Fall (bird)

The fall of the game cycles for birds: the wings flap hard, the legs dangle loose and the beak hangs open, looping every half second for as long as a game has the bird falling through the air.

A cartoon person and a dog floating above the grass, arms flapping hard, mouth open.

Use it in a cartoon Open it in the block editor The pack file (JSON)

What it is for

Fall (bird) is the fall of the nine game cycles, written for the bird set: a game plays it the instant the bird is falling through the air, flapping hard rather than rising through Jump (bird, in place)'s own fall phase. It loops every half second, twice as fast as the upright set's own Fall, for as long as the drop lasts.

The principle it shows: overlapping action

The wings flap on a quarter-second cycle, opposite each other, while the legs dangle on their own half-second rhythm, also opposite each other. Two different speeds running on different limbs at once, rather than one shared timing for the whole body, is what keeps the fall from reading as a single stiff flail.

The program, line by line

settings: h = 540, leg = 0.05
when it starts
  show the side view
  look scared
  set left arm -100, right arm 100, left leg 16, right leg 16, left foot 6, right foot 6, head 6, mouth 0.4, dy (-0.02*h)
  sin wave on left arm · every 0.25 s · amp -34
  sin wave on right arm · every 0.25 s · amp 34
  sin wave on left leg · every 0.5 s · amp 8
  sin wave on right leg · every 0.5 s · amp 8 · phase 3.141592653589793
  sin wave on tail · every 0.25 s · amp 10

show the side view — the move is drawn in profile.
look scared — the face changes to its scared expression for as long as the move plays.
set left arm -100, right arm 100, left leg 16, right leg 16, left foot 6, right foot 6, head 6, mouth 0.4, dy (-0.02*h) — the base falling pose: wings thrown wide, legs loose, the beak open, the body lifted slightly to leave room for the flapping.
sin wave on left arm · every 0.25 s · amp -34, sin wave on right arm · every 0.25 s · amp 34 — both wings flap hard, opposite each other, the fastest rhythm in the move.
sin wave on left leg · every 0.5 s · amp 8, sin wave on right leg · every 0.5 s · amp 8 · phase 3.14 — both legs dangle and kick a little, half the wings' speed, opposite each other.
sin wave on tail · every 0.25 s · amp 10 — the tail whips at the same fast rhythm as the wings.

Try this

Flap the left wing every 0.1 seconds instead of 0.25. The fall reads as a frantic, out-of-control tumble rather than a controlled drop.
In the program: wave · every 0.25 → 0.1
Throw the head back 20 degrees instead of 6. The bird's whole posture reads as far more alarmed as it falls.
In the program: set · to.part:head 6 → 20

How it differs from Jump (bird, in place) and Fall

Jump (bird, in place) has its own brief fall phase built into a fixed arc toward a landing; this Fall is the open-ended loop a game reaches for once the drop's length is not yet known. Fall is the same idea for the upright set, kicking with two-bone legs rather than flapping wings.

Works on

Worked out by the build: it plays the move in the engine on each body and checks what moves on screen. Nobody types this table.
Body	Moves?	What moves
2 legs (a person)	yes	whole body, turns, head, arms, legs
4 legs (a dog)	yes	whole body, head, front legs, back legs, tail, ears
no legs (the monster with no legs)	yes	whole body, turns, arms, tail

c4c:beh:cycle_fall_bird · version 1.0.0 · c4c-free · by Jabbertoon