Game of Life by GreenAndSubmarine
Game of Life is a so called * 'cellular automaton' *, in which evolution takes place on a two-dimensional orthogonal grid of square cells. Each square can either contain an alive cell or be empty (dead cell).
At the beginning the board (in this instance measuring 50x50 squares = 2500 cells) is randomly populated. The 'seed intensity' parameter defines percentage of alive cells in relation to all possible cells on the board. Default value of 50% means that approximately (there is a probability factor involved) half (that is 1250) cells is alive at the start.
Cellular automaton evolves in steps. Current state directly determines state of a following step. Standard (Conway's) rules of Game of Life describe multiplications and deaths of cells:
- For a square that is * 'alive' *:
- Each cell with one or no neighbors dies,
- Each cell with four or more neighbors dies,
- Each cell with two or three neighbors survives.
- *For a square that is * *'empty' * or * 'dead' * * *
- Each cell with three neighbors becomes alive.
An example of an evolution step:
In this instance, cells are color-coded according to amount of neighbouring cells.
During the course of the game, cells of a chosen colour can be temporarily protected from dying. Not every colour is worth protecting, which results from the Game of Life's rules.
Protection from dying lasts for 12 evolution steps and is not 100% effective. Its strength decreases with each evolution step until reaches 0%. Protection can be turned on for the first time after 20 steps pass (and the color selection panel appears). Turning consecutive protection on is possible after 8 evolution steps.
The aim of the game is to survive at least 250 evolution steps with at least 250 alive cells (10% of the board)
| Youtube | https://greenandsubmarine.com/ludum46 |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/game-of-life-1 |
Ratings
| Overall | 1706th | 3.281⭐ | 18🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 2469th | 2.344⭐ | 18🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 371th | 3.75⭐ | 18🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1245th | 3.656⭐ | 18🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 15🗳️ | 0🗨️ |
RIP John Conway
Ultimately this is a really neat idea, but the gamification doesn't really feel good. I probably would have slowed things down a lot, maybe even made it turn based so the player has a lot more time to think and react to what's going on. This would also open up a lot more opportunities to give the player more control than the rather blunt tool interface currently given.
I know that isn't really in the spirit of Conway's original implementation though, so I suppose your goals here matter a lot.
Anyway, super neat entry!
-What am I asking the player to do? Is it to make decisions on what to protect? That's a lot of data right? How could I make it easier to understand their decisions
-Is it possible to change the pace so that a player could engage with it and understand what's happening?
The game of life was one of the first graphical programming I ever did and I remember it fondly. I've never thought of turning it into a game. Thanks for letting me play!