Biodiversity

[stripwax]

This is my first LOVE project, my first Lua app, and my first ExperimentalGameplayProject entry :-)

Thanks in particular to the helpful folks on irc #love!

This month's Experimental Gameplay Project had a theme of OFFSPRING. My game is a cross between a demonstration of genetics, and a solo puzzle game, and a sandbox, but also with some (small) strategy elements - too few flowers (or too few attractive flowers..) and there aren't enough bees to pollinate the flowers quickly enough before they die... but too many attractive flowers means more bees than you can useful handle, and this has its own (for the player to discover) side effects!

EDIT 10Jun2012:

• Minor updates for compatbility with 0.8.0

EDIT 17Sep2011:

• Minor update to make scoring more fair and take into account plants that are growing but not yet flowered at the end of the level. For example, on the Mutation level, this now includes the genes of the new breed in the final biodiversity score
• Disabled mutation on the Challenge 1 level. It was always supposed to be turned off for that level.

EDIT 16Sep2011:

• fix some edge-cases in audio handler (most likely cause of crashes reported here!)
• Automatically save high scores
• Added highscore save when you exit the free-play level

EDIT 13Sep2011: updated version that fixes a few (gameplay-breaking) bugs:

• Fixes bee motion on systems with fast processors / vsync disabled
• Fixes that mutation was unexpectedly enabled even on levels that say 'mutation disabled'
• Fixes severe pointer problem on systems with screen resolutions significantly larger than 1024x600 (object locations and hotspot tracking should now be totally resolution-independent)
• Adds a particle-like effect for 'Attractiveness' phenotype (although doesn't use LOVE's particle library, which was overkill for this case)
• Adds a 'sandbox-like' testing mode level, with no goal

Download version_20120610 : .LOVE package http://www.beermex.com/Biodiversity/Bio ... 20610.love
For other downloads/files hit the website http://www.beermex.com/Biodiversity

biodiversity.png (45.99 KiB) Viewed 16060 times

(archive: version submitted for Experimental Gameplay Project is still here: http://www.beermex.com/Biodiversity.love
Website: http://www.beermex.com/Biodiversity
)

[appleide]

Interesting.

I got stuck at tutorial 3. How do you make a different flower to both its parents? There's no mutation and all starting flowers seem alike...

[Taehl]

... Another puzzle/sandbox game about plants and genetics? Can't say I expected such a close competitor. Bizarre.

[stripwax]

Interesting.

I got stuck at tutorial 3. How do you make a different flower to both its parents? There's no mutation and all starting flowers seem alike...

It should be possible. Even though the flowers LOOK alike, they should have different genes (combinations of filled in or not-filled-in boxes). By breeding pairs selectively, you should be able to create offspring that have NO filled in (dominant) genes, which will then result in a new/different trait.

If it seems to be truly impossible, then there might be a bug, but I believe every level is doable.

EDIT - I've just replayed through Tutorial 3 and can confirm that it is definitely achievable. Let me know if you need any hints!

[stripwax]

... Another puzzle/sandbox game about plants and genetics? Can't say I expected such a close competitor. Bizarre.

Peculiar! I can honestly say that I didn't research past LOVE projects when entering this month's contest. I'll explore this forum some more and see what other gems are here. Is there a 'best of LOVE' page/poll somewhere? (Happy to go back as far as I can and try them all of course!)

[stripwax]

Given that my website seems down at the moment, here are the additional instructions!
Hold down CTRL to let you move the pointer without moving the bees. This lets you examine flower genes without necessarily sending bees there.
Press v to change screen resolution, f to toggle fullscreen, m to toggle a 'mouse pointer bug workaround' (if you press ctrl and the mouse pointer ends up someplace else you'll need this. Please let me know if that happens to you!!)

[Lap]

I am amazed that these two games were developed in parallel. What a weird niche game to see created twice for Love.

[bartbes]

Reproduction is a lovely subject.

[stripwax]

I am amazed that these two games were developed in parallel. What a weird niche game to see created twice for Love.

The experimental gameplay project encourages niche ideas; I have no idea what the other guy's inspiration was :-)

[Taehl]

My idea was "I wonder if I can make a skeletal object system? Cool, let's test it with a tree. Wow, it works. Hey, if I make each bone get bigger over time in a certain way, I can make it grow! Awesome! Hm, I wonder if I could tweak the tree-generator with a table of parameters - a genetic code, if you will. Yes! Hey, wait, if I could make a way to merge two sets of genes, I could actually breed these plants...".