Flowers for Johnny by goffmog

made by goffmog for Ludum Dare 46 (COMPO)

I've played a lot of puzzle/optimization games and I've always wanted to implement Conway's Game of Life just for fun. Seemed like a good time to combine both.

Overall I'm very pleased that I got a compo entry in on time, and with the core loop closed, levels and scores and all those bits that make a game, a game. It doesn't always work out like this!

That said, there are some janky bits in the animation that given more time, I would sort out. First on my list for improvements though would be adding some feedback when you achieve your objectives, or beat your personal best, and of course having the scores persist between sessions.

The "music" is the laziest composition ever but I wanted to be able to tick the music box. Vangelis I am not.

There is some humor lurking too if you know where to look, it's very low key though. The real joke of course is in the source code.

Obligatory tech notes:

Engine: Unity3D Art: Paint.net Music: https://sb.bitsnbites.eu/

There is help in-game on how to play but you may find the example patterns at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27sGameof_Life to be helpful if you get stuck.

Youtube	https://goffmogld46.s3.amazonaws.com/goffmog_ld46_code.zip
Youtube	http://www.goffmog.com/ld46/
Youtube	https://goffmogld46.s3.amazonaws.com/goffmog_ld46_windows.zip
Original URL	https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/flowers-for-johnny

Ratings

Overall	447^th	3.5⭐	26🧑‍⚖️
Fun	485^th	3.333⭐	26🧑‍⚖️
Innovation	340^th	3.521⭐	26🧑‍⚖️
Theme	742^th	3.417⭐	26🧑‍⚖️
Graphics	784^th	3.021⭐	26🧑‍⚖️
Audio	585^th	2.938⭐	26🧑‍⚖️
Humor	659^th	2.444⭐	20🧑‍⚖️
Mood	602^th	3.109⭐	25🧑‍⚖️
Given		17🗳️	20🗨️

Feedback

ubershmekel

20. Apr 2020 · 04:41 UTC

I got stuck on the third level for quite some time until I found a machine that walks the whole board. In general it feels like I'm guessing more than really designing a solution. But it is a pretty cool thing to try and turn the game of life into an actual game.

🎤 goffmog

20. Apr 2020 · 07:48 UTC

Thanks for playing @ubershmekel Part of the intent with the game is that there are multiple solutions to each level, which is why the scoring system is based on seeds used, area covered and turns taken. Trying to find the optimal solution for each score criteria is the actual challenge, rather than beating the levels. So thanks for sharing yours!

All of the solutions are based on common still lifes, oscillators and spaceships that are associated with GoL, in most cases there is a clue in the name of the mission. Perhaps I should have gone as far as including a link to the Wikipedia page since it's only the last level on which you'd have to dig deeper than that to find the optimal solution. But I think you have correctly observed that it's not the strongest of game mechanics.

wizzardMaker

20. Apr 2020 · 15:56 UTC

Funny little puzzle game!

I struggled at first to complete the puzzles, but it made click rather fast and I managed to beat most levels!
I liked how non restrictive the game was. There was no set seed places I had to fullfil to finish a level, that was nice. Looked great how my creation grew

:star:

🎤 goffmog

20. Apr 2020 · 16:32 UTC

Yeah I'm not a fan of restrictions in games where the objective is optimization. You should be able to pass a level with a sub-optimal solution that works and then go back later after you discover new things and improve your scores.

jeremyfa

20. Apr 2020 · 21:56 UTC

Nice mood! I did not manage to get past the third level at the moment, but the chain of reactions is neat!

Itskdog

20. Apr 2020 · 21:57 UTC

Neat little puzzle. Liked the layout and design.

🎤 goffmog

20. Apr 2020 · 22:00 UTC

Thanks @jeremyfa ! For anyone stuck and in need of a hint, look up Conway's Game of Life on Wikipedia and scroll down to the patterns. Some clues are in the names of the levels.

bubul69

20. Apr 2020 · 22:31 UTC

nice Jam Game base on the "Game of life" algo.
very chill and nice to find new way to solve levels

Elbapotsnugg

21. Apr 2020 · 02:00 UTC

Love the concept and the music! I'm so bad with puzzle games, but even if I don't hit the objective, its still fun to see the flowers overtake the entire screen

Lars-Erik

21. Apr 2020 · 22:32 UTC

CGOL! RIP! 😭
First game to get a full 5 overall from me. Great idea!
Couldn't be bothered with level 7 and 8 tho, but might come back some evening. 😁

🎤 goffmog

22. Apr 2020 · 19:15 UTC

Wow thanks @lars-erik that might be my first ever 5-star rating.

Joror

22. Apr 2020 · 22:52 UTC

The Game of Life! Made a challenge for myself and not look up any patterns. Got there in the end. :)
Fun wise it is indeed a bit more 'hard fun' :laughing: (I can imagine people that never have seen the Game of Life would have troubles getting there)

Could have been interesting to throw in a couple of non-traditional blocks for puzzle purposes :) (immortal flowers, dead soil, killer blocks)

Nice and complete neat game! :thumbsup:

🎤 goffmog

23. Apr 2020 · 11:52 UTC

"Type 2 fun" is what I like to call it. Thanks for playing!

Diego Escalante

24. Apr 2020 · 02:09 UTC

You made a puzzle out of Conway's Game of Life, and that is super cool. Never seen something like it before. It's very difficult to wrap your head around the puzzles, but it's a really neat concept. The flower theme is nice and relaxing too.

Baby Dino Herd

24. Apr 2020 · 02:34 UTC

Great take on the Game of Life! This was a really nice and polished way to play around and try to come up with some of the common Game of Life patterns, which I'd never really done before.

Groogy

24. Apr 2020 · 22:33 UTC

I made a lot of really pretty patterns without really understanding how I got them :smile: but I've never really gotten into Game of Life, more than knowing what it is so the puzzles were really hard for me. Cool concept, would have loved more hints than the names, or a bit of more hand holding before level 3 because I just got stuck there.

You do get an high overall rating from be because it's a real neat concept but it wasn't the most fun since I couldn't crack the nut :P

Mcreamer6

27. Apr 2020 · 12:53 UTC

Real cool concept, even if i couldn't get past level 3 :sweat_smile:

Almax

27. Apr 2020 · 13:39 UTC

Beautiful interpretation of the theme. A hint per level would go a long way to helping those who are a little slow on the uptake (like me!). But once it clicked I had a lot of fun!

knason

01. May 2020 · 18:39 UTC

Wow! I got totally lost in this one, I did spend to much time playing it :P. cool concept, good that you had the tutorial! the game was really fun as soon as I understood the basics of it. :)

cheesepencil

08. May 2020 · 02:15 UTC

RIP Conway you left a mark on the gaming world forever. What a fine tribute.

Nobongo

08. May 2020 · 15:43 UTC

This game really surprised me. I was unfamiliar with the game of life when I played so it was mainly a lot of trial and error puzzle solving as I learned how to play. I really had a great time solving the puzzles and seeing how the different patterns would play out. One pattern would get all but one of them, add one flower, now it doesn't work!
This is one of the few games that I actually wanted to play all the way through, and I had fun in the sandbox mode :P
Great job all across the board!

🎤 goffmog

08. May 2020 · 16:18 UTC

Hey @nobongo thanks a lot for the feedback! One of my hopes when making this was to introduce some other devs to GoL and cellular automata in general and their potential for use in games. GoL has appeared a number of times over the years, usually as part of procedural generators and in simulation of things like growth and spread of organisms. X-Com creator Julian Gollop used it in a few of his earlier games which is where I first encountered it.

randomnine

08. May 2020 · 16:38 UTC

I love that you went with a puzzle game based on the Game of Life, and the flower colours are a great twist. Still, it seems pretty tough! I was familiar with a few patterns that work in GoL, but I found it really hard to find solutions.

mineiwik

08. May 2020 · 16:52 UTC

Well done! Nice puzzle game! And the music fits really well.

🎤 goffmog

08. May 2020 · 18:03 UTC

Thanks @randomnine My biggest regret is that I didn't make the board big enough for you to construct a glider gun. That was going to be the objective of the final mission but by the time I got to designing it, it was too late to resize the board thanks to a couple of hacky programming decisions :)

Maxathon

08. May 2020 · 21:36 UTC

This is really great.

Fififox

08. May 2020 · 22:32 UTC

Interesting take on the game of life! I liked the graphics, pretty flowers are always a nice touch! The music was good too, adding few sound effects would have been great. For the gameplay, I've had to think hard to remember how to draw a glider and so on, that made the experience a bit less fun but there's no way to avoid that since it's based on the game of life after all. Overall, interesting idea and good execution!

🎤 goffmog

10. May 2020 · 12:33 UTC

Thanks @fififox, it probably isn't the best fit mechanic for a game jam but the necessity of looking up patterns is part of the "gameplay" - rather like the Zachtronics games on which the scoring philosophy is based. A post-compo version of this would likely include a pdf manual with example patterns.