Biome by dreamlogician
Biome is a turn-based strategy game for two players based on Conway's Game of Life (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_Game_of_Life).
The game is played on a grid with empty spaces (white tiles) and blooming spaces (green tiles). Each player controls a set of geomancers (red/blue circles) that can manipulate the terrain around them.
If a geomancer is standing on a tile when it blooms, the geomancer goes "KABLOOM!" and is removed from the game. You win by eliminating all of your opponent's geomancers.
[Controls]
- Click on a geomancer unit to select it.
- Use the arrow keys (or WASD) to move a selected unit. Each unit can only move a limited number of spaces per turn.
- After you have moved a unit, click on the highlighted tiles to flip them. Each unit can only flip a limited number of tiles per turn.
- While moving a unit, click outside the grid to end the movement phase early and switch into flipping mode.
- Deselect all units and click outside the grid to end your turn early.
[More Info]
- At the beginning of your turn, all your units will level up. A unit's current level is indicated by the number of dots on it.
- A unit's level determines the number of tiles it can move, and its range of influence.
- A unit can only flip tiles within its range of influence, and it *can't* flip tiles that are inside the range of an enemy unit.
- At the end of each turn, the "Game of Life" rules will be applied to the grid X times, where X is equal to the combined levels of all units in the game. See the next section for details.
- Green tiles block movement, and can be used to create walls.
- The tiles with a tiny dot in the middle are spawners. To capture a spawner, it must be within range of one of your units and *not* inside the range of any enemy units.
- At the beginning of each turn, a spawner will generate a new unit for the player that controls it. Spawners will not generate a unit if they are occupied or blooming.
[Game of Life Rules]
- An empty tile will only bloom if exactly 3 of its neighboring tiles are blooming.
- A blooming tile will only remain in bloom if 2 or 3 of its neighboring tiles are blooming.
[Game of Life Reference]
http://www.bitstorm.org/gameoflife/
http://pmav.eu/stuff/javascript-game-of-life-v3.1.1/
http://natureofcode.com/book/chapter-7-cellular-automata/
The game is played on a grid with empty spaces (white tiles) and blooming spaces (green tiles). Each player controls a set of geomancers (red/blue circles) that can manipulate the terrain around them.
If a geomancer is standing on a tile when it blooms, the geomancer goes "KABLOOM!" and is removed from the game. You win by eliminating all of your opponent's geomancers.
[Controls]
- Click on a geomancer unit to select it.
- Use the arrow keys (or WASD) to move a selected unit. Each unit can only move a limited number of spaces per turn.
- After you have moved a unit, click on the highlighted tiles to flip them. Each unit can only flip a limited number of tiles per turn.
- While moving a unit, click outside the grid to end the movement phase early and switch into flipping mode.
- Deselect all units and click outside the grid to end your turn early.
[More Info]
- At the beginning of your turn, all your units will level up. A unit's current level is indicated by the number of dots on it.
- A unit's level determines the number of tiles it can move, and its range of influence.
- A unit can only flip tiles within its range of influence, and it *can't* flip tiles that are inside the range of an enemy unit.
- At the end of each turn, the "Game of Life" rules will be applied to the grid X times, where X is equal to the combined levels of all units in the game. See the next section for details.
- Green tiles block movement, and can be used to create walls.
- The tiles with a tiny dot in the middle are spawners. To capture a spawner, it must be within range of one of your units and *not* inside the range of any enemy units.
- At the beginning of each turn, a spawner will generate a new unit for the player that controls it. Spawners will not generate a unit if they are occupied or blooming.
[Game of Life Rules]
- An empty tile will only bloom if exactly 3 of its neighboring tiles are blooming.
- A blooming tile will only remain in bloom if 2 or 3 of its neighboring tiles are blooming.
[Game of Life Reference]
http://www.bitstorm.org/gameoflife/
http://pmav.eu/stuff/javascript-game-of-life-v3.1.1/
http://natureofcode.com/book/chapter-7-cellular-automata/
| Web | http://jameystevenson.com/games/biome |
| Original URL | https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-34/?action=preview&uid=23224 |
Ratings
| Coolness | 57% | 3 |
| Overall(Jam) | 3.17 | 660 |
| Fun(Jam) | 2.71 | 854 |
| Innovation(Jam) | 4.00 | 43 |
| Theme(Jam) | 3.62 | 566 |
Feedback
csanyk
17. Dec 2015 · 05:31 UTC
Really cool way to adapt Life to a playable game. This feels like it could be as deep as Go, but way harder due to the difficulty of humans predicting Life patterns without a tremendous amount of thought and planning.
Si1ver
17. Dec 2015 · 07:54 UTC
I liked it but it's too hard to create sellf-moving pattern that targets enemy geomancers (or probably boimancers).
KaiseanGames
17. Dec 2015 · 20:50 UTC
I really like Conway's Life, but I find the inherent behaviour too difficult to hold in our brains. I've experimented with CGoL but never created something playable that is not difficult.
Xanjos
02. Jan 2016 · 21:33 UTC
Definitely needs some sort of indicator to let you know whose turn it is but I absolutely loved the use of Conway's Game of Life as part of the game's rules and mechanics.
Brightstar
03. Jan 2016 · 00:20 UTC
I like the idea of strategically occupying the spawn points to spawn more pieces.
A-Flat Miner Studios
03. Jan 2016 · 03:19 UTC
Neat idea! Was hard to keep my own geomancers from inadvertent backgrowth... Wanted to create some ships, but didn't last long enough!
Smirnov48
03. Jan 2016 · 09:00 UTC
Nice game! You need AI player.
snowshovelboy
04. Jan 2016 · 05:10 UTC
Shooting gliders is pretty cool.
RockhopperGames
04. Jan 2016 · 16:22 UTC
Definitely takes quite some figuring out. I managed to destroy all of red before I got there, and there didn't seem to be any ending or way to restart that game at that point. I found it very interesting conceptually, though!