Game Of Live: Biomes/Land generation/changes

[ssilk]

Today this app is free: https://itunes.apple.com/app/id477039315 (From this guy: http://www.oliverfoggin.com/a-quick-sneak-peek/). And I spended some time into it.

Game of Live is a very old cellular automat ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life ). And this app includes also some other algorithms (other rules for birth and survive) and that is very interesting ( http://www.conwaylife.com/wiki/Cellular_automaton ). For example an algorithm called "Corall", which generates "islands" slowly. Or "maze", which genrates landscapes, which looks like a maze. And many more. And when I looked at that, I thought "hey, this looks like a forest slowly changing it's shape. And this looks like an island, which grows.".

Now the idea: How, if we can use these algorithms to generate forest or gain slowly land or separate staggered land/water more clearly. Let the algorithm run slowly, every 30 seconds over all tiles and change them. If this is done in a clever way, the discovered country will change and with it the ways of the biters. Water will shift. Wood grows or dies.

Trees or other fungus with GOL-algorithms:
* In Populous II, one of the 'divine intervention' effects is a fungus that grows according to the rules of the Game of Life.
* The glider pattern ( http://conwaylife.com/wiki/Glider ) moves slowly on some direction and gains new trees. Or - for posioness fauna - we must kill it. And there are hundreds of those patterns, which do different stuff..

Other algorithms: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conways_Sp ... nde_Regeln
* Other algorithms than GOL can be used to slowly let a forest die or create new forests or water life. http://www.conwaylife.com/wiki/Life_without_death
* make many small islands into one big
* slowly dries out a lake (coral)
* we start at a small island and must plant something to gain slowly land (coral or others)
* The "Maze" algorithm could be used to create mine-fields. http://www.conwaylife.com/wiki/Maze
* Change Fauna during night: http://www.conwaylife.com/wiki/Day_%26_Night
* The "Vote" algorithm ( birth at 5, 6, 7, 8, survive at 4, 5, 6, 7, 8) "rounds" the landscape, remove small water and such things. Can have much impact...

We can base the GOL-Algos also on whole chunks (32x32 tiles) and then there are algorithms, which can be used to "distinct" between player and natives country:
First the "walled cities" algorithm (birth at 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, survive at 2, 3, 4, 5 tiles around). Then the borders grow dependend on that very clearly useful to claim the land, run 5-10 iterations are enough. And the "Vote" algorithm ( birth at 5, 6, 7, 8, survive at 4, 5, 6, 7, 8) can then also "round" this, so that "sharp edges" of our country then belongs to the natives and they start to attack it.

It's very complicated to explain, how this can be useful but easy to look. Some of the links above or just try it out, if you have an ipad... or install some of the other simulators... there are some free, if you follow my links.

The idea could be, that - triggered by some events (e. g. discovered a new chunk) - this area begins to be modified by some rule. And the GOL algorithms are so simple that they can be built directly into the game. We need only 4 parameters:
* entities/tiles which triggers "life" on a tile and created when birth
* entities/tiles, which are created/removed, when dying
* which number of surrounding tiles needed to birth
* which number of surrounding tiles needed to die

Optional is the speed, the size of the field, the number of iterations, the minimum change rate before stopping ... and performance: well... if computed one tile per tick this should be not measurable in the overall performance but can have high impact to the gameplay. And that can be enormous creative, because some of the patterns aren't discovered yet or if you use a pattern you can add gameplay by the form of a forest. I never heard of a game doing that.

[slpwnd]

Hmm, Game Of Life - triggers some good memories:) Otherwise VERY imaginative idea;)

[ssilk]

http://yournameinlife.com

[cpy]

Hmm growing biter bases, tress, landscape change, this could bring nice challenge to the game. But i bet developers have tons of work already. Saw vid on czech gaming site and they said they almost gave up on this game, but i hope it's much better now.

[DerivePi]

So, for a multiplayer game where one member has died, you can resurrect him by launching a "Genesis Project" at his gravesite. The downside would be that he'd have no memory of who he is and the fallout from the device would be the "Game of Life" gone wild until complete entropy makes the planet unlivable.