LudumData

Conway's Garden of Life by davidsheadgames

[raw]
made by davidsheadgames for Ludum Dare 46 (COMPO)

screenshot.png

It's what it says on the tin, Conway's Game Of Life done in "garden" form.

Done in a rush for Ludum Dare 46: Keep It Alive

No sounds, sorry. :(

Controls:

  • Left mouse - plant and remove crops.

  • R - Reset the stage.

Goals:

  • There is no way to win (though there's definitely a way to lose). Collect as many berries as you can while trying to avoid "wasting" crops.

  • Treat it as a toy more than a game. There's not a huge consequence to losing, really.

  • It is extremely easy to get a berry farm going that just produces live crops forever. Don't worry about it.

  • Crops are only 'wasted' if you pick them up when they are 'dead'. Crops can be revived if there are enough live plants near them.

  • Berries will only form if Conway's plant can sustain in place for 3 days or longer.

Tips: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27sGameofLife#Examplesof_patterns this wikipedia might come in handy ;)

Known bugs:

  • Dead plants will reset to first stage when coming back alive.

Additional resources used:

  • Super Mario 2 font https://www.dafont.com/super-mario-bros-2.font

Notes: This was pretty rushed due to having roughly only 20 hours of the 48 hour jam to make a thing... it shows.

Youtube https://github.com/deadcamper/ludum_dare_46
Youtube https://davidsheadgames.itch.io/conways-garden-of-life
Youtube https://davidsheadgames.itch.io/conways-garden-of-life
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/conways-garden-of-life

Ratings

Overall 777th 3.14⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Fun 837th 2.86⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 626th 3.16⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Theme 407th 3.792⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 604th 3.32⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Humor 783th 2.132⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Mood 881th 2.674⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Given 22🗳️ 21🗨️

Feedback

Norris Eldridge
20. Apr 2020 · 01:37 UTC
At first I did not get this game but I'm not strangely addicted. This does feel like it could be a sort of idle game with the goal really just being to make the numbers go up. Very nice work on this game. I'm really curious what's going on underneath the hood but I definitely want to poke around in game some more first.
thedashdude
20. Apr 2020 · 02:26 UTC
Pretty fun. I think the field could be a bit bigger, as I wanted to get some of the cooler Conway's structures in. I liked the added rules on top of Conway's, so if you feel like revisiting the project I'd suggest making the fruit rules have a little more depth.
sztrovacsek
20. Apr 2020 · 18:45 UTC
Oh, that's a pretty clever one, I really like it! I'd say definitely work on it more once the jam ended. Good job!
axeltherabbit
20. Apr 2020 · 19:38 UTC
A nice classic little game
blobo
22. Apr 2020 · 16:24 UTC
I like the idea! Cool game.
Tesseract
23. Apr 2020 · 00:54 UTC
Hi, I also made a game based on Conway's game of life, but took it in a different direction. I really like the way your game makes me think about GoL in ways I hadn't before - for example, are there any setups where you can live while harvesting everything which lives 3 turns? If you get to a rotating pattern of 3 cells of a 2x2, that works, but can you reach that from a single initial setup while harvesting everything as soon as possible?
jelch
23. Apr 2020 · 18:38 UTC
Nice twist on a classic!
Kent Reese
23. Apr 2020 · 18:51 UTC
Nice way of making a tribute to Conway. I really liked this entry.
niklasriewald
23. Apr 2020 · 19:00 UTC
The combination of Conways game of life with a farming simulator is very interesting, I think this idea has potential if fledged our more fully. Graphics are also very pretty.
🎤 davidsheadgames
26. Apr 2020 · 22:29 UTC
@thedashdude I was worried that limiting the play field would significantly reduce a lot of that, yeah. Initially I was just having a hard time getting it going because I didn't get a proper 'select' graphic working until late game, so I was struggling to use the tinier tiles. I'll try making the play field more adjustable, to open up the play more.

@tesseract Thanks! Yeah, I was playing around a bit with this. Once I fix a particular bug, I think it'll open up a lot more min/max strategies. Depends on where I get time.

@kent-reese Thanks. I didn't actually realize Conway passed away just this month until after the jam; I'm planning to work a tribute page to him into the game itself, as it only seems right.
Nils Liquid Fire
27. Apr 2020 · 11:42 UTC
Wow, what a great idea and what a nice way to honor Conway.
And in addition to that this game is really a lot of fun.
colozz
27. Apr 2020 · 11:53 UTC
Your game is really nice and the game mechanic added to Conway's game of life is fun.

RIP John Conway, he was a mathematician I admired a lot.
marcusnystrand
27. Apr 2020 · 12:00 UTC
I kept it going for a while but then lost it all when investing every seed I had :)

Fun and relaxing game, nice aesthetics too. Well done!
jaywoody
27. Apr 2020 · 17:04 UTC
Cool toy to experiment with and a nice twist on the original version!
A very nice entry even if you said it was made in a rush.
WilloXs
27. Apr 2020 · 19:34 UTC
This is a really cool idea - it's not that gamey but its nice to play around with
polegar
30. Apr 2020 · 16:23 UTC
Amazing idea and great tribute to John Conway. It would have been nice if you had time to add more features to make it more entertaining for the player like music and sounds/graphics effects when you reach a certain number of berries. Anyway great job and I like idle game !
knason
11. May 2020 · 18:27 UTC
omg, someone said relaxing but I was not relaxed at all. :-) but it was quite fun! I made it for 108 days. Good job on the entry!
JoaoG
11. May 2020 · 22:07 UTC
It's a cool short game! Some sound could have made a difference but it works, I played until I collected 200 berries. The art is great and I liked the idea. Good job! Thank you for not giving up to participate, even if you haven't had much time.