~☆~ Nekolibrium ~☆~ by Chris Dirkis

[raw]
made by Chris Dirkis for Ludum Dare 49 (COMPO)

Nekolibrium 猫リブリアム

explore ecosystems. balance species. bring the worlds to equilibrium.

you may attempt each world at your leisure. combat the inherent imbalance in the ecosystem.

2021-10-03_14-48-17.png

(do not fret if you find yourself caught on world 4. all the worlds are available to you, always)

(with many thanks to https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/AFXju94oCRKhhcG7k/the-2021-less-wrong-darwin-game for the concept)

Ratings

Overall 174th 3.682⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Fun 455th 2.818⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 53th 4.045⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Theme 21th 4.364⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 202th 3.636⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Humor 180th 3.05⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Mood 272th 3.214⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Given 17🗳️ 18🗨️

Feedback

Re-Mar
03. Oct 2021 · 12:45 UTC
very cute
minidavid
04. Oct 2021 · 02:24 UTC
unique
khaotom
04. Oct 2021 · 02:25 UTC
Cats play an important role in the stability of many worlds. I appreciate your spreading this knowledge. :cat:
nekowei
04. Oct 2021 · 02:26 UTC
good idea! statistic simulation is always about stablility.

cute cat image!
binary_coder
04. Oct 2021 · 02:27 UTC
Very cool concept, and really fits the theme well! Wouldn't have thought of something like this, but it makes sense!
the neon shark
04. Oct 2021 · 02:29 UTC
I do enjoy this sort of simulation. I feel like the user interface could be more polished for this experience since it is the bulk of the game's focus. The graph view was spot on, but the other panels were very large and sparse for the data they actually contained. Clever idea!
ErikU
04. Oct 2021 · 02:34 UTC
Nice aesthetic and interesting concept! I'll be honest, I didn't quite understand how the values mapped to changes in the population. It seemed success was close if the lines got jagged, indication interaction between the species, but it never lead to an intuition of what to tweak to get success. Ended up getting all levels except for 4 with a little trial and error, and then 4 after realizing I could use the scroll wheel to rapidly try values, haha. Nice job executing on your idea!
fakefirefly
04. Oct 2021 · 02:36 UTC
I like the idea of balancing an ecosystem and the UI/color scheme was very nice to look at. The animals sprites were very cute.

It does feel like reading the linked 'Darwin Game' article was necessary to know what was going on.

It feels more like an interactive design doc for a game.
the.jahn
04. Oct 2021 · 05:48 UTC
Adorable color palette complimenting a very unique game concept for the theme! With some thought you can kind of see how to strategically balance things out ahead of time, but it doesn't always go as planned which fits 'unstable' quite nicely. The graphics are super cute.

Sometimes graphs don't update which leaves no real visual feedback for anything internal having changed. I thought it was broken for a bit but I fiddled with the numbers until it worked again.

All in all, an original charming gameplay experience. :smile_cat:
freeworld
04. Oct 2021 · 06:47 UTC
Great color palette and sprite art! The game fits the theme well and is very unique.
It was often hard for me to figure out which stats result in which consequences unfortunately, even after reading the text it felt like I was guessing and hoping for the best more often than not.
I want to know what an armored cat looks like :D
DzejPi
04. Oct 2021 · 06:59 UTC
This is a very original take on the theme. It reminded me of NetLogo simulations we did in University. I loved how the graphs rendered - very satisfying! And absolutely excellent choice of colors and sprites - it looks great!
Great entry!
LDJam user 261036
04. Oct 2021 · 15:31 UTC
i love the graphics, especially the animal sprites and the palette. i would've never thought of mixing this kind of simulation with the theme "unstable" but it works really well lol, props for coming up with something that unique
Trexxak
04. Oct 2021 · 21:51 UTC
Awesome concept! I played with the idea of using websites as a games medium myself, so I'm glad I've got to see your realization!
Had a lot of fun playing and could see the games future potential!

Very much a one-of-a-kind situation, this game is! :D
farouchelark
04. Oct 2021 · 23:59 UTC
I love the graphics, color palette and cohesive mood of the game and it does such a unique job of incorporating the theme. It never quite felt intuitive to me in terms of game play, I was definitely guessing most of the time but the game is absolutely adorable.
BinaryPrinciple
05. Oct 2021 · 01:28 UTC
It's a solid game, but I couldn't grasp it at first, I feel like I need a tutorial.
Ghoulean
05. Oct 2021 · 01:29 UTC
Very cute game! I love the mathematical modeling behind the concept. Just a minor QoL suggestion, I would like to edit all my cats and view the graph without needing to scroll. I can do this comfortably when I only have 1 cat but when I have 2 or more it gets a little annoying.
candlesan
05. Oct 2021 · 01:51 UTC
This is a very unique and interesting game. Like you're working with a black box and you control the inputs and you're trying to get the outputs but you need to imagine what's going on inside the box to solve the puzzle. Very cool.
AnnaBella T
06. Oct 2021 · 20:50 UTC
very interesting, I liked the many species and the dynamic graphs
rjhelms
11. Oct 2021 · 01:53 UTC
I had a kind of similar idea (based around the chaos theory stuff w/ bifurcation charts) when I was brainstorming - but you did this way better than I could have!

I wasn't able to solve all the puzzles but I had a ton of fun with this. The aesthetic is great, and it was a lot of fun experimenting w/ the different variables.