{"author_link":"\/users\/flying-dog-fish","author_name":"Flying Dog Fish","author_uid":"flying-dog-fish","comments":[],"epoch":1570832606,"event":"LD45","format":"md","ldjam_node_id":175475,"likes":6,"metadata":{"p_key":"137051","p_author":"Flying Dog Fish","p_authorkey":"1122902","p_urlkey":"353327","p_title":"How I really started with nothing","p_cat":"LDJam ","p_event":"LD45","p_time":"1570832606","p_likes":"6","p_comments":"0","p_status":"WAYBACK","us_key":"1122902","us_name":"Flying Dog Fish","us_username":"flying-dog-fish","event_start":"1570147200","event_key":"78","event_name":"Ludum Dare 45"},"node":{"_collation":{"body_sanitizer":"TextUtils::SanitizeHTML via existing importer","event":"LD45","removed_author":false},"_superparent":159347,"_trust":10,"author":122902,"body":"I had real problems with this theme. At first I was glad, as it allowed us to create almost anything at all. In almost any game genre you can already **start with nothing**, like:\n- no money\n- no clothes\n- no inventory items\n- no weapons\n- zero amount of anything\n- no environment.\n\nThis **liberty** proved to be **too much** for me. I really didn't know what kind of game to make. Half of first day was gone and I still got nothing. I almost gave up. Besides, all these implementations didn't sit well with me, they were incomplete, in all of them you **actually start with something**, you always have at least yourself, who is technically not nothing.\n\nThen I got to thinking: what if I take the theme totally literally and actually **start with absolutely nothing**. So I searched high and low and finally an idea struck me out of nowhere: spontaneous creation of matter and antimatter particles in vacuum, which physicists call **pair production**. So the first mechanics of the game were born:\n- click to create both matter and antimatter that fly off in opposite directions\n- if matter hits antimatter, they annihilate each other with a bang\n- if matter hits other matter, they join forces (same goes for antimatter).\n\nThis was all fine and dandy and could be easily programmed and could be made look good, but where was the actual game in that? You would start with nothing and also **end up with nothing**, which admittedly would be a really funny ending, but there wouldn't be much point in playing something like that, now would it? I needed something more. Since time was short I went with it anyway and **finally started** making something.\n\nAfter doing some experimenting it finally hit me: I needed to create an **imbalance**. And what better way was there to create an imbalance than to make the annihilations asymmetrical? Particles and antiparticles would destroy each other regardless of their actual size. So a tiny particle could annihilate a huge antiparticle (and vice versa). This allowed me to make a game about one of the biggest unexplained mysteries of physics: why is the universe apparently made mostly of matter and almost no antimatter, the so called **Baryon Asymmetry**, which logically became the name of my Ludum Dare submission. The game would start a few moments after big bang and the result would be determined after a certain amount of time passed.\n\nBecause playing god with the universe is unpredictable, my game has **five different endings**, which are counted in the end screen. Can you find them all in [Baryon Asymmetry](https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/45\/baryon-asymmetry)?\n\n","comments":1,"comments-timestamp":"2019-10-12T03:23:26Z","created":"2019-10-11T21:40:21Z","files":[],"files-timestamp":0,"id":175475,"love":6,"love-timestamp":"2019-10-12T23:32:45Z","meta":[],"modified":"2019-10-12T23:32:45Z","name":"How I really started with nothing","node-timestamp":"2019-10-12T10:10:14Z","parent":161036,"parents":[1,5,9,159347,161036],"path":"\/events\/ludum-dare\/45\/baryon-asymmetry\/how-i-really-started-with-nothing","published":"2019-10-11T22:23:26Z","scope":"public","slug":"how-i-really-started-with-nothing","subsubtype":"","subtype":"","type":"post","version":528788},"node_metadata":{"n_key":"175475","n_urlkey":"353327","n_parent":"161036","n_path":"\/events\/ludum-dare\/45\/baryon-asymmetry\/how-i-really-started-with-nothing","n_slug":"how-i-really-started-with-nothin","n_type":"post","n_subtype":"","n_subsubtype":"","n_author":"122902","n_created":"1570830021","n_modified":"1570923165","n_version":"528788","n_status":"WAYBACK"},"source_url":"https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/45\/baryon-asymmetry\/how-i-really-started-with-nothing","text":"I had real problems with this theme. At first I was glad, as it allowed us to create almost anything at all. In almost any game genre you can already **start with nothing**, like:\n- no money\n- no clothes\n- no inventory items\n- no weapons\n- zero amount of anything\n- no environment.\n\nThis **liberty** proved to be **too much** for me. I really didn't know what kind of game to make. Half of first day was gone and I still got nothing. I almost gave up. Besides, all these implementations didn't sit well with me, they were incomplete, in all of them you **actually start with something**, you always have at least yourself, who is technically not nothing.\n\nThen I got to thinking: what if I take the theme totally literally and actually **start with absolutely nothing**. So I searched high and low and finally an idea struck me out of nowhere: spontaneous creation of matter and antimatter particles in vacuum, which physicists call **pair production**. So the first mechanics of the game were born:\n- click to create both matter and antimatter that fly off in opposite directions\n- if matter hits antimatter, they annihilate each other with a bang\n- if matter hits other matter, they join forces (same goes for antimatter).\n\nThis was all fine and dandy and could be easily programmed and could be made look good, but where was the actual game in that? You would start with nothing and also **end up with nothing**, which admittedly would be a really funny ending, but there wouldn't be much point in playing something like that, now would it? I needed something more. Since time was short I went with it anyway and **finally started** making something.\n\nAfter doing some experimenting it finally hit me: I needed to create an **imbalance**. And what better way was there to create an imbalance than to make the annihilations asymmetrical? Particles and antiparticles would destroy each other regardless of their actual size. So a tiny particle could annihilate a huge antiparticle (and vice versa). This allowed me to make a game about one of the biggest unexplained mysteries of physics: why is the universe apparently made mostly of matter and almost no antimatter, the so called **Baryon Asymmetry**, which logically became the name of my Ludum Dare submission. The game would start a few moments after big bang and the result would be determined after a certain amount of time passed.\n\nBecause playing god with the universe is unpredictable, my game has **five different endings**, which are counted in the end screen. Can you find them all in [Baryon Asymmetry](https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/45\/baryon-asymmetry)?\n\n","title":"How I really started with nothing","wayback_source":[]}