Darwinian Monsters
This game is from the old Ludum Dare platform. You can try viewing the original page on Web Archive
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ORANGE SCREEN EFFECT HAPPENS WHEN THE ORIGINAL VERSION IS RESIZED! DO NOT DO IT! THE FIXED VERSION HAS A GRAPHICS CHANGE TO MAKE RESIZING HOPEFULLY UNNEEDED AS WELL AS A FIX THAT WILL PREVENT THE CRASH THAT WAS HAPPENING BEFORE. NOTE THAT RESIZING WILL NOT CAUSE A ZOOM ANY MORE.
Creator: Upright Path
Name: Darwinian Monsters
Competition: Ludum Dare 26
Explanation
You're working on a Darwinian experiment in which you have monsters you've bred are pitted against each other in an underground arena. However, you miscalculated and your monsters turned out stupider than you intended. They have no memories, no notion of what a door is, and can only see what's directly in front of them, and whether there's an opening to either side. As such, to complete your experiement, you must help guide the monsters towards each other, so that they can combat each other and show which breed is best!
Gameplay
The game is a 'Turn Based' puzzle. During each time step, the monsters will decide what to do, then attempt to perform that action. Monsters can perform four actions with these priorities: Fight (If there is a monster directly in front of it), Devour (If there a corpse directly in front of it, which returns a portion of life), Move (Straight forward if the space is open), and Turn (Randomly left or right, or towards only open door to the left or right). Fight interrupts any other actions by the combatants (Meaning if a monster wanted to move forward, but another fights it, it stops).Faster monsters will perform their actions first, and their move actions can interrupt the move actions of other monsters. Once all monsters have performed their actions, been interrupted or died, then the next time step ca begin. Injured monsters have their damage/speed lowered in proportion to their health percentage.
The game goal is to have only one creature of the creatures on the right side be alive at the end. The game is lost when all creatures of that type are dead.
Monsters:
Green: High health, average damage and speed.
Red: Average health, high damage and low speed.
Blue: Average health, average damage and high speed.
Rock-Paper-Scissor: Blue -> Red -> Green -> Blue
UI:
Play/Pause (Toggle)- Performs a single time step (Repeats while Infinity is toggled)/Allows the operation of the levers.
1/Infinity (Toggle)- Pauses the game after the current time step finishes/Continues to perform time steps until pause is pressed.
Levers: The three levers control whether doors (By same color) are open during the next time step. These cannot be used while the game is playing.
Clock: While the dot is in the center, the game is no longer performing actions. While it is rotation actions are being performed.
Issues
The puzzles are randomly generated. This can result in games which cannot be completed (Either won/lost), this is due to not having a check for whether the map is contiguous. Further, there is no way to end the game prematurely which means that these situations require a restart.
For the purposes of win/loss considerations a monster is only considered dead when it's life is at 0 and it's been devoured.
Rock-Paper-Scissor mechanic may result in incorrect values (The result of the computation of for what the RPS difference is can result in a negative number, which will provide the wrong damage multiplier).
Fights happen automatically, meaning that you cannot see the progression of damage.
Creator: Upright Path
Name: Darwinian Monsters
Competition: Ludum Dare 26
Explanation
You're working on a Darwinian experiment in which you have monsters you've bred are pitted against each other in an underground arena. However, you miscalculated and your monsters turned out stupider than you intended. They have no memories, no notion of what a door is, and can only see what's directly in front of them, and whether there's an opening to either side. As such, to complete your experiement, you must help guide the monsters towards each other, so that they can combat each other and show which breed is best!
Gameplay
The game is a 'Turn Based' puzzle. During each time step, the monsters will decide what to do, then attempt to perform that action. Monsters can perform four actions with these priorities: Fight (If there is a monster directly in front of it), Devour (If there a corpse directly in front of it, which returns a portion of life), Move (Straight forward if the space is open), and Turn (Randomly left or right, or towards only open door to the left or right). Fight interrupts any other actions by the combatants (Meaning if a monster wanted to move forward, but another fights it, it stops).Faster monsters will perform their actions first, and their move actions can interrupt the move actions of other monsters. Once all monsters have performed their actions, been interrupted or died, then the next time step ca begin. Injured monsters have their damage/speed lowered in proportion to their health percentage.
The game goal is to have only one creature of the creatures on the right side be alive at the end. The game is lost when all creatures of that type are dead.
Monsters:
Green: High health, average damage and speed.
Red: Average health, high damage and low speed.
Blue: Average health, average damage and high speed.
Rock-Paper-Scissor: Blue -> Red -> Green -> Blue
UI:
Play/Pause (Toggle)- Performs a single time step (Repeats while Infinity is toggled)/Allows the operation of the levers.
1/Infinity (Toggle)- Pauses the game after the current time step finishes/Continues to perform time steps until pause is pressed.
Levers: The three levers control whether doors (By same color) are open during the next time step. These cannot be used while the game is playing.
Clock: While the dot is in the center, the game is no longer performing actions. While it is rotation actions are being performed.
Issues
The puzzles are randomly generated. This can result in games which cannot be completed (Either won/lost), this is due to not having a check for whether the map is contiguous. Further, there is no way to end the game prematurely which means that these situations require a restart.
For the purposes of win/loss considerations a monster is only considered dead when it's life is at 0 and it's been devoured.
Rock-Paper-Scissor mechanic may result in incorrect values (The result of the computation of for what the RPS difference is can result in a negative number, which will provide the wrong damage multiplier).
Fights happen automatically, meaning that you cannot see the progression of damage.