Cool idea, I liked the art and the the puzzles were actually quite tricky at times, or maybe I'm just burnt out from this game jam haha. Anyways nice job!

wow!! cellular automata are super fascinating and the way you incorporated them into a puzzle game is really cool. also thanks for making the "undo" so forgiving ^^

Extremely interesting!
I wish I had come up with something using cellular automaton like this game does!

i just learned about this small engine for puzzles, it looks really cool. your game looks really good and it plays well. the puzzles are just right and feels good.

This is pretty fun, it's a bit trial and error but that's okay. Also, this level of visuals in a puzzlescript game is insanely impressive.

Like the art and aesthetic. Nice gameplay loop of seeming too hard, working out the enemy pattern, progressing, then being introduced to new enemies/gameplay features like the angled walls. The undo and reset buttons are a good idea and stop it becoming frustrating.

Really cool game! It's a super original concept, and I love the graphics! Great work all around.

I really like it!!! At first is a bit tricky but once you imagine the next step it gets quite interesting.
I also like the idea to try different routes and define which one works best. Potential replaybility.
Thanks for playing my game! Try the Web5GL version again or download the Win EXE.

And thus to freedom!!

This is a rather likeable puzzle game. Personally to me, it was difficult to remember / predict where the colony would spread next, so I utilized undo-based trial-and-error a lot, but it was still enjoyable to proceed through levels. I think there is a lot of potential with those black/red balls you introduce at the end.

Nitpick: It seems like you record keypresses even after death, so clicking Z tries to revert them before actually unkilling the character - not quite a bug, but a bit annoying nonetheless.

P.S. I learnt that Conway died from your dedication :(

What a cute little game! I've actually never heard of PuzzleScript before, I'm totally going to look into it after finding this. Thank you :D

Great idea! A really unique and fitting take on the theme. I've never been good at predicting Conway's Game of Life, so I resorted to trial and error sometimes. But it was still really satisfying to find the solution! I think the orbs are an interesting mechanic, they remind me of *Baba is You* in a way. You should definitely explore what can be done with them if you decide to make more levels.

I think it was last ldjam theme was "Keep it alive", there were a lot of "game of life" inspired games, but none of those quite hit it like this one, amazing job. It's not really a puzzle because it's difficult to plan ahead, but it does feel like an adventure escaping through this nostalgic monsters, and where the pace works fantasticly. I greatly enjoyed this one, keep the good work!

Wow I'm very impressed. Even as an original concept it's great. But On top of having great individual level design, the concept and matching to the theme is genius!

So cool! Such an interesting idea and executed well.

So cool! Such an interesting idea and executed well.

So cool! Such an interesting idea and executed well.

So cool! Such an interesting idea and executed well.

So cool! Such an interesting idea and executed well.

So cool! Such an interesting idea and executed well.

Just a great game, really nice :)

My previous GD was Cellular Autmoata too:) Nice graphics and very useful U key.

Wow I had not known Conway had died :( Very cool idea making a game based on his game of life.

A minor bug: even after you reset the level, you can still use the undo function to get to previous states.

One thing that struck me was that I was kind of brute-forcing my way through the levels. That's probably because I'm really bad at planning (which is also why I suck at Chess). I wonder how it would feel if you showed some indicators of where the growth will be next round(s), although that would probably fundamentally alter the difficulty of the game.

Man, this idea is inspiring. I sort of want to try and make an XCOM-like based on cellular slime growth now :laughing:

Thanks for the kind words, all!

I was concerned that the Life ruleset would be too complex for players to predict, but I'm glad that people still seem to be getting enjoyment out of the game even when trial-and-error is required. I do wonder if a less chaotic ruleset that still supports oscillators might work better, though that loses the benefits of familiarity that many people have with Conway's Life.

@udo Showing a "warning" on cells about to grow is actually a really good idea, thanks for suggesting it! I would have to try it and see how it feels, but it does seem like it would reduce the time spent in "try moving, oops, undo" cycles without hurting the (occasional) forward planning aspects of the levels, which I think would be a big improvement.

The "undo" feature is actually built into PuzzleScript's engine so I can't take any credit or blame for that part (though I should still be able to fix the bug @eldar called out?). I will, however, defend to the death their decision to have "undo" undo "reset". If anything it's a bug that pressing undo can't take you back to previous levels! :smile:

I will remain stuck in the endless cycles of eterninty. For now. As I will get back to it and try to solve it all. You did really great job and you were able to achieve so much witch such minimalistic thing. Great job!

Clever theme usage in this nice little game, can't remember other use of Cellular Automaton so well blended in a gameplay.

It's very hard to predict patterns but you helped us with a undo button so the fun is not spoiled.

I didn't manage to go beyond level 4, I'm curious if players will start to see moving patterns (Spaceships).

Overall, amazing work!

I was watching your game on PomoTheDog's stream (and then stopped looking at his solving attempts so I could try it myself). I love your use of Game of Life here! And the diagonal walls for breaking the period of the loop were a great addition.

I agree with the other comment that a preview of the next state would help a lot, but I don't know how hard it'll be to do it in Puzzlescript.

I've uploaded a post-compo version 1.1 with various minor fixes, including some suggested by comments here!

* **Cells now show when they are about to grow.**
* **Can no longer store extra "undo" steps after death.**
* Use community patches for level select and smooth scrolling.
* Improved full screen support.
* Closed off some ways to get out of bounds in the final level.
* Fix certain objects being destroyed when you moved into them on certain tiles.
* Improve logic for when simulation audio plays.
* Torches now flicker forebodingly.

As always, if you're rating please use the original compo version.

To everyone who has played the game so far, thank you very much for your support!

I had a great time playing your game! Good mechanical idea, it reminds me of the toys I had when I was a kid where you had to move squares (or rather move the hole that moves the squares) to re-form an image. :smile:

I like how you renew the gameplay by adding mechanics but not too much.

However, in the end I wasn't really thinking but I was more in a logic of "I test, if it doesn't work I come back, I test, if it still doesn't work I come back again before, I test", etc.
So in the end I wasn't really thinking, I was more like a iteration robot, so my experience wasn't very intense. But it was still pleasant!
I liked especially the last level and the end ;)
Thanks a lot for this clean game !

PS : need a nice little music... something that plays notes every time you move ?
I had a little idea that I wanted to show you (with a music chosen randomly in the OpenMPT examples) : basically every time you move, whether it's forward or backward, it moves step by step in the music, and when you finish a level it plays the music at normal speed for a few seconds, as a kind of musical reward.
I made a little video to show you: https://streamable.com/0oxcgw
Maybe it will give you some ideas! :laughing:

Thanks again! :pray:

@matlab Thanks for the feedback and suggestions! I did consider trying to get some music in for the compo, but unfortunately PuzzleScript's audio capabilities are very limited. Playing it dynamically like that is a very neat effect, though, and I'll certainly bear that in mind if I port the game to a different engine!

@ltyrosine The last level actually does explore that idea, yes! If you're interested in checking it out the post-compo build will now let you skip ahead to later levels.

I played post jam version, not being in this LD (failed to submit my game in time, you can check it out on my profile description if you want).

Very nice, I am a sucker for games/programs with these life-like cells, living inside a loop of their rules. Graphics is enjoyable as well.

It's cool that you implemented undo button, and managed to make all these levels.

What is interesting in particular is that most of first 10 levels seemed like they are beyond my intelligence level, but then giving it a few more tries I managed to pass them, and even understand how I did it, congrats on that. But the Pulsating Mass is where I had to give up. I did try manually selecting last level though, what a ride.

Really neat idea to incorporate Game of Life in this way! Complex patterns arising from simple rules - a point this game demonstrates nicely, since even though I knew the rules I had to rely on trial and error a lot : D

Still, a very creative fusion, enjoyed playing it despite not doing very well.