Game of Life- as an adventure game puzzle?

Sparky · Wed 18/04/2007 23:26:42

What sorts of neat adventure game puzzles could be designed involving Life (or a variation)? Post your ideas here, hopefully this will spawn some neat AGS puzzles.
If you're unfamiliar with the game, there's some info and an applet here. Be forewarned, it's kind of addictive.

How could one integrate it into the game world? As a tile floor? As Myst-style GUI puzzle? As physical creatures or plants that behave like the cells in Life? It would be nice to have it not feel horribly contrived, but this may be a tall order.

An LED Life board from Dropout Design

P.S.- there's a (poorly scripted) AGS version of Life in the works, it'll be up for download later today in this thread.

m0ds · Wed 18/04/2007 23:37:41

I think this Game Of Life would make a much better adventure...

Magic · Wed 18/04/2007 23:42:27

Quote from: m0ds on Wed 18/04/2007 23:37:41
I think this Game Of Life would make a much better adventure...

Sierra actually came close with their turn-based "life" game Jones in the Fast Lane. I'd love to see a remake of it, though The Sims has done much of it already.

Rui 'Trovatore' Pires · Thu 19/04/2007 00:00:31

Sparky: ADOM, an RPG, had the "game of life" for cultivating crops. If you wanted to plant something, the plants behaved as the "lights" in the game of life.

Other than that... nothing else to say.

Steel Drummer · Thu 19/04/2007 00:29:20

Quote from: m0ds on Wed 18/04/2007 23:37:41
I think this Game Of Life would make a much better adventure...

That's exactly what I thought of when I read the thread title.

m0ds · Thu 19/04/2007 00:40:06

Hehehe yep, classic board-game. I used to love just driving the car piece of that game around the town for no real reason. I didn't like the game so much

Sparky, I need a bit more an explanation! I don't understand this at all... I've had a go (drawing Mods seemed to keep it "alive" for quite a while) but I don't see how a puzzle could become of this... There's no winning or losing so how could you win/lose a puzzle in an adventure game of this nature? Heh...confusing

Nikolas · Thu 19/04/2007 00:49:35

The only thing I could see (taken from music ideas), would be to make a puzzle based on simmilar rules, or taken a random pattern after created and using it somehow (maybe to guess the next pattern?). Or using it to deduct some kind of form from the image created, or creating an algorithm to simmilar rules for a code or something to be broken, or make a new language with the 20 first patterns created, or maybe each cell could represent a differnet number which could be used somehow, for form, for codes, for number of BGs, whataver...

There goes my daily creativity (you know I believe that every day you get 2 pints of creativity to use. I just wasted mine, for tomorrow.

)

MrColossal · Thu 19/04/2007 01:04:05

http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~cs8k-cyu/flash/la2/

for inspiration here's a shooter using the game of life rules for your bullets and the badguys

Radiant · Thu 19/04/2007 01:45:39

The problem is that such puzzles are trivial to people who know what they're about, and totally incomprehensible to people who don't.

Sparky · Thu 19/04/2007 04:15:43

One wacky possibility is to use Life as a system of divination... obtain a card with a 4x4 pattern on it, bring it to the fortune teller, and receive a prediction based on how the pattern plays out. Sort of like tea leaves or the I Ching.
Or perhaps the player could track down patterns in various places in the environment, enter them on a life board, and use the resulting patterns to unlock items or areas...
Another idea is that the board could be a set of plantlike organisms that periodically go dormant. When they are dormant, the player can pick them up and move them around. Supose the player needs 10 of them in another area of the game. He could arrange the few that exist naturally in such a way as to maximize the number that are produced...
Hmm, I wonder what other possibilities there are?

OK, here is the humble and slow AGS version of life:
zip, compiled plus source

Quote from: m0ds on Thu 19/04/2007 00:40:06Sparky, I need a bit more an explanation! I don't understand this at all... I've had a go (drawing Mods seemed to keep it "alive" for quite a while) but I don't see how a puzzle could become of this... There's no winning or losing so how could you win/lose a puzzle in an adventure game of this nature? Heh...confusing

Mods- if you're new to the game, to get started quickly, click on one of the random buttons (3, 4, or 5) and then click on 'Start'. Or draw something from this list of figures.

Nikolas- good ideas, those are really creative! I like the idea of guessing the next pattern- that might work well with a small board or a simplified rule set.

Quote from: Radiant on Thu 19/04/2007 01:45:39
The problem is that such puzzles are trivial to people who know what they're about, and totally incomprehensible to people who don't.

Good point, Radiant. Unless it came with a fairly lengthy (and potentially boring) explanation, all but the most simple "life" type games would be incomprehensible to most. An example of a puzzle with similar problems is the 'programmable' machine in The Dig.

Quote from: MrColossal on Thu 19/04/2007 01:04:05
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~cs8k-cyu/flash/la2/
for inspiration here's a shooter using the game of life rules for your bullets and the badguys.

Ooh, Kenta Cho goodness- thanks, I haven't been keeping tabs on him lately! That's an interesting game idea.

Quote from: Rui "Trovatore" Pires on Thu 19/04/2007 00:00:31
Sparky: ADOM, an RPG, had the "game of life" for cultivating crops. If you wanted to plant something, the plants behaved as the "lights" in the game of life.

Crops? That's a neat idea. I've a good friend who swears by ADOM, though I haven't yet played it. I'll give it a go tonight.