Petri Dish by johanhelsing

[raw]
made by johanhelsing for Ludum Dare 47 (JAM)

Screenshot 2020-10-05 233351.jpg

Play around in a petri dish with some tiny creatures.

Controls: Left mouse button to drag things, right mouse button to draw loops.

I had a lot of fun making it, hope you have fun playing it :)

It's made according to compo rules... almost. I started and finished one day late. I made everything myself in 48 hours except the font, which is "Quicksand".

I fixed one bug after the deadline where the game would end prematurely.

Ratings

Overall 911th 3.423⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Fun 1024th 3.154⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 348th 3.74⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Theme 1017th 3.404⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 780th 3.577⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Audio 795th 3.14⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Humor 585th 2.977⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Mood 668th 3.5⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Given 20🗳️ 24🗨️

Feedback

theforceluke
06. Oct 2020 · 09:34 UTC
Great little game! Nice dynamics and the little eyes made it seem very organic and lively.
superpatch
06. Oct 2020 · 10:49 UTC
love the concept! I think there's a lot of potential there for a very cute game!
Wevel
06. Oct 2020 · 10:54 UTC
Cool little game. I think it might be interesting if there was a way to break the circles. Also, I'm not quite sure what causes the game over, it sometimes just happens out of nowhere.
🎤 johanhelsing
06. Oct 2020 · 11:02 UTC
Thanks for the kind words everyone! Will play your games later today :)

@wevel: Actually, you can break the circles if you drag very fast. I guess it would have been good with a bit more of a tutorial/intro, though.

The game over appears when you have a monoculture (only one species left), or if the dish gets overpopulated... I put the limit at 300 which is where my machine started to kneel for performance reasons, but I guess I should have set it a bit higher.

The original idea was to make the dish break when overpopulated and have the creatures explode all over the black area of the screen, but I ran out of time.
Hank Ather
06. Oct 2020 · 19:11 UTC
Interesting idea. I have no idea really how to influence the 'battles' to maintain populations, it seems almost random but there has to be some strategy to it... I would have really liked an 'eraser' function!
Noah Kuhn
06. Oct 2020 · 19:13 UTC
This was a fun and very cute game! The audio fit the concept perfectly. I also had trouble figuring out when the game would end but your explanation helps. Good job! :smile:
Jamie simpson
06. Oct 2020 · 19:28 UTC
very original game, I loved the idea and it was executed well, the petri dish felt a bit small but I assume it was intentional. also the sounds where a bit horror game like but it wasn't too bad.
amarillion
06. Oct 2020 · 19:32 UTC
It's a cute little sandbox simulation. By strategically holding reserves of the different species, occasionally staging wars to cull the population, I managed to hold on until 13 generations and 700+ deaths.

You could probably give the game more of a concrete goal by keeping track of a high score, in terms of deaths / generation. But I feel that the score would also be very dependent on the starting position.

I like the creepy background noises, it makes the whole thing very atmospheric.
🎤 johanhelsing
06. Oct 2020 · 19:42 UTC
@hank-ather yeah, it's quite hard, and I wish I'd found some better way of balancing it. Basically you have to make sure that one species never exceeds 50% and regularly battle the two strongest factions against each other.
Sengi
07. Oct 2020 · 17:03 UTC
Great job on catching the right atmosphere! I think half of the deal for me was the audio, this style forever stucked with me from Amanita Design games and this brings me warmth wherever I hear it. Pretty awasemo job on the physics is another half of the deal, I don't think I could make such think in this period of time, respect! ;)
DevParty
08. Oct 2020 · 00:56 UTC
Cool Game!
printablealice
08. Oct 2020 · 01:11 UTC
Pretty fun (and a good lesson on exponential growth)! I found myself playing multiple times. But it's so hard to keep the populations balanced D:

It's a little frustrating that the barrier material never goes away – it takes up space and blocks strategic moves later in the game. Maybe it could degrade after a set amount of time. I agree with @amarillion that high score tracking would let people compete more, even with themselves.

I would've liked the munching/dividing action sounds to be a little more cute and/or squishy to match the aesthetic of the game. The bacteria are so cute with their one little eye!
Wassim
08. Oct 2020 · 16:11 UTC
Very Cool game, I love the physics force impact and it's in the right fun zone, sound effects are funny which is nice :smile:
Toulou
08. Oct 2020 · 16:46 UTC
What a weird game, definitely noteworthy. I love the presentation, the physic works really great. The gameplay is great, I'd love to see a full game with it. You could explore the concept more with more type of cells that have different characteristics.

Overall, good job!
Tomate_Salat
08. Oct 2020 · 19:49 UTC
I really not sure what to tell. Because it is really interessting but also really weired. The audio was nothing I'd enjoy. I was too lazy to mute so I thought I would close the game very early. To my suprise I didn't do it and tried it with "ignoring" the audio. Because you did a really good job on the simulation part and I really wanted to try out different things. Actually I wanted to create an epic battle :D.

It would've been nice if I could set the limit for the creatures. Because I've the feeling that it stopped to early (and I really wanted to have my epic battle). On the other hand that kept me really busy with your game ^^.

I wonder what that game would have looked like if you'd about one week time for it =).
mmiyano
10. Oct 2020 · 23:33 UTC
I liked the physics and concept, but felt it's a bit shallow gameplay wise
PashaLoban
11. Oct 2020 · 16:14 UTC
9 generations and 53 dead Nice
JRevel
24. Oct 2020 · 00:37 UTC
That's a very fun toy to play with ! The game stopped by itself at a moment, I did not understand why, I still had a lot of entities (maybe too much ?)
Overall, great job, the simulation works pretty well !