Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Orb Farm

orb.farm

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 106 posts

Re: Orb Farm

#51

Post by DonHopkins »

SeanAnderson wrote: post #30

:) 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/B…

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

Re: Orb Farm

#52

Post by Name_Chawps »

jjulius wrote: post #18
Name_Chawps wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>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.

Clearly you don't understand Hacker News comment design.

Re: Orb Farm

#53

Post by jjulius »

Name_Chawps wrote: post #52
jjulius wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Clearly you don't understand Hacker News comment design.

The two responses to your comment missed your sarcasm, so perhaps some of the onus is on you as well.

Re: Orb Farm

#54

Post by Name_Chawps »

jjulius wrote: post #53
Name_Chawps wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly you don't understand Hacker News comment design.

The two responses to your comment missed your sarcasm, so perhaps some of the onus is on you as well.

I usually like to get to know someone better before we start talking about my onus.

Re: Orb Farm

#57

Post by throwaway290 »

uSoldering wrote: post #15
syx wrote: post #3

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/

You should check out Noita on Steam. :)

Windows only, unlike Powder Toy.

Re: Orb Farm

#58

Post by Nezteb »

SeanAnderson wrote: post #30

:) 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/B…

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

Re: Orb Farm

#59

Post by DonHopkins »

smburdick wrote: post #50

You should deepfake Leonard Nemoy's voice for the characters. ;-)

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.

Re: Orb Farm

#60

Post by DonHopkins »

Name_Chawps wrote: post #17
ttoinou wrote: post #5

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

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…

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.

Post reply on HN