Change animation speed

Question

I am creating a new "whack-a-mole" style game where the children have to hit the correct numbers in accordance to the question. So far it is going really well, I have a timer, count the right and wrong answers and when the game is started I have a number of divs called "characters" that appear in the container randomly at set times.

I have taken away the "play" button and have replaced it with "easy", "medium" and "hard". When a mode is clicked I want the speed to change. The three button share the class "game_settings"

Here is the code that makes deals with the animation

function randomFromTo(from, to) {
    return Math.floor(Math.random() * (to - from + 1) + from);
}

function scramble() {
    var children = $('#container').children();
    var randomId = randomFromTo(1, children.length);
    moveRandom("char" + randomId);
}

var currentMoving = [];

function moveRandom(id) {
    // If this one's already animating, skip it
    if ($.inArray(id, currentMoving) !== -1) {
        return;
    }

    // Mark this one as animating
    currentMoving.push(id);

    var cPos = $('#container').offset();
    var cHeight = $('#container').height();
    var cWidth = $('#container').width();
    var bWidth = $('#' + id).width();

    var bHeight = $('#' + id).css('top', '395px').fadeIn(100).animate({
        'top': '-55px'
    }, 6000).fadeOut(100);

    maxWidth = cPos.left + cWidth - bWidth;
    minWidth = cPos.left;
    newWidth = randomFromTo(minWidth, maxWidth);

    $('#' + id).css({
        left: newWidth
    }).fadeIn(1000, function () {
        setTimeout(function () {
            $('#' + id).fadeOut(1000);

            // Mark this as no longer animating                
            var ix = $.inArray(id, currentMoving);
            if (ix !== -1) {
                currentMoving.splice(ix, 1);
            }
            window.cont++;
        }, 1000);
    });
}

How would I make it so that these settings change in accordance the the difficulty pressed at the beginning?

Fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/pUwKb/53/

Answer 1

Your buttons do not share the class 'game_ettings', they are inside the div with a class 'game_settings', so the game starts also in case you click between the buttons. modify it like this:

// remove this line
$(".game_settings").find('input').click(

// replace it with...
var AnimationSpeed = 6000;

$(".game_settings").find('input').click(function () {
        // here you could set a different timer value for each variant
        // or simply send the classname to startplay and handle the
        // settings there.
        switch($(this).attr('class')) {
          case 'easy':
            AnimationSpeed = 6000;
            break;
          case 'medium':
            AnimationSpeed = 3000;
            break;
          case 'hard':
            AnimationSpeed = 1000;
            break;
        }
        startplay();
 });

In your timer function remove the line:

$("#btnstart").bind("click", startplay);

And in your function moveRandom you use the AnitmationSpeed:

var bHeight = $('#' + id).css('top', '395px').
              fadeIn(100).animate({'top': '-55px'}, AnimationSpeed).
              fadeOut(100);

You find a working demo here.

Answer 2

What I think you want to do is set the timeInterval according to the game difficulty. This is how I think you might get it to work.

Changes to be made:

html:

//Change
<div class="game_settings">
    <div><input class="easy" type="button" value="Easy"></div>
    <div><input class="medium" type="button" value="Medium"></div>
    <div><input class="hard" type="button" value="Hard"></div>
</div>

//To
<div class="game_settings">
    <div><input class="game-speed" id="easy" type="button" value="Easy"></div>
    <div><input class="game-speed" id="medium" type="button" value="Medium"></div>
    <div><input class="game-speed" id="hard" type="button" value="Hard"></div>
</div>

Sript:

//Change
$(".game_settings").click(function () {
    startplay();
});

//To
$(".game-speed").click(function () {
    startplay($(this).attr('id'));
});


//Change in startPlay()
   startPlay()

   play = setInterval(function () {
        if (window.cont) {
            window.cont--;
            scramble();
        }
    }, 500);



//To
    startplay(speed_check)  // As it is now expecting a variable

    if(speed_check == 'easy'){
        play = setInterval(function () {
            if (window.cont) {
                window.cont--;
                scramble();
            }
        }, 2000);
    }
    else if(speed_check == 'medium'){
        play = setInterval(function () {
            if (window.cont) {
                window.cont--;
                scramble();
            }
        }, 1000);
    }
    else if(speed_check == 'hard'){
        play = setInterval(function () {
            if (window.cont) {
                window.cont--;
                scramble();
            }
        }, 400);
    }
    else{
        play = setInterval(function () {
            if (window.cont) {
                window.cont--;
                scramble();
            }
        }, 1000);
    }

Set the time intervals as you like.

Note: This is just an idea what it should be like. You can ofcourse make it more efficient as you know your code better that anyone else.