LudumData

Biods by daydalus

[raw]
made by daydalus for LD24 (COMPO)
Biods is a "game of life" simulation. Biod populations evolve based on their environment.

You "win" by growing certain populations for each stage. You play by changing the Starvation and Mutation Rates. You can also mutate individual Biods, add food to the map (Right Click) or Drag Biods around.

It's a pretty experimental game. Let me know your thoughts. Thanks!

Made a port of the game for Silverlight that can be played in browser. Note: You must enable to Graphics Acceleration through the Silverlight control panel for the game to run. Also, silverlight port doesn't work on Mac :(

Update: Changed the Windows Install to use Reach Profile, so should work on older graphics cards.

Windows http://daydalus.net/GameDev/Biods/BiodsLD48Reach.zip
Web http://daydalus.net/GameDev/Biods/Web/SilverlightBiods.html
Source https://bitbucket.org/tdonlan/biods/src
Original URL https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-24/?action=preview&uid=7722

Ratings

Coolness 66% 3
Overall 2.40 644
Audio 1.23 596
Fun 1.93 691
Graphics 2.27 612
Humor 2.24 309
Innovation 2.79 395
Mood 1.90 648
Theme 3.67 99

Feedback

馃帳 daydalus
27. Aug 2012 路 01:54 UTC
XNA game - download the zip and run setup.exe to install via Clickonce.

Will be adding a bunch more polish for the jam!

Was lots of fun, my first successful LD48 entry!
馃帳 daydalus
27. Aug 2012 路 02:01 UTC
Not sure where I'm supposed to share the source, but here it is: https://bitbucket.org/tdonlan/biods
Benjamin
28. Aug 2012 路 00:44 UTC
Well it took me some time to understand the game rules. Some explanation panel at the beginning of the game should be added. The simulation have a good visual render, but trying to influence things by just muting the biods is a bit difficult. At the end, I was just waiting for winning conditions to happen with me playing or not.
kevincorrigan
28. Aug 2012 路 00:46 UTC
Sorry, apparently my graphics card is to old to play.
jplur
28. Aug 2012 路 03:12 UTC
Fun and one of the better alife simulations I've seen, great work!
dalbinblue
28. Aug 2012 路 03:19 UTC
I had a difficult time trying to figure out how to influence the game and eventually give up.

Also to kevincorrigan's comment, the issue is likely that the XNA game was compiled in the wrong profile. By default XNA uses a HiDef profile that requires an DX10 or DX11 (can't remember which one) video card to run. If you set the game to the "Reach" profile you lose some things like advanced shader support, but the game will run on a DX9 compatible card. Unfortunately most of the Intel integrated graphics popular on laptops and older cards don't support the HiDef profile.
KHANanaphone
28. Aug 2012 路 05:39 UTC
Couldn't figure out what anything did.
AirRider3
28. Aug 2012 路 13:40 UTC
There's no Mac version.. :(
馃帳 daydalus
28. Aug 2012 路 14:35 UTC
Working on getting a silverlight version up and running this evening. Thanks for playing!
Rialgar
28. Aug 2012 路 15:35 UTC
Please do NOT make games that need to be installed for LD, I do not want to have hundreds of "play once for some minutes" games installed nor have to uninstall every one manually after playing it. (nothing against the game itself)
馃帳 daydalus
28. Aug 2012 路 18:18 UTC
Web version should now be working. Let me know if you have trouble running it (requires Silverlight 5)
Gidaio
29. Aug 2012 路 02:37 UTC
Interesting game. I wouldn't call it 'fun,' but it is interesting.
tigerj
29. Aug 2012 路 02:38 UTC
web is hanging in all my browsers I am running 64bit windows 7, I tried it in ie9-64 and chrome. I have silverlight updated.
tigerj
29. Aug 2012 路 02:41 UTC
It's a good start to a great SIM I hope you push it further post compo
ggiraldez
29. Aug 2012 路 03:02 UTC
UI is confusing. Sometimes the mutate button wouldn't work (don't know if that was intended or not). Also, there's a point when you lose control of the situation completely, due to the exponential reproduction rate. It seems to me that whatever you do the first couple of seconds determines the final outcome.

It's a good simulation engine and fits the theme very well, but for a game, you're not supposed to take control away from the player ;)
S0larCode
30. Aug 2012 路 01:43 UTC
Web version doesn't work :(
benderbinary
30. Aug 2012 路 01:50 UTC
Cannot start silverlight version
Sergey Mohov
30. Aug 2012 路 01:58 UTC
Loading is stuck at 0% and not going anywhere :-(
馃帳 daydalus
30. Aug 2012 路 02:11 UTC
For the silverlight version, have to open up the Silverlight Menu and enable 3D graphical support. I know it sucks, but thats Silverlight for you. Also, the silverlight version wont work on Mac / Linux :(
S0larCode
30. Aug 2012 路 02:27 UTC
It's interesting, but lacks a certain amount of control. It seems as if winning is a random chance caused by the biods. Nice effort, though.
Zed
30. Aug 2012 路 13:15 UTC
I think I'm just REALLY bad at it - I couldn't get past level 1, even after trying several times. Hum.
phren
30. Aug 2012 路 17:56 UTC
I think the buttons didn't always work, had a hard time getting the mutate button to activate. It's very hard to follow what's actually happening, especially since I think sometimes the biods get stuck into a huge clump and you can't really select anything. Our approach on this theme was kinda similar and it's nice to see how you've implemented it. There definitely seems to be a simulation in place but it's just too hard to get an idea of what difference your mutations made.
whilefun
31. Aug 2012 路 01:36 UTC
I can't get the web version running either - windows 7, have silverlight up to date :(
whilefun
31. Aug 2012 路 01:42 UTC
Pretty cool idea. Experimental for sure, but I like your take on the theme. I also really liked all the tiny faces and modes of biods. Good job :)
Kmad
05. Sep 2012 路 20:03 UTC
The web version didn't work for me even after I updated silverlight, it just didn't load. I tried the windows version and that worked fine. Interesting idea, I got through level 1 without knowing what was going on but after that it became more challenging and fun. Cool entry that fits the theme well.
RawBits
16. Sep 2012 路 08:54 UTC
It's hard to figure out what to do and how. I still don't have a clue what is feeding for. They proliferate so fast they populate the screen in a minute.

Can not pud food on an right side area of the screen and they are drawn on the display too.