Predators Prey For Plants (July 2016 MAGS)

Started by Mandle, Mon 25/07/2016 14:02:28

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Mandle

Cheers to all for the positive comments so far, and for the helpful info on the startup issues. I think I might know what the issue is. I will ask about it in the tech forum for further details.

Stupot

I had a go on this. No start up issues for me (though it did seem to take a bit longer than usual to bring up the main screen).

Fun stuff. Quite therapeutic to see it run. I keep thinking of other things you could add, meteor strikes, bushfires, the impact of humans etc. That could get very complicated very quickly but would be fun to play.

CaptainD

Quote from: Mandle on Thu 04/08/2016 23:49:07
Cheers to all for the positive comments so far, and for the helpful info on the startup issues. I think I might know what the issue is. I will ask about it in the tech forum for further details.

I hope so, because I've tried all sorts of things - putting them on the C drive, in another folder, in and out of folder, re-downloading and re-installing, and nothing works.

Just in case it's relevant I'm running Windows 10 (32-bit) and my cheapo desktop PC only has a graphics card that's actually designed for laptops.
 

Kumpel

This is simply amazing! One of the most relaxing things I've ever seen done with AGS. I couldn't stop watching the pixels spread, die and spread again last night. I was completely fascinated. At first i thought getting a balance on a small island would be hard to achieve but your algorhithm is really sophisticated, it's as if nature itself readjusts the balance.

At the moment I am waiting for the carnivores to get over a small path to an island where herbivores are eating the plants but never get to fully let them extinct. This invasion seems to take a lot of cycles.

Here are some features I would love to have (but very likely never get :P):

- option to speed up and slow down time. maybe also revert time ;)
- data, data, data. I want population numbers, scales, balance diagrams :D
- I thought about temperature changes and how the animals could get over water in very cold moments of the simulation and die out in very hot moments, that could also shrink the water areas.
- someone mentioned human influence. That would be amazing to watch small groups of modern people spread out with a click from the maps edges, hack down plants, hunt both animal kinds and build big areas of concrete (cities), change the water lines and so on :D


Mandle

Quote from: Kumpel on Sat 06/08/2016 10:09:37
At first i thought getting a balance on a small island would be hard to achieve but your algorhithm is really sophisticated, it's as if nature itself readjusts the balance.

At the moment I am waiting for the carnivores to get over a small path to an island where herbivores are eating the plants but never get to fully let them extinct. This invasion seems to take a lot of cycles.

The sim is all about boom and bust: When any species has a lot of food they eat it all up like there's no tomorrow and breed, and there actually isn't a tomorrow for them when they run out. Then comes the bust, where they die out from starvation and their food source has a chance to regain a foothold. And then they do this dance until a kind of balance is reached...

But, if you play with the game a bit, you might notice that it's impossible to reach a satisfying balance between just two species: Herbivores will always overpopulate and destroy the forests until they are only barely able to cling on for life from the last few remaining trees.

This is where the carnivores are needed to complete the circle triangle of life where they cull the herbivores enough to allow the plantlife to regain its foothold (and at the same time booming and busting themselves)...

Hence the name of the game, bad pun as it is: Predators need plantlife to be in supply so that their prey is in abundance, but plantlife also needs predators to cull the herbivores enough to have a chance to grow back...

So...the next time you hear about Great White Sharks dying out and think "Maybe it's safe to go back to the water..."...Think again! That's a more widespread extinction in progress...

Matti

Nice simulation there, Mandle, better than I expected! I also agree to everything kumpel wrote!

Speeding up the time and some data are features I definitely missed.

Mandle

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!

I think I can now semi-confidently announce that any issues with the game crashing on initial loading are probably mostly maybe fixed!!!

Thanks so much to Crimson Wizard for his deep knowledge of the AGS engine and his patience with my noobish questioning...

Thanks also to CaptainD for being the one that broke it the worst and then continued to test it the best...

The main download link now goes to the newest "fixed" version, but the mirror is still the original version just in case the new version is broken for anyone...

CaptainD

Interesting stuff.  Now that your game isn't broken (for me), I played the Australia map and think I broke Australia (laugh) (I attempted to replicate the real life introduction of cane toads.)
 

Mandle

Quote from: CaptainD on Sat 03/09/2016 12:56:13
Interesting stuff.  Now that your game isn't broken (for me), I played the Australia map and think I broke Australia (laugh) (I attempted to replicate the real life introduction of cane toads.)

No...that's par for the course:

The introduction of cane toads broke Australia in real life...

So...My simulation rocks!!!

(As a young child I had the delightful experience of watching my grandmother hit a cane toad she had trapped in a cage over her back fence with a cricket bat...Well...what was left of the toad after the bat made impact...)

Crimson Wizard

Well, that fixed the crash itself, but the root of the problem is still not clear...

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