Make it Count - Web Version

Rules:

• Click to add or remove a cell
• You Have One Move
• the game must be in session to make a move

Goal:

• the goal is to keep the organism moving for as long as possible.

Based on John Conway’s 'Game of Life'.

The Game of Life:

• At each time step, cells are born, survive, and die depending on conditions
• Isolation: cells with less than two neighbors die.
• Overpopulation: cells with 4 or more neighbors die.
• Birth: a cell with 3 neighbors comes to life.
• Survival: a living cell with 2 or 3 neighbors stays alive.

For those who find this game hard to (fully) understand:

• I heard a story that Richard Feynman once asked Stephen Wolfram 'how did you know that Rule 30 would give such interesting results?' And Wolfram said that he didn't know, and that he had just enumerated the outcomes. And then Feynman said, 'awe good, I thought you had some intuition that I did not'.
  [AI Podcast #89 with Lex Fridman]
• Even the great minds who dedicate themselves to it wholeheartedly, are still left puzzled when it comes to knowing how these types of systems behave (without running simulation).
• Don't be discouraged. Just try things out and see what happens.

Background:

Built for Ludum Dare game jam #46 in 48 hours by one artist/programmer.
Theme: keep it alive.

Ludum Dare is a global game jam that happens twice a year. This was my first time participating in which I had enough free time set aside to not be totally kidding myself that I would finish.

John Conway, who was known as a brilliant mathematical thinker, passed away not long before this game's publication. He will be greatly missed and his work continues with an enduring life of it's own.


Plans vs Outcomes:

Initially I had planned to release this game in webGL format (as I'm doing now), but I had been a bit too hasty in my development process, and the game completely broke under changing resolutions. I had an hour left in the jam - and I scrambled to release something. The final product was a windows only download with a fixed screen window-size. I made it with just 2 minutes left on the clock.

This release is identical to the original game-jam, except that I have included more background information and formatted it for the web.