Lifestock by Esben Jensen

[raw]
made by Esben Jensen for LD 44 (COMPO)

Get into the lucrative business of trading dots - I mean the cynical life haggling scene.

As a keeper of tiny organisms your job is to prune the herd and give them optimal living conditions. During the day the lifeforms go about their daily business procreating, but at night you can harvest and sell the specimens. Click on the ones you want to sell, you can see where organisms will die and new ones appear depending on your selections. The aim of the game is to make as much GLC (Gross Life Currency) as possible. Oh and theres carnivorous entities as well, maybe they can be useful in your scheme - but most likely not.

Lifestock_small.png

I didn't have time to add instructions or a tutorial, so here is an overview:

Green circles represent living organisms. Organisms will die and spawn according to the following rules: An empty (red) circle will spawn a new organism if it has exactly 3 living (green) neighbours. A living (green) circle will survive to the next round if it has 2 or 3 living neighbours. In all other cases living circles will die and turn red.

The game is divided into 3 day cycles and 3 night cycles. During the day cycles the simulation will run on it's own. During the night cycles the player can sell any organisms. Select a green circle to see what the effect will be if you sell it. The aim of the game is to keep the colony alive for as long as possible, and also to sell of as many organisms as possible. The final score will be the amount of organisms you have sold.

The predators may intervene in your plans in unexpected ways, but add to your total earnings. (Also they are kind of buggy and unfinished) ;)

The game is based on a mathematical simulation / algorithm called Game of Life: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GameofLife

Ratings

Given 16🗳️ 5🗨️

Feedback

Sodaro
29. Apr 2019 · 10:11 UTC
I like the visuals and the theme interpretation of "Lifestock"! One complaint is that I didn't know how to score points, I lost and gained points without really knowing why! Anyways, it was a neat game!
leary93
29. Apr 2019 · 10:40 UTC
It's missing a couplet of things like menu, small tutorial (though it becomes clear quite fast) and some more audio, but besides that it's a cute small adaptation on the Game of Life and could keep you busy quite a while
kuviman
29. Apr 2019 · 13:17 UTC
Game of Life? Cool I guess, bit it's really hard to figure out what you need to do to increase your profit.
Memel06
29. Apr 2019 · 14:14 UTC
I was really confused at the start, there was no clue to what to do to play

after a bit I got it by myself and the concept under is really nice!

With a better positioning of UI, some graphic love and a bit of clearness it can be the perfect game to play in dead times, very mobile friendly too.
BadRAM
29. Apr 2019 · 23:43 UTC
cool puzle game, I got a score of 1668. the first time I sold, my volume was up and the beeps were quite startling. very smart interpretation of the theme.
DEGLIS
29. Apr 2019 · 23:45 UTC
I love this one. An interactive/farming version of Conway's Game of Life is such an awesome idea. I was confused at first, but once I got it, the game was fascinating. The only thing I think the game needs is some sort of win state. The game just sorta goes on and on, and it's very difficult to lose unless it's on purpose or you don't know what you're doing. Maybe 'get 100 profit' or 'maintain this amount of life' or something.
cogcomp
03. May 2019 · 18:19 UTC
Imaginative idea to make a game (with a plot!) out of Conway's game of life. Takes a while to figure out the system :-)