Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD38 → The Evolution Game
By resivium and evogengames
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It's always great to see neural networks and generations selection improving over time. In that case though the very limited grid space and lack of genetic traits representations made it very difficult to spectate the evolution and discern behavioral patterns. Using a floating 2d space and physical representations of traits may help. Bravo for your experiment though !
These are the projects that fascinate me the most.
It's not super easy to 'see' the learnings outside of the graphs at the bottom, but there's only so much you can do graphically. I can see the creatures interacting with the environment thorugh movement however - which is very cool.
What's the longest you've let it run for? What was the result? If you say 'immortality' you're getting an automatic higher rating!
I really love the idea, the experience is really innovative, it's like watching ants in a terrarium! Unfortunately like @la-mecanique-du-plastique I also found difficult to understand what's was going on, for example thers is no feedback of energy level or age of the creatures on the global map. Overall i appreciated your entry, it's definitevly really different from the others.
Hey I love this! What type of networks did you use? Just MLPs or something more complicated? Also what type of Neuro-Evolutionary algorithm did you use? Finally how did you set up the inputs and choose networks for breeding?
Sorry for the barrage of questions, This stuff is very intriguing to me :). Of course feel free to ignore any/all of the questions too if you feel the need to keep it private ^^. Either ways great work!
I've always been partial to simulation games -- although I still feel like there should be some basic interaction that the player can have to try to influence the game. Having a more supervised learning model might make it more replayable in the long run -- event if it was something simple like being able to reward good behaviors.
Thanks for the game :)
Very interesting, any chance we could get a look at the source code? ;)
I know it's a jam and it probably wasn't easy implementing the neural networks, but since this is an idle game, I feel some more effort could've been put into SHOWING the learning (as mentioned by @burgee). I realise it's quite an abstract/complext algorithm, but must be some ways? I can think of a few:
- energy level could be shown by facial expression - age could be shown by size, or colour, maybe they could get more dull as they age - does moving require energy? if show it could be shown by a facial expression, or a very simple animation to make it look effortfull - do the creatures interact in any way? If so it should be shown somehow as well
As it is, much is left to the imagination. Perhaps this was deliberate? But I still think it would be cooler to somehow get an idea of the inner workings of the creatures.
Also, it would've been nice to have a little tick or something to show which achievements have been completed.
With all that criticism, I still thought this was very cool! Well done and thanks!
All I had to say has already been said in previous comments: - Tracking how units are learning is difficult with only graphs on bottom - Looking at simulation like that is nice, but it would be better if there were some differences in units (dependent on age, energy and so on) - I liked how achievements shown percent of completness, but there don't seem to be any indication which achievement you got?
I don't mind the non-existing interaction, but there should be more visual clues, what the creatures are doing and how healthy they are. Examples: Particle effects. Eating animation. Different food sources (balanced nutrition needed). Creature size depending on age. Speed depending on age and health. Mating (laying eggs)? Indication of unhealthy creatures, when they are about to starve (unhealthy skin color? Sad faces?). Tomb stones (temporary obstacles). Poop as fertilizer (obstacle, too)? I like the idea behind your game but there should be more to discover for the creatures and the player. :smiley:
First 0-player game that I see in Ludum Dare :)
You can not see the number of guys in the same cell. It is true that a different face showing if they have enought food would be great.
As @bestnickname I have many questions, but mainly, what is the input of the NN? The whole map or the neighborhood?
Very intriguing. I wish there were more visual cues for the men doing things. You could also host the webgl version for free for example on itch.io to make it playable in the browser.
I loved it. It's no really a game but a definitely enjoyed it though. I think some more visuals to see whats happening would make it better(eating visual?) I agree with @odefus make it playable on the browser and you'll get more ratings for sure. Also some music would be cool. Overall I liked it. Hope you get 20+ votes! Congrats!
It's cool sitting there and watching it play itself, would be nice if you could passively alter things to change it up a bit.
Neat idea -- reminds me of the .net Terrarium game that I played years ago when learning C#. Definitely needs something for the player to do though because I did not have a beer handy and I lost interest after a while. Congratulations on getting the simulator up and running and done in time!
This is neat. I have no idea how they are going to get all of these achievements. I am definitely going to checkout the code :) Is the source available?