[HN Gopher] Orb Farm
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Orb Farm
Author : thunderbong
Score : 386 points
Date : 2023-05-19 10:17 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (orb.farm)
(TXT) w3m dump (orb.farm)
| ttoinou wrote:
| Background image is distracting, otherwise, very good ! It could
| be gamified with points and fish reproducing, like try to find a
| way so that users have to maximize some kind of goal while making
| tradeoffs. Like city building games
| ikesau wrote:
| or it couldn't! i think exploratory play is much more in the
| spirit of an ecosystem
| Name_Chawps wrote:
| Game probably needs some way of making the player feel more
| invested in the game. Maybe you can only place so many
| particles per day, and then you have to wait until the next
| day. Or you can pay to get more particles now.
|
| If you could pay for some bonus materials that would be great
| too. Though I'd rather unlock them randomly from a kind of loot
| box system.
|
| And how come I can't level up? I don't feel like I'm making any
| progress without an XP bar. Clearly this person does not
| understand game design.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| I hope this is sarcasm.
|
| Not everything needs to be a fully developed game. Sometimes
| people make things for _gasp_ the fun of it and not to build
| a comprehensive game that will appeal to everyone and their
| demanding cousins.
| jsilence wrote:
| Still would love to see some graphs of the populations and
| maybe also nitrogen.
| pnt12 wrote:
| It is.
|
| OP is stating his love for the worst parts of games. This
| would be like someone saying they love pages filled with
| ads, chat bots, pop-ups, auto play and scripts which take
| seconds to load.
| trhr wrote:
| Or like someone who watches the Super Bowl for the
| football game.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Also it could use more full motion video cut scenes!
|
| It also needs swag: cute little square plushie stuffed
| animals for each type of element.
| jjulius wrote:
| >Clearly this person does not understand game design.
|
| I think you're being a bit too critical for what just seems
| like someone's fun little project.
| Name_Chawps wrote:
| Clearly you don't understand Hacker News comment design.
| jjulius wrote:
| The two responses to your comment missed your sarcasm, so
| perhaps some of the onus is on you as well.
| Name_Chawps wrote:
| I usually like to get to know someone better before we
| start talking about my onus.
| EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote:
| Just seeing a black screen. Is my sin Firefox, or adblock?
| thesuitonym wrote:
| Firefox and uBlock Origin are not a problem for me. Maybe
| noscript?
| DominoTree wrote:
| Works fine on Firefox 113.0.1 with uBlock Origin for me
| kurisufag wrote:
| neither. Firefox 104, uBlock Origin, works perfectly.
| SummerlyMars wrote:
| I'd say adblock (or maybe some other extension) - it works fine
| for me in Firefox.
| vrglvrglvrgl wrote:
| [dead]
| dang wrote:
| Related:
|
| _Orb.Farm_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31321645 - May
| 2022 (3 comments)
|
| _Orb.Farm, a Virtual Aquatic Ecosystem_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23218186 - May 2020 (6
| comments)
| xtian wrote:
| Nicely done take on the form. The original game of this type was
| a Japanese Java applet known as "Falling sand game". I'm not sure
| it's preserved anywhere though.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falling-sand_game
| trhr wrote:
| I'm pretty sure I played a similar game in like '95. It was
| called Logo. It had a turtle, and you could use the turtle (and
| your imagination) to draw pretty things on the screen. You
| probably played it too.
| snapcaster wrote:
| Super cool!
| 01100011 wrote:
| Fun! Also funny because I've gotten into container ponds, medaka
| (Japanese ricefish), daphnia/moina and other microfauna over the
| last 2 months. It's an interesting hobby. The biggest thing I've
| noticed is how much local bees need a water source.
| afandian wrote:
| If you like honey, water sources is one of a few things that
| might disconcert you.
| balaji1 wrote:
| sea world tycoon!
| SeanAnderson wrote:
| :) Love seeing this at the top of HN! This project, along with
| sandspiel (by the same creator), are some of my biggest
| inspirations!
|
| If you're not aware, there's a relatively deep technical
| explanation of how sandspiel was built which I found interesting.
| If you're into orb.farm then you'll probably find it interesting,
| too: https://maxbittker.com/making-sandspiel
|
| And, shameless plug, I've been teaching myself Rust/Bevy/ECS
| lately and am creating a simulation ant farm. The project is
| still in its infancy, and is nowhere near as cool as these, but
| https://meomix.github.io/symbiants/ for some ants that scurry
| around and emergently create piles of sand. Pan/Zoom launching in
| a couple of hours, feeding them hopefully in the next week or so.
| If you have ideas for simple features I'd love to hear them or if
| you want to follow along with the project check my profile for a
| Discord link.
| dang wrote:
| Discussed here:
|
| _Making Sandspiel_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34555913 - Jan 2023 (10
| comments)
|
| _Making Sandspiel_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19793835 - May 2019 (9
| comments)
|
| _Sandspiel - A falling sand game built in Rust and WebGL_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18696291 - Dec 2018 (185
| comments)
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Also check out Sandspiel Studio, which lets you explore, edit,
| and define your own rules with a Scratch-like block visual
| programming language!
|
| https://studio.sandspiel.club/
|
| Making Sandspiel (maxbittker.com):
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34555913
|
| https://maxbittker.com/making-sandspiel
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34561910
|
| DonHopkins 3 months ago | parent | context | favorite | on:
| Making Sandspiel
|
| I am a huge fan of Sandspiel, which Max described in this
| article from 2019, and recently I was delighted to discover
| that he and TodePond have been doing a huge amount of wonderful
| work since then.
|
| What happens when you combine Sandspiel with a Scratch-like
| blocks based visual programming language that lets you look
| inside and see how rules work, tweak and modify them, and even
| define your own rules for different types of particles? And
| then form a community around it for sharing and learning from
| each other and building on top of each other's work.
|
| Here is Max's and TodePond's brilliantly ambitious visually
| programmable sequel, Sandspiel Studio!
|
| https://studio.sandspiel.club/
|
| Here's my profile, where you can play with the version of Max's
| flower growing rule that he shows here:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifyYITDq1oo
|
| ...to grow underground potatoes and fancy flowers:
|
| https://studio.sandspiel.club/user/clanzgor8006109mtjooi348t
|
| I've written more about Sandspeil Studio and related topics of
| artificial life, cellular automata, and visual programming, and
| quoted some interesting discussion with Max and TodePond from
| their Discord server (they actually already knew about most of
| this stuff, but they love it as much as I do), in the "Ask HN:
| What weird technical scene are you fond/part of?" discussion,
| in reply to api's comment about Digital Artificial Life:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33698163
|
| api 67 days ago | parent | context | favorite | on: Ask HN:
| What weird technical scene are you fond/pa...
|
| Digital Artificial Life -- as in evolving program ecosystems,
| artificial chemistries or cellular automata that can manifest
| life-like phenomena, etc.
|
| Haven't done much with it in a while but was very into it in
| college. It's both a minor scientific field (would probably be
| grouped under both theoretical biology and AI research) and a
| hobbyist field with some really interesting projects.
|
| DonHopkins 67 days ago | prev [-]
|
| That's one of my long time interests and hobbies, which I write
| about on HN and discuss with other people frequently. I'm
| supposed to be doing something else right now so I'll quickly
| drop a few disorganized quotes and links here. (Sorry I didn't
| have time to be more concise!)
|
| A few years ago I ran across Max Bittker's beautiful
| "Sandspiel", which is a delightful cellular automata toy that
| simulates sand and other rules:
|
| https://sandspiel.club/
|
| A few days ago I saw him tweet some amazing stuff that
| resonated with me, which then led me to discover what he's been
| working with Lu Wilson (TodePond): Sandspiel Studio -- user
| definable rules using a block based visual programming
| language.
|
| https://twitter.com/maxbittker
|
| "working on goth fungus kidpix":
|
| https://twitter.com/maxbittker/status/1593868837111451649
|
| Lu Wilson (TodePond):
|
| https://twitter.com/TodePond
|
| Sandspiel Studio:
|
| https://studio.sandspiel.club/
|
| Sandspiel introduction:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecCVor7mJ6o
|
| Sandspiel Studio in 60 seconds:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOA-lR3Xc34
|
| Rainbow Sand:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGTsy79wx4U
|
| Huegene:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltpkO7jcFOY
|
| Flower:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifyYITDq1oo
|
| TodePond's Spellular Automata:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvlsJ3FqNYU
|
| We had a great discussion on the Sandspiel Studio Discord
| server, where I posted some interesting links:
|
| [lots more links and info in the original post:]
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34561910
|
| Also be sure to check out TodePond's amazing videos and
| software!
|
| For example, "Screens in Screens in Screens":
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4OIcwt8vcE
|
| "Top 9 Ways to Make Sand":
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDyvjkAs5-Y
|
| "Top 9 Ways to Make BIG Sand":
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mbs0sx3z2A
|
| "Tourism 2: Off-Road":
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvlsJ3FqNYU
|
| "Spellular Automata":
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvlsJ3FqNYU
|
| There's so much more, and I think you'll love it all as much as
| I do:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/@TodePond/videos
|
| London Creative Coding - Feb 2023: The Spatial Programming Pipe
| Dream - Lu Wilson:
|
| https://youtu.be/L2U_Sd1qMJ4?t=2579
| Nezteb wrote:
| I love ants and replicating their behavior in code!
|
| You might like these projects:
|
| "Coding Adventure: Ant and Slime Simulations" by Sebastian
| Lague:
|
| Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-iSQQgOd1A
|
| Code https://github.com/SebLague/Ant-Simulation
|
| "C++ Ants Simulation 1, First approach" by Pezzza's Work:
|
| Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81GQNPJip2Y
|
| Code: https://github.com/johnBuffer/AntSimulator
| SeanAnderson wrote:
| Thank you for the resources! I'll add them to my list of
| bookmarks. :)
| harrisi wrote:
| This is maybe a bit too specific to Clojure and more
| generally about concurrency in it, but Rich Hickey
| introduced Clojure with an ant simulation demonstration.
| The video quality is not great, but there's an article
| (sadly not up anymore, but on the way back machine):
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20160409080236/http://juliangam
| b...
|
| Video directly: https://youtu.be/dGVqrGmwOAw
| phailhaus wrote:
| I am a _sucker_ for falling sand games, thanks for making this.
| Makes me want to make my own, I 've been brainstorming ideas of
| complex "ecosystem" games for a while but never thought to just
| use a sand engine!
| mystickphoenix wrote:
| If you haven't been exposed to it, check out Noita. It's a
| falling sand action roguelike where the entirety of the world
| is simulated.
| phailhaus wrote:
| Haha, already got it! Super hard though, if it wasn't for
| mods I'd never play that game.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| Makes my laptop fan run noisy.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| Schrodinger wrote a book on the relationship between life and
| entropy that explains this connection pretty well.
| markfchapman wrote:
| "procratinating, my mind quiet and feels calm, processor on
| fire"
| denton-scratch wrote:
| Hah. 16 syllables; I thought haikus were supposed to be 17,
| but I know nothing.
| rirze wrote:
| that's a feature
| MattRix wrote:
| And?
| gooob wrote:
| the universe continues, it seems
| [deleted]
| thih9 wrote:
| PSA: The "clear" tool can clear the wall of the orb as well.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| (2020)
| degenerate wrote:
| FYI you can use "glass" selection to build walls/cliffs at the
| start, so all your sand and stone isn't piling into a hill at the
| bottom.
| selectas wrote:
| So much nostalgia seeing an "interface" like that :)
| m0shp_t wrote:
| Win95 was my first!
| swah wrote:
| That was very calming - your project?
| yreg wrote:
| I got a placeable Earth globe after playing for a while. Anyone
| knows what it means?
| monkeynotes wrote:
| Needs to count days in the green or some other success metric to
| accumulate.
| blastro wrote:
| This is so cute and fun. Thank you!
| micheljansen wrote:
| Really nailed the 90's aesthetic!
| tantalor wrote:
| Could do without the Windows UI elements, barf.
| dreen wrote:
| Can the fish multiply? If so I have failed them
| onemoresoop wrote:
| Mine die after a while...
| programmarchy wrote:
| I got a little microchip. Maybe an easter egg? Put it in my farm
| although it doesn't seem to do anything.
| syx wrote:
| I love these kinds of sandbox games, Orb Farm is super nice to
| have it running directly in the browser for a little
| procrastination break. Although my favorite is probably The
| Powder Toy [0], I've been following this project for years.
|
| [0] https://powdertoy.co.uk/
| ldayley wrote:
| The guy that created orb.farm[0] is the same guy behind
| sandspiel.club[1], which is a browser-based Rust/WebGL
| powdertoy-like implementation. I added it to my phone's home
| screen so my kids have been playing with it for years!
|
| [0]: https://maxbittker.com [1]: https://sandspiel.club
| uSoldering wrote:
| You should check out Noita on Steam. :)
| throwaway290 wrote:
| Windows only, unlike Powder Toy.
| Evidlo wrote:
| Works well in proton
| oersted wrote:
| The balancing seems a bit off. But oh man, this thing is so
| mesmerizing and addictive :)
|
| Daphnia are too aggressive eating algae and produce too many eggs
| when doing so, so the algae population gets constantly suppressed
| in most settings.
|
| Fish also barely eat daphnia so it is hard to control their
| population with them.
|
| It is also too hard for daphnia to eat grass. It slowly grows
| uncontrolled to fill a lot of the tank, significantly reducing
| mobility and blocking light. Grass also produces too little
| oxygen.
|
| Bacteria always end up dying off quickly because there is not
| enough material for them to decompose. It's unclear where the
| stuff they eat comes from and how the nitrogen bacteria produce
| affects plant growth.
|
| As a result of all of this, oxygen is always fluctuating at the
| minimum, going into the red at night often. Which means fish
| always die eventually, which seems to be making people sad :(
|
| But again, really entertaining and beautiful :)
| imakira wrote:
| I figured out you can limit the living area of Daphnia using
| glass and sand, and then feed the fishes with only grass.
| RajT88 wrote:
| You have to tinker a bit. I haven't figured out the role that
| the bacteria play yet, but too low of oxygen means you need
| more algae/grass to generate more O2 during daylight hours.
| (And yes, it will crash at night when there's less
| photosynthesis)
|
| Don't put too many critters in there either. Mine is pretty
| stable for a few hours now with 3 fish, and ample grass and
| algae.
|
| Side question: Is it in my head, or are the fish slowly
| growing?
| fishtoaster wrote:
| For bacteria: I _believe_ their role is to provide nitrogen
| in the sand by eating algae poop. Nitrogen in the sand is
| required for plants in that sand to grow.
|
| You can test this a bit:
|
| 1. Create a new sphere and fill it with water. Add a bit of
| sand at the bottom
|
| 2. Add algae and fastforward.
|
| 3. The algae will multiply, causing the o2 to shoot up.
|
| 4. The algae will die off because of the high o2. Their dead
| bodies (purple dots) will litter the sea floor.
|
| 5. Put in some bacteria.
|
| 6. You can watch the bacteria eat the purple dots. Note that
| the sand changes color slightly as they do - I think that's
| the sand becoming nitrogen-rich.
| matt3210 wrote:
| Great gui!
| LorenDB wrote:
| Who else has figured out that you can expand the orb into a
| square?
| shever73 wrote:
| Oh yes, I've also added secret passages in which fish seem to
| die trying to find their way out :/
| EscapeFromNY wrote:
| One of my fish died and I don't know why :(
| trhr wrote:
| You need to build a stateless fish tank via replicas. It's
| pretty common that a new feature gets introduced into the
| upstream. You never even see it until one of your tanks
| crashes. That's why it's critical to have a backup strategy,
| n+1 redundancy, and a robust change control process to limit
| contagion risk.
|
| I used to have a roommate that had like 12 tanks going all the
| time. I couldn't even complain, because I hosted my own
| kubernetes cluster, so I understood exactly why he needed them.
| 2023throwawayy wrote:
| Welcome to the world of fish keeping.
| smburdick wrote:
| You should deepfake Leonard Nemoy's voice for the characters. ;-)
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Like Yoot Saito's "Seaman"! (Which has The Real Nimoy.)
|
| Seaman on the Sega Dreamcast - Leonard Nimoy's intro on the day
| podman will give birth:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdIO41Blysg
|
| Seaman (Dreamcast) - Angry Video Game Nerd (AVGN):
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IV8hCvsXy0
|
| Seaman creator Yoot Saito on the fishy Dreamcast AI that was
| way ahead of its time:
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/6/20850674/yoot-saito-interv...
|
| >Sega's Dreamcast was ultimately a failure, as Sony came to
| dominate the early-2000s market with the PlayStation 2. But
| Sega's machine left behind a library of uniquely innovative and
| influential software. And perhaps no title was as memorable as
| Yutaka "Yoot" Saito's iconoclastic Seaman, a virtual pet
| simulator that had you use a microphone to converse with a
| moody, sarcastic man-fish, with help from a narrator voiced by
| Leonard Nimoy.
| d883kd8 wrote:
| Bait
| unglaublich wrote:
| Old and similar https://dan-ball.jp/en/javagame/dust/
| pazimzadeh wrote:
| What are the bacteria supposed to eat? Unless they are
| cyanobacteria?
| greggsy wrote:
| They eat waste from algae, but they seems to devour it too
| quickly, and may even spur more algae growth. The balance and
| influences seems to be a bit of a mystery, despite the
| documentation.
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(page generated 2023-05-19 23:00 UTC)