2770: Tapetum Lucidum
| Tapetum Lucidum |
 Title text: Using a reflective wall in a game to give one shot two chances to hit is called a double-tapetum lucidum. |
Explanation
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This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Created by BILL NYE'S CAT - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon. If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks. |
The title text refers to "tapetum lucidum" and uses "double tap" in the way that online games, memes, and films refer to shooting something twice in rapid succession to ensure its demise. This phrase is famously[actual citation needed] used in the film "Zombieland," and is the subtitle of the 2019 "Zombieland: Double Tap" sequel.
Transcript
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This transcript is incomplete. Please help editing it! Thanks. |
- Ship 1: Cats have a shiny layer behind their retina called the tapetum lucidum.
- SFX: Pew pew pew
- Ship 1: After light passes through the retina, this layer reflects it back through a second time.
- SFX: Pew pew
- [Ship 1 defeats Ship 2.]
- Ship 1: This extra bounce gives photons another chance to interact with the retinal cells...
- SFX: BOOM!
- [Bill Nye, in a labcoat, at a computer.]
- Bill Nye: ...improving their night vision! Isn't science cool?
- Caption: There's something extra infuriating about losing online games to Bill Nye.
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Added possibility of XPilot as inspiration, as a different branch of "triangular ships in 2D worlds" from Asteroids, which is a single-player PvE with no static walls or rebounding shots. The shots from xpilot ships can, if the map is set to do so, bounce off walls. Or be distorted by gravity, so aren't lasers. (Or maybe they can be, but it's been decades since I played it and development moves on!) But I'm sure the ecosystem of clone-games arising from both these inspirations (and other predecessors to both/between their respective releases) is nigh on uncatalogued so who knows if Randall's depicting some actual specific release or just a memetic interloper that just has the right narrative features for this particular comic's "message". 172.70.85.169 12:56, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
- Lasers are distorted by gravity. If we are talking about black holes, at least. -- Hkmaly (talk) 20:54, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
- (Technically lasers aren't distorted. The space they pass through is. ;) )
- Not as much as physical things. I too was an XPilot player/hoster, a few decades ago now. Ah, nostalgia...
- The "bullets" could be fired into a cluster of gravity-blocks and whip around like mad until they timed-out or managed to escape from whatever 'random' side their chaotic paths led them to. Great fun to include such features when editing maps (adding detailing and fine-tuning with a text editor to the conversion of some interesting image to the map format, often obtained via netpbm piping and a bit of other automatic/manual editing), especially with shields a disabled feature so as to make it a risky proposition to enter combat in close proximity (and a rather desperate escape-route, if piled up between walls).
- Or set your map with huge time-to-die (bullets, drifting mines, etc), a high number of wall bounces allowed and skew the pickup populations with many multiple spread-shooters (front and rear) and let the players create a 'bullet soup' situation oh so easily! 141.101.99.98 22:40, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
- Not sure about xpilot, but these must be bullets, or burst of say plasma/energised particles, as laser beams would go from ship to wall of target (almost) instantaneously.RIIW - Ponder it (talk) 16:19, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
Come on, Randall- Tapetum Ludum was right there! SaturnVI (talk) 11:49, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/10/18/zombieland-rules-full-list-columbus-official-and-deleted-scenes This is one of many possible references for the "double tap" Zombieland quote and annotation noting its use as title in the sequel. (talk)
- "Double-tap", by that name but in various subtly different forms (that yet still count upon two shots being made from a single aiming), goes back at least to SOE training manuals in WW2. Zombieland clearly just quotes common parlance, just like Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle wouldn't be considered the source of the phrase "Full Throttle". 172.70.90.101 19:42, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
- I agree, I've known the term "Double Tap" since long before Zombieland came out, and I seriously question the idea that it's where it's best known, except among people young enough not to have heard it before. I don't think it was even used that much, it was just one of the rules he lists at the beginning. It only gained significance by being put in the title of the sequel. (And first thing I think of for "Full Throttle" is the 90s LucasArts adventure game) :) Out of interest I browsed the quotes on IMDb to find the quote to use as a citation, but nobody found it interesting enough to submit (although EXPLAINING the rule is in there). NiceGuy1 (talk) 03:43, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
is making the transcript this verbose productive? is it supposed to be a guide to fully recreate the image if it's not loading on your end? --172.70.114.127 10:57, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
- Yes, it should be this verbose. It is meant for the visually impaired. 172.70.134.227 14:16, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
- I disagree. If I was blind, this much text would annoy me, especially if I found out how simple the comic actually is. For example, it's ridiculous to specify that the ships are isosceles triangles, "triangles" is enough. "A video game field with two triangular ships, one firing green lasers bouncing off walls at the other" should be roughly sufficient to start with, come on! There's no reason to get so overly specific, those of us who can see aren't looking at all those details, why should the visually impaired be forced to? NiceGuy1 (talk) 03:43, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
- You must be fun at parties 172.70.38.126 00:29, 12 May 2023 (UTC)
- Agree completely. Will simplify. Jkshapiro (talk) 16:23, 14 April 2024 (UTC)
- I disagree. If I was blind, this much text would annoy me, especially if I found out how simple the comic actually is. For example, it's ridiculous to specify that the ships are isosceles triangles, "triangles" is enough. "A video game field with two triangular ships, one firing green lasers bouncing off walls at the other" should be roughly sufficient to start with, come on! There's no reason to get so overly specific, those of us who can see aren't looking at all those details, why should the visually impaired be forced to? NiceGuy1 (talk) 03:43, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
Too much spam was found on the explanation page. This makes it very difficult to tell which text is spam. ClassicalGames (talk) 08:27, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
