Nano Life

chong-lee 2017-12-05 00:00

Wow this is really a interestingly unique game! Love how its got a organic kinda feel! Great job!

belowparallel-ian 2017-12-05 00:13

This truly is a unique game. I'm not going to act like I understand what's going on, but I had fun with it.

mihark 2017-12-05 00:14

I did not understand everything, but the concept is very interesting. +1 for the graphics

jimbly 2017-12-05 00:33

I couldn't figure out how to get nanomachines to grow, and not die. Is there a certain amount of bacteria they need to be around? Is it the circular area they take up, or just the cell they're under? How much is "too much"?

The one time I got my nanomachines to, randomly, grow, the simulation speed went crazy fast (seemed to be 50-100 simulatino ticks per second) and my temperature skyrocketed in just a few seconds and then everything burned up :(.

zinkler 2017-12-05 00:57

Seriously, how do they grow? Sometimes it's enough to drop some bacteria directly on the nanomachines, and they grow. And sometimes I'm left with unplayable field where nanomachines die wherever I put them. Are they also a part of the Life?

primitive-concept 2017-12-05 01:07

Apologies, I should have explained more in the game description. I originally thought of it as part of the challenge of the game (to figure it out), but given how seemingly random some things appear (they're not -- bacteria just change so fast, it's hard to tell), I'll add that info.

Nanomachines have a hidden health stat, and their size is determined by that. Once it reaches a certain threshold, they divide into two smaller machines (with health divided between them). Health goes up when a nanomachine manages to eat bacteria, but this is a contested action: If the number of bacteria around them is low, they'll generally succeed in eating some. If they're surrounded by too many bacteria, though, they'll take damage instead (get smaller).

Keep in mind, bacteria exist in 3 layers, so there may actually be more bacteria in a given space than there appears -- a good way to gauge this is how opaque they are.

So in general, a good strategy is to move nanomachines to where there are only a few bacteria, and keep them away from dense populations.

Pro tip: As soon as your nanomachines divide the first time, it's probably a good idea to grab one and move it out of the petri dish. That way you always have one in reserve, and don't have to worry about running out of nanomachines.

jimbly 2017-12-05 01:57

Thanks for the info! I was able to win, after a couple of tries, with that information. My problem before was I thought the nanomachines might be dying if they weren't near any bacteria, so I always ended up having them near way too many =)

primitive-concept 2017-12-05 02:07

Good intuition; early on while working, I made it so they would indeed starve without bacteria to eat. It was really hard to balance, however, without ending the game too quickly, so as the deadline approached, that feature got the axe. I intend to drop this game into another game I'm working on as a minigame, so hopefully I'll get it figured out then :)

exezin 2017-12-05 03:34

I cant seem to get past the first 'Petri dish' screen, just closes out and the only thing that looks like an error is

"Player data archive not found at `/home//Downloads/nanolife/NanoLife_Data/data.unity3d`, using local filesystem"

I'm on Lubuntu minimal, x86_64. I'll check back later to see if you know how to get this working! I also noticed that its unity, any chance of just uploading a web release for easy playing? :)

mrleeperry 2017-12-05 03:35

Lots of cool stuff there. I'm a sucker for the "petri dish playspace" thing, especially the blurring focus thing. Early on I was pretty confused, I admit... and if I could change one thing I'd make the forceps change art to a "closed" version when holding the button, so I knew it was doing something (some original confusion was from that)... *BUT* overall after figuring that out, I really like it. Good stuff!!! Hat's off!

unlikelynomad 2017-12-05 06:36

Really unique puzzle game and I love cellular automata so you really tickled all the nerd neurons in me! Took me 3 iterations to get a win but I'm still not sure how the nano machines decide to move, mine seemed to like kamikaze diving into massive swarms of bacteria.

rasm 2017-12-05 08:26

Certainly innovative. I was still lost after reading the instructions above several times. It feels a bit too random for when the nano machines grow or shrink. Sometimes it looks like it will grow but then it dies (and vice versa). Overall, nice work on taking a chance on something completely unique.

dusho 2017-12-05 08:56

I managed to win, but I'm still not sure I got all the mechanics right. Really interesting game. Well done!

gistnoesis 2017-12-05 10:14

Quite complex but very original. Nice game

wakka2 2017-12-05 12:09

Very innovative and looks gorgious. It’s a shame that it runs so badly on my macbook :(

shaolin-dave 2017-12-05 18:01

The mechanics are a little confusing, I like that the tutorial is built in and a quick-to-the-point type (most these games have no tutorial or they write a novel), but autoscrolling through the tutorial made it hard to read.

mess110 2017-12-05 22:43

Pretty impressive, this can probably be built in an educational game.

primitive-concept 2017-12-06 01:43

@shaolin-dave: Thanks, the "tutorial" was actually crammed in shortly after submission, in the form of additional "logos" in the Unity splash screen queue. That's why I added a note in the Changelog about their inclusion, and that I would pull them in the event anyone thinks it violates compo rules. It's a bit fuzzy as to whether a simple info dump like that really qualifies as a feature or not (it's not an actual tutorial, just pictures with info already on the entry page), so I was a bit hesitant to add them, but I know people tend to skip the entry details and go straight to game, so it seemed like a nice thing to do, given the confusing mechanics even if you DO have that info.

Again, if anyone really considers this a full-blow game feature that shouldn't have been added after submission, please let me know, and I WILL yank them to comply.

bookworm31 2017-12-06 08:23

I really enjoyed the game. I was a little bit confused on my first run through about how the zoom worked (the couple seconds to refocus is really cool, but it threw me off at first) and how to move nano-machines out of the dish. I got it on my second run through though and was able to win. I really liked how you actually had two different things to manage, both how many nano-machines were in the dish creating heat at any given time, but also how many bacteria were in the dish. Very cool game, nice job!

antti-tiihonen 2017-12-06 08:26

With a quick introductory level where the mechanics and tools are introduced one by one before the actual game starts, this could be an awesome little game. The graphics here are just right: a nice blend of microscopic aesthetics without sacrificing game-like readability. :thumbsup:

tobia88 2017-12-10 13:54

It's a simulation game aren't it? Everything seems seriously, i was enjoyed in the graphic and atmosphere, but the game is too complicated to understand for me, i can only play the game barely

mrphil 2017-12-13 07:23

I love the concept and want you to explore the idea more. I did struggle understanding how the three "resources" interact with each other. It didn't make sense to me why the nano-machines where moving around. The three layer of cells seems like a complexity that isn't really useful. The dropper especially frustrated me because it was such a blunt instrument. I really wished I could upgrade it or something so I could better design the life patterns to fit with the nano-machines. I hope you continue to work on it, great job.