caranha [Lexaloffle Blog Feed]

PicoVida, a simple evolution simulator

Sun, 03 Sep 2023 12:48:51 UTC

When you have a creature that reproduces, and this reproduction is imperfect, then you have the necessary ingredients for evolution.

This simple simulation shows evolutionary mechanics occurring in a virtual petri dish.

Each "individual" has a single gene, that determines its color and its reproduction probability. When an individual reproduces, there is a small chance that its offspring will mutate, earning a smaller or higher value of the gene.

Over time, individuals with higher reproduction probability will slowly dominate the petri dish over their slower neighbors.

Inspired by Avida-ED

I still want to improve things a little bit. Give the creatures more visual variety, and add some more audio-visual juice. Suggestions / comments / hacks welcome!

Pico-8 Games in Ludum Dare 52

Sun, 29 Jan 2023 00:40:56 UTC

There were a lot of pico-8 games this time on Ludum Dare. One of them even got the first place on sound!

I thought people here would be interested, so I made a table.
(You can click on the game names, somehow the link styling does not appear inside the markdown table).

Name	Author	Overall	Fun	Innovation	Theme	Graphics	Audio	Humor	Mood
Hyper Harvest	@orion-black	12	14	87	259	96	134	-	-
Adelie - Water Under the Bridge	@Meep	17	6	121	127	12	122	111	51
The Crystallographer	@pianoman373	32	68	24	13	18	50	-	32
You're Under Harvest	@mastoast	59	27	156	90	106	1	95	98
URSA MAIOR	@Zahkros, @bartalomew, @ekaktusz	65	142	183	436	165	172	19	71
Harvest Tataki	@caranha	71	57	245	209	68	22	-	-
Nesting	@hypernoodlejon	87	80	132	226	120	204	166	134
Build a Frank	@Elastiskalinjen	154	218	99	238	137	210	63	219
Last Harvest	@resevoir	285	239	125	192	264	112	250	274

Genuary 22 - House Generator

Sun, 22 Jan 2023 13:57:08 UTC

I ended up mostly skipping Genuary because of Ludum Dare, but today I decided to write a tiny village generator.

generator20220122

by caranha

[Click to Play]

This took me about one hour to write. Every time you run the cart, a new tiny village is generated.

There is nothing special going on. Walls are placed first, then doors and floors following a flood fill algorithm. Everything else is placed by sampling the map hundreds of times and checking for placing conditions.

The code is a bit of a mess and, looking back, I can see several easy places to reduce token count and increase variety. Maybe I'll revisit this before the end of the month. Maybe not.

I hope I'll have some time in march to participate in 7DRL. I have ideas I want to put into practice.

Journal: An Explosion of Color

Wed, 18 Jan 2023 01:14:12 UTC

I was writing on my Journal, and it brought me inspiration for a tiny pico cart.

An Explosion of Color

by caranha

[Click to Play]

Harvest Tataki - whac-a-carrot

Sat, 07 Jan 2023 15:34:55 UTC

Harvest Tataki 1.0

by caranha

[Click to Play]

Collect a large harvest of carrots with the help of your cute rabbit friends! Don't scare the rabbits away! How many can you get before the day is done?

How to play?

Use the direction keys to hit the different holes.
Hit the carrots, but not the rabbits.
Every 10 carrots, the game gets a little bit faster.
Hit too many rabbits, and the game is over.
When the night comes (about 2 minutes) the game is over.

What is this game?

This game was made in 24 hours for Ludum Dare 52. Theme: harvest.

The inspiration for the game was this post I made with a New-Years card. A few people said that the animation looked like a whac-a-mole game, and I decided to make that game when I had the chance. Turns out that the LD theme was perfect for it.

What is next?

I still want to make the game a little bit prettier (specially the background and game over screen) and maybe add some easter eggs, but the game is basically complete. I might make it harder or easier depending on feedback.

Let me know your highest score!

You can also play this game on itch.io

Ludum Dare 52: Moguri Harvest

Sat, 07 Jan 2023 03:15:14 UTC

A few days ago I posted my new year card here, and two people mentioned that it looked like a whack-a-mole game. Well since the LD theme is "harvest", I decided to do that and make the whack-a-mole game!

Pick up the carrots, don't whack the rabbits that are helping you!

ld52_whackamole

by caranha

[Click to Play]

Genuary

Thu, 05 Jan 2023 12:52:34 UTC

Last month I did "Tiny Code Christmas" (#lovebytetcc), and it was lots of fun, so I decided this month to try #genuary.

The idea is simple: every day you get a prompt from this website, and do some programming art based on it.

Or not. Since I'm a few days late, I decided to begin at prompt #1, "perfect loop":

genuary2023_01

by caranha

[Click to Play]

This was something I threw together rather quickly, just to get started. I used some of the ideas that I already used in #lovebytetcc, but tried to make sure that they all would loop back to zero after 8 seconds (length of pico8 standard gifs).

It could probably be done more intelligently, by restricting the time variable and making the animations based on that, but I just wanted to get something out of the door quickly.

See you tomorrow!

Happy 2023!

Sun, 01 Jan 2023 02:46:04 UTC

Happy new year everyone!

One of the things I want to do this year is to write more pico8 programs, and share what I do here.

In the last few days, I've been following LoveByte's TinyCodeChristmas Series, with the goal to write a pico8 new year's card. This is the result!

The mountains turned out kinda weird, but other than that, I'm happy with the result. Here is the card, feel free to hack it.

nenga2023

by caranha

[Click to Play]

Next, I will try to complete LazyDev's Schmup tutorial by the end of February. Let's hope it works!

And also check out this BBS more :-)

Friendship Jam -- Take this Prototype

Tue, 02 Jul 2019 00:03:56 UTC

takethis_0_1

by caranha

[Click to Play]

This is a prototype from me and Chamotea for the #friendshipjam.

The basic idea is that you are a nice "shopkeeper" who gives presents to visitors to helps with their problems. What a nice person! The gifts you give them affects how the story progresses.

Right now I got most of the mechanics done, but the scenarios are still WIP, so the game has only one scene. It was a busier June than I expected T_T. It was fun working with metatables and event managers using coroutines, though!

Ludum Dare Game: Life Vacuum!

Mon, 29 Apr 2019 13:41:33 UTC

Life Vacuum

A Ludum Dare 44 game by @caranha and @cornettheory

caranha_ld44

by caranha

[Click to Play]

What?

In this game you play the role of an immoral bio-scientist, producing life in a laboratory to sell for a profit.

You create the life forms in your petri dish, and sell them using the suck-o-vat 3000.

Active life forms are worth more than static life forms. You can make them active by using the "RUN" button, and you can stamp the three patterns in the top on your petri-dish to influence how the lifeforms develop.

However, note that you have a limited number of runs, and using your stamps costs money!

How much money can you make before you run out of resources?

How?

This game is based on Conway's Game of Life, a mathematical simulation of simple life forms as cellular automata.

Hints:

Use "Run" to advance the simulation. Moving cells are worth more than static ones.
Brighter life spots are worth more than darker ones.
The three stamps in the top are likely to develop into very active life! Use them if your board gets empty.
It is important to decide whether to continue running, or to suck the board and start with a new stamp.

Why?

This game was developed as part of the Ludum Dare 44 challenge. We wrote everything (art, code, music) in 72 hours from 2019/04/27 to 2019/04/29. Most of the game was worked on inside Picopico Cafe. Thanks everyone who participated!

How to make an unmovable actor?

Sun, 06 Jan 2019 06:47:52 UTC

Hello!

I am trying to make an unmovable actor (for example, a turret). Ie, the actor collides with other actors, but it is not pushed around.

If I set the actor to not collide with anything, it will not move, but it will also not block other actor's path.

If I set the actor to collide with other actors, It will be pushed around. I tried setting the actor's Density, Gravity, and Friction at around 255, but then I have this weird behavior where if the player
touches the actor, the actor will move 1 voxel TOWARDS the player.

Am I missing something obvious?

Cheers!

Very basic help with scripting in 3.5

Mon, 24 Dec 2018 13:57:57 UTC

Hello!

I am trying to access the Lua scripting abilities of 3.5, but I have no idea how to open the script editor.... I am pretty sure I must be missing something super basic.

I open the designer in Voxatron, and then create a new cartridge. I get the volumetric display with nothing in it, and I can even add one of the two pre-made scripts to the middle of the room, but I have no idea how to open these scripts for editing, or how to create a new one.

Help?

Connect4 AI cart

Sun, 15 Jul 2018 09:34:06 UTC

Connect4 AI cart

by caranha

[Click to Play]

This is a quick and dirty cart exploring some AI methods for boardgames in pico8.

The implemented AIs are:

1- Purely Random
2- Random Avoiding win/loss moves
3- Playing randomly a number of times, counting win/losses and choosing "best" moves
4- MCTS (Monte Carlo Tree Search)

(Method 3 can be thought of as an MCTS of depth 1)

You can switch the AIs that the game uses by changing the AI_cofun table. Player_AI just
let's the player pick the move. You can make two AIs fight each other, or make two players
fight each other too.

It was pretty cool putting the AI co-routines together. The code is not the pretties or the most
token efficient, but I might polish it a bit if I find some time on the summer. Hacks are welcome!

Mountain View -- A pico-8 wall paper

Mon, 04 Dec 2017 21:10:07 UTC

Mountain View -- A pico-8 wall paper 1.0

by caranha

[Click to Play]

Hello everyone!

This is a small project that I have been working on the past two weeks -- an idle wallpaper/clock for pico-8. Just adjust the window to an appropriate size, make it stick above other windows, and leave it in the corner of your desktop while you work :-)

The position of the sun and moon are set according to your computer's clock, and the color of the leaves and the snow in the mountains are adjusted by your computer's date. You can use the in-game menu to adjust the time manually, if you wish.

Additionally, there are 11 "events" to give the mountain view some charm, such as children playing in the village, or a monster terrorizing the forest. 3 events are chosen randomly at start-up, and these are changed every 5 minutes.

Anyone is welcome to contribute more events to the cart!

Enjoy!

Shy Gladiator (LD39 Game)

Sat, 29 Jul 2017 07:58:46 UTC

Shy Gladiator (LD39 Game) 1

by caranha

[Click to Play]

Game for the Ludum Dare 39 -- Theme: Running out of Energy

The shy gladiator has to defeat three mythical creatures, but he is too embarrassed to attack,
so instead he must dodge their attacks until the monsters lose all their powers.

You can move left or right, and dodge with "Z". Dodge will give you a few invincibility frames, but also
take some hit points from you.

Can you defeat all three monsters?

Game by @caranha and @conanfelipe

TODO:

Better title screen that actually explains the game;
Better logic for the Cyclops, and calling out attacks;
Balance the damage amounts better;

Fish Tank

Sat, 27 May 2017 05:27:22 UTC

Fish Tank Alpha

by caranha

[Click to Play]

I always wanted to make a virtual fish tank with agents to keep at the corner of my screen while I worked.

This cart is the result of some procastination this week. Just look at the fish swim, and relax.

Suggestions of things to add to the fish tank are welcome! Sprites are even more welcome! I'm a shoddy sprite artist.

Also, on linux it seems that Pico-8 gets super slow when its window is not on focus. Does anyone know a workaround?

EDIT: New version, with sharks and octopus.

Fish Tank Alpha

by caranha

[Click to Play]

Pico Factory

Sun, 11 Dec 2016 09:08:55 UTC

Pico Factory 1.3.1

by caranha

[Click to Play]

My first complete PICO8 game, for the Ludum Dare 37.

A small twist on the "factory" genre, you have a limited time to
play, and must make as much money as possible in that time.
What is the optimal build order?

If you enjoy this cart, submit a screenshot with your highscore! :-)

Updates:
2016-01-08: v1.3.1 -- Fixed menu bug, added bignum, super-buffed sandwiches
2016-12-25: v1.3 -- Rebalanced costs, added two new items, added overwriting
2016-12-19: v1.2 -- Changed the input, added some messages
2016-12-12: v1.1 -- Initial ld 37 version

TODO:

Add Music
Modify the Graph to be log-based
Challenge Modes: Blocked tiles, unique machines, free build mode
Improve sprites and add tile variations
Figure out why the game is getting slow

Older versions:

Pico Factory 1.1

by caranha

[Click to Play]

Pico Factory 1.2

by caranha

[Click to Play]

Pico Factory 1.3

by caranha

[Click to Play]