Multimorph

NICe!

Cool! I love any jam game that makes me go _...what the hell is this_? After getting to grips with what was going on though, this was actually really fun! The blob movement kind of reminded me of a game I'm rather fond of, Mushroom 11. My only issue with the game was that I found it stuttered a lot on my machine- I don't know what a good way to fix this would be, maybe running the automata as a compute shader? Though I really don't know how this is working on the back end. I really like cellular automata and this really tickled me. Cool!

whoa, loved the random generation in this, and kind of flow it has. I originally thought I needed to hit space bar, but once I realized I should hold it down I got the hang of it. super cool idea!

@untitled-studios Thanks for your comments. I am glad I could change the "what the hell is this" into a fun experience :D I checked out mushroom 11 and I can see what you mean, looks very cool. Regarding your stutter issue I just uploaded a low-framerate exe which is identical to the other one in all other respects. If you would like to test it out, let me know if it works :) It was my first time working with cellular automata and doing it in pygame was off course not ideal for performance ;) It was cool to learn about them though and use them in a game.

@matt-swieboda Good point, I updated the instruction to say "hold SPACE" in stead of press so I hope this makes it more clear :) I'm glad you liked the "random" generation. I started just playing with cellular automata and thought the movement looked cool but wasn't sure how to make it into a game. In the end I realized this infinite-runner type game would emphasize the weird movement.

My record: score 169, level 13. First time I've ever seen a cellular automaton used like this. Good job!

I enjoyed the main growth mechanic as it tries to pass through the gaps, I would have appreciated abit more mobility though especially in the latter stage of the game, Thanks for sharing.

@shakedimus good improvement, thanks!

pretty good actually, I liked holding space and moving left and right until my laptop sounded like it was about to take off.

Nice! Is that Conway's Game of life or did you create something unique but similar? It looks awesome, especially when you have to squeeze yourself through a tiny gap to progress! Very cool that you managed to turn it into a game. Some of the gaps were quite harsh but I guess that's what you get with random :up:

Some sound/music would be nice, and I think a fullscreen version would look cooler - but nice game as is :)

@ciaranw Damn, that's some highscore ! Good job ! :D I created a similar cellular automata but not exactly the game of life. The movement is actually based on changing the automata rules when you press an arrow key. Indeed the difficulty is not really fair and although I put in a difficulty ramp, there are a lot of random numbers involved making it possible to have really unfair situations. Didn't really have time for sound and music but I think it could really add to the game to have a sound effect when growing and some music to have some added suspense. Regarding the screen size however I was a bit limited as the cellular automata are quite computationally expensive and can take up the whole screen. Since I was using pygame for this it was too slow too increase the screen size much more.

No Mac or HTML build. 😥

@chuckles will fix the html build tomorrow, have not had time. I will tag you when it's up :)

@shakedimus please tag me too when you get an html build up!

Interesting concept ! I think the gameplay could be made a bit more dynamic by increasing the movement speed, currently it is a bit tedious to move around, especially as it's impossible to move in diagonal. But it's so satisfying to see the organism grow, there is definitely potential !

cellular automata go mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

nice game btw

combining what is essential conways game of life and flappy bird, genius, a really simple and clean concept executed perfectly!

Very cool game

I don't know what cellular automata is, so at first sight I was not impressed with what I saw, but when you've mentioned it on the stream where you submitted the game, and then I googled it, I am imressed even more! Actually, this game was hard for me to understand how I should move and what tactics should I use. Should I spend energy after every wall, or when I am small, how to get to the green squares and why I can't get them. And even with all these struggles it felt captivating, I wanted to get higher score and wanted to master the game. I got around 200 points or so, and it was fine, but I do think I didn't crack it completely, didn't master it yet :slight_smile: What I really wanted here though it is two things: music and indication of the cells that can multiply. By playing even with ambient music the gameplay feels so much better. As for the indication - I tried to control the cells that can multiply, I didn't want them to collide with walls, but as I couldn't distinguish them I was sad when all of my cells collided with the wall and the ones that made it to the other side couldn't mulitply.

awesome! :D
Score: 361
Level 19

It's an interesting game, but beyond it's concept it leaves much to be desired. I think, this game could have done with more interesting visuals. Though that might be a product of the way it was made.

This was my best score so far (and on the first try - every other run since then I had worse scores hahaha)

I'm amazed that you've managed to make all your mechanics out of automata rulesets, it was fun noticing the little "gliders" that show up sometimes.

mmmh interesting, a mix between game of life and flappy bird

I played many times but still I cant figured out how play correctly. I allways die soon. But I enjoyed it. I will like music and sound efects (like when it dies, or when it takes the green stuff). Also more colors...like when you pass certains levels, or some color that identify the cells in the middle of the multymorph. Nice work!

Really love how you approached the theme by turning cellular automata into a game. Good stuff!

Those things are definitely tiny little creatures! This is an interesting interpretation of the game jam and I really appreciate the simple, jump right into it game mechanics that any player could figure out.

I think the one thing that made it a little bit difficult for me was that it was hard to tell where the cellular organism was and so I ran into cases where my entire group died pretty quickly even though I thought I had made it through. Once I even though the dot that kept going was the organism? I also had plenty of bar left for the morph generation but by the time I noticed I could use it again my entire organism died :(.

It felt kind of like I wasn't in control in some cases because I didn't know where to move my group, but I think that it is something that could be learned with more play.

Some sound effects even if minimal could've improved the immersion for this this game, and it would be awesome if you could get it working on html5 like you were commenting earlier!

This was an interesting game. I found it hard to determine what I was controlling, and sometimes it felt like my blob was moving, while other times I was just moving a tiny few-pixel thing without controlling the blob.

I really liked idea and it's definitely a unique spin of a genre and jam's theme.

I wonder what else can be made with this concept :thinking: I'll leave it for you to figure out :sunglasses:

Thank you for bringing this game to my stream :)


~XpMonster

Great to see another cellular automata game! (I also have an entry on cellular automata) This is a really original concept. The CA dynamics look graphically interesting. At some point however, I keep running into walls that seem impossible to pass because the holes are too far apart. It would help to have less random hole placement.

Thanks for submitting your game to the stream! If you wanted to watch it again in the future heres the vod of the stream (with a chapter for your game)