section of gamefaqs. You start with 10 to upload but can max it at 100 stages that you can upload.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/wii-u/805618-super-mario-maker/cheats

Anyway, I have so many games to play at the moment along with other commitments, if I can get the time I will probably make some maps again. They did keep adding new stuff to allow for that to occur.
Title: Re: Understanding the Traversal Mechanics of Sayonara Umihara Kawase
Post by: sol-alpha on May 13, 2016, 06:50:04 PM
After looking at all my vids in the YouTube playlist I posted in the Sayonara video thread. I can say with certainty this video helped me improve my skill with Sayonara Umihara Kawase because, back in January I only applied some physics I could remember but not all.

I knew Newton's Laws of Motion but I didn't remember everything to do with pendulum motion. I had forgotten about Hooke's law so I didn't notice that being applied either seeing the fishing hook as a spring.

When I revised my physics and made this video, everything became much clearer as my skill with traversals became much better as seen in newer videos on my playlist compared to my older ones. (For example, look at stage 29 to stage 19 and stage 33 which I posted in the Sayonara video thread.)

The only thing I've forgotten is stage layouts so I forgot things I did to get to places quicker. This is usually referring to objects out of sight that I can't see but can reach with the hook if I know it's there.
Title: Re: Understanding the Traversal Mechanics of Sayonara Umihara Kawase
Post by: sol-alpha on May 16, 2016, 10:37:31 PM
I'm just copying/pasting this (with some corrections) from the thread I made in the Umihara Kawase Shun Field Progression thread in case no one ever looks there.

I mentioned there that I couldn't use my video I made here to apply the same things for Umihara Kawase and Umihara Kawase Shun because I thought the physics felt different. What is most likely the case for why the physics feels different is due to the elasticity coefficient in Hooke's Law.

The easiest example to compare is when you stick the fishing hook to the ground and run off, when you let go of the d-pad the fishing hook drags you back. I noticed in Kawase/Shun it takes you back faster compared to Sayonara.

I probably didn't need to come up with an estimation, just applying theory. According to Wikipedia when using F = -kx, F is the restoring force which is what would pull Umihara back to where the spring is at equilibrium (as in x = 0, or its neutral position when no force is acting upon it.)

What's probably not being stated clearly is that F is a force vector so it should have an arrow on top of F, this is why F would have a negative value because it is going the opposite direction of the spring being pulled.

Assuming the unit measurement of F is in newtons which is kg.m/s^2, without sweating the details, we just assume that a bigger force means Umihara will go back to equilibrium position faster if a force with a high value acts on her.

As long as I don't get this wrong, remember that force is proportional to distance of the spring. With F = -kx, if we set x as a constant value and have the k-value approaching zero, then F will also approach zero because it is proportional.
Likewise if k is approaching infinity, then F will approach infinity by proportionality.

So in short, because I think Umihara Kawase moves back faster in the example I mentioned for both Umihara Kawase/Shun compared to Sayonara, this means the k-value is larger in Umihara Kawase/Shun compared to Sayonara.
Which means the spring is more rigid. Umihara has to apply a larger force to extend the spring. When that happens, the restoring force will occur and pull Umihara back but, as I said, because I noticed she moves faster in Shun from the above example. It means that the force being applied is larger compared to in Sayonara.

I could be all wrong but, this is the best possible reason to explain why I think the physics feels different in the older Kawase games because the elasticity of the spring is different.

Edit: Okay, I just tested it in all 3 games on steam.

Umihara Kawase: I put the hook on the ground, I run to the right as much as possible and then let go off the d-pad. Umihara ends up running left just past the equilibrium position (position of x = 0, the centre, where the hook is.)

Umihara Kawase Shun: I put the hook on the ground, I run to the right as much as possible and then let go off the d-pad. It looks like Umihara ends up running to the exact position on the opposite side. (As in position x = a to x = -a where 'a' is the maximum she can stretch the hook)

Sayonara Umihara Kawase: I put the hook on the ground, I run to the right as much as possible and then let go off the d-pad. Umihara ends up slowing down to a stop on the right side of the equilibrium position. (She never ended up on the other side.)

So by rank of elasticity, Sayonara Umihara Kawase has the most elastic hook. Umihara Kawase Shun has the most rigid hook and the Umihara Kawase (game) has elasticity in-between those two.

If it's not clear enough, in Sayonara Umihara Kawase, she doesn't arrive back to the centre or past to the other side because she doesn't apply that large a force to pull the spring, meaning the spring is very elastic meaning you don't need much strength to pull it.
Title: Re: Understanding the Traversal Mechanics of Sayonara Umihara Kawase
Post by: sol-alpha on May 17, 2016, 02:53:45 AM
I've gone nuts. Here, I went to test a few things and uploaded it to YouTube. I didn't spend time going in depth so I'll just post what was in the description.

https://youtu.be/_X0_5w59-Tw

Description:
This is just testing the elasticity in all 3 Umihara Kawase games as I am trying to ascertain the different physics in each game.

I am hypothesising that the difference is due to the elasticity coefficient in Hooke's Law such that I came to the conclusion that the fishing hook (characterised as a spring) is most rigid in Umihara Kawase Shun, while it is most elastic in Sayonara Umihara Kawase, and while it is in-between those two for Umihara Kawase (game).

The other difference that I noticed is that Umihara Kawase in Sayonara Umihara Kawase stops when you let go of the d-pad causing friction to slow her down whereas in the other two games, she doesn't stop when you let go of the d-pad hence causing her to continue moving more in comparison until she slows to a halt.

I tried checking the periodicity of the springs with regards to simple harmonic motion to see if the elasticity coefficient had an effect on the periodicity however I haven't come to a conclusion to determine if it has an effect on the periodicity.

---------

I couldn't come to a conclusion because it is probably a combination of those things. I mentioned I can't do the slingshot because it's too risky, the reason being is that you don't stop moving when you land in Umihara Kawase/Shun, so I have to make sure there is a wall to stop me. Whereas in Sayonara I can do it without worry because I know I'll stop easily.

Then there is the thing I mentioned with running off while having the hook in the ground, in Sayonara, when you let go of the d-pad, she does stop and the hook doesn't pull her far so she slows down very quickly. Is it because of friction or is it that the band is more elastic or a combination of both?
Hence why I compared it to the others and you see she gets pulled more easily to the other side (Kawase/Shun) but again, I don't know if it's because of there being less friction in that case (in Shun), or more force is being applied because of the spring being more rigid (in Shun).

I then went to test how easy she gets airborne in Sayonara compared to the other games but I don't think that can help me come to a conclusion on anything.

Same thing for periodicity (Simple Harmonic Motion), I don't think that has much of an effect to tell if the spring is more rigid/elastic because I haven't looked up to check if periodicity is affected by the elasticity coefficient.

That's all I could come up with. I am pretty tired at the moment which is why I can't think clearly. I've at least shown some different factors that shows some differences in the physics for the Umihara Kawase games.
Title: Re: Understanding the Traversal Mechanics of Sayonara Umihara Kawase
Post by: sol-alpha on May 18, 2016, 11:03:13 AM
Going off-topic KawaseFan, here's a video I just saw to show you the kind of creativity you can come up with for Super Mario Maker.
Again, this is recent so it has all the new bells and whistles that I didn't get at launch like checkpoints and enemies holding keys.

https://youtu.be/gERS4Uxmd7k (Just added in one without the commentary so you can hear things clearly)

Super Mario Maker bookmark for that stage: https://supermariomakerbookmark.nintendo.net/courses/C662-0000-023A-620F
Title: Re: Understanding the Traversal Mechanics of Sayonara Umihara Kawase
Post by: KawaseFan on May 19, 2016, 11:27:13 AM
That's pretty interesting stuff.
Title: Re: Understanding the Traversal Mechanics of Sayonara Umihara Kawase
Post by: sol-alpha on May 24, 2016, 02:48:27 AM
I have to post about this because I just love it.

QuoteDemonstrations in Physics was an educational science series produced in Australia by ABC Television in 1969. The series was hosted by American scientist Julius Sumner Miller, who demonstrated experiments involving various disciplines in the world of physics.

The series was also released in the United States under the title Science Demonstrations.

This program was a series of 45 15 (or so) minute shows on various topics in physics, organized into 3 units: Mechanics, Heat and Temperature/Toys, and Waves and Sound/Electricity and Magnetism.

The YouTube channel is here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbdjjTZBHNSgjzuJQqH5-pw

There are 45 fifteen-minute videos in the channel and the host talks about and does demonstrations of physics. Trust me, it is very fun to watch. I would have been watching this a lot as a kid. This is the equivalent of seeing magician's tricks.

Related to the things I discussed in the traversal mechanics video are:

Lesson 2 - Newton's First Law of Motion - Demonstrations in Physics
https://youtu.be/Za3DGUEpW2U

Lesson 3 - Newton's Second Law of Motion - Demonstrations in Physics
https://youtu.be/AFwbcWIUwLQ

Lesson 4 - Newton's Third Law of Motion - Demonstrations in Physics
https://youtu.be/hvX_mWdpsfI

Lesson 5 - Energy and Momentum - Demonstrations in Physics
https://youtu.be/4dZI0gf35BU

Lesson 7 - The Simple Pendulum, Oscillating Things - Demonstrations in Physics
https://youtu.be/h_eR7FJ_vkM

Title: Re: Understanding the Traversal Mechanics of Sayonara Umihara Kawase
Post by: sol-alpha on July 07, 2016, 11:36:58 AM
I may as well post this here too. I finally got criticism for my video! (on Steam) The person said he/she would have preferred if I just had text with images/gifs to accompany the explanation because he/she hated reading subtitles. I didn't want to do that though because I would have to spend more time, so instead I just posted a transcription on my Steam guide and I may as well put it here too for any non-english readers so they can try using machine translation (google translate etc) to try to read the text/subtitles of the video.

Transcript:

Understanding the traversal mechanics of Sayonara Umihara Kawase

Video created by sol-alpha a.k.a. ggx2ac

The aim of this video is to apply Newton's Laws of motion, Pendulum motion, Hooke's Law and force vectors to assist in understanding the mechanics behind the game to get through obstacles that may seem impossible.

Scenario 1: You fall into a gap that you cannot seem to jump over.

Solution: To get across, you can increase your velocity to get over the gap.

Now for the explanation of Newton's Laws and force vectors.
First, I set the fishing hook to the ground. I then press up for a moment to extend the fishing line.
I then run to the left of the fishing line and stop. As I press down, the fishing line retracts and pulls Umihara towards the right.

According to Newton's Third Law of Motion:
When one body exerts a force on a second body, the second body simultaneously exerts a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction on the first body.

Hence, the first body is Umihara Kawase. And the second body is the fishing hook. For why the fishing hook moves Umihara I will go into more detail later. I must run right in the instant I start moving as I have to go from a state of rest to a state of momentum.

As my velocity goes to the right and acceleration is positive and increasing in that direction from pulling the fishing line, my velocity will increase.

This is due to Newton's Second Law of Motion:
The vector sum of the forces on an object is equal to the mass of that object multiplied by the
acceleration vector of the object. F = ma

I jump over the first gap. I will now explain Newton's first Law of Motion and Force Vectors

Newton's First Law of Motion:
When viewed in an inertial reference frame, an object either remains at rest or continues to move at a constant velocity, unless acted upon by a force.

The scenario here is that it is possible to have a constant velocity which is explained by applying Force Vectors. We first draw a free-body diagram as such. There are 3 known forces acting on
Umihara Kawase. First, we look at the forces applied by gravity and the normal force. The normal force is perpendicular to the surface of contact. The force exerted by the floor prevents Umihara from falling due to gravity. In this case, the forces cancel out.

Because they are equal and opposite in magnitude and direction. The remaining known force is the applied force which is unaffected by the other force vectors due to being perpendicular to them. The force which is unknown is friction. If there was friction, as Umihara is running, the friction would have a vector going to the left which would slow down Umihara.

I do not know if a frictional force is applied on flat surfaces like this one in the game. Umihara can slow down when running up ramps, so frictional forces may apply there. To conclude, this explains that Umihara is currently running at a constant velocity. It will not change unless a force
is exerted onto her. I jump once more. And make it across the gap.

Traversal via Hooke's Law and Pendulum Motion

What you are seeing right now is an application of Hooke's Law it is characterised by the force
needed to extend or compress a spring by some distance. The formula is F = -kx, where 'F' is the force of the mass attached to the free end of the spring, 'k' is the spring constant where a
small positive value means it is elastic and a large 'k' value means the spring is rigid.

The 'x' value is the displacement of the spring, usually written as x - x_0 where x is the spring's
'relaxed' state/value and x_0 is the current position of the spring. When you press down, Umihara compresses the 'spring' exerting a force that is proportional to the current length of the
spring. The longer the length, the greater the force that needs to be applied. This should look
familiar.

Because Hooke's law is being applied here, because the fishing hook is characterised as a spring, the force exerted by Umihara changes the displacement of the spring by it's elasticity.
Moving on.

Next, we have pendulum motion. It is difficult to simulate a pendulum because the oscillations (going up and down) from the 'spring' affect the motion. If we press left/right to swing side by side, we can reduce the oscillations and simulate "Simple Harmonic Motion".

Simple Harmonic Motion is a periodic motion where the restoring force is proportional to the
displacement and acts in the direction opposite of that displacement. In this case, Umihara is
the restoring force as she accelerates back to the centre position where the displacement is zero. Simple Harmonic Motion is a motion that obeys Hooke's Law as it occured earlier where oscillations were going up and down that a spring also uses Simple Harmonic Motion.

Going back to pendulum motion, the forces acting on a pendulum are the tensional forces which are in the direction along the fishing line, towards the fishing hook at all times. Forces from gravity and the mass of the object act directly downwards, at all times. Because the forces aren't equal in magnitude and direction they will not cancel each other out and cause Umihara to accelerate increasingly towards the centre and then accelerate in the opposite direction when moving to the other end from the centre.

To put this another way in terms of energy Umihara is at the left end of the pendulum, her velocity is at zero due to the displacement from the centre of the pendulum. (Maximum velocity occurs at the centre)
Acceleration will take effect and increase in direction towards the centre. Her potential (stored) energy is converted to kinetic energy which is the energy it has due to motion, which is
affected by mass and speed.

As Umihara goes past the centre, her kinetic energy will will decrease and potential energy will increase. This is due to acceleration going towards the opposite direction and slowing her down.
Keep in mind this diagram utilises Conservation of momentum. As long as no external forces act upon Umihara, Momentum will be conserved. Also, the symbols and energy states are
flipped in pendulum motion for going in the opposite direction.

Now to apply both Hooke's Law and Pendulum motion. Once I have gone past the centre, I
pressed down and compressed the 'spring', my acceleration to the right wasn't large and was starting to slow me down so pressing down accelerated me upwards, this would not be cancelled
by the accelerating force of the pendulum motion.

As shown here, I pressed down to compress the spring and then let go of the hook before I accelerated past the centre.This combined the acceleration going up and to the right giving the result shown.

Here's another example for your convenience. ...and another.

To summarise: Utilising forces from all these physical laws will increase your velocity and allow you get get past difficult obstacles.

Now, some actual examples without explanation, to see in action all the things you have learned
becoming applied.

Stage 17

Stage 17

Stage 7

Method 1

Method 2

Method 1

Method 2

All physics related information have been sourced from Wikipedia

The game played here was Sayonara Umihara Kawase and can be found on Steam for PC (and
Nintendo 3DS and Playstation Vita)