I Turned Cellular Automata into a Game

I combined cellular automata and top-down shooters to create a new take on the roguelite genre.
Wishlist Yawnoc: store.steampowered.com/app/28...
I was challenged to make a game in 3 weeks to compete with 5 other developers for a prize pool of $3,000 in Blackthornprod's first game development competiton.
• 6 DEVS Compete to Make...
My Discord:
/ discord
Support Me (both give access to source from unreleased projects):
/ dafluffypotato
/ @dafluffypotato
My Website (links to games):
dafluffypotato.com
People Featured:
‪@Blackthornprod‬
‪@Wishbone_Games‬
‪@RugbugRedfern‬
‪@MashUpGames‬
‪@ThomasStewartDev‬
‪@ShorteDev‬
‪@Miziziziz‬
Videos Featured:
• Life in life
• Some tips on how to ma...
• Horror Games Don't Hav...
Special thanks to my Potato Tier Patrons:
Agent Effe
Damion
Eivind Teig
Eli Cook
f0ursqu4r3
Rethanon
Sam Cork
Szabolcs Dombi
tbf135
Toblobs
Timestamps:
0:00 - Invitation
0:30 - Conway's Game of Life
1:29 - Week 1
2:32 - First Elimination Meeting
3:21 - Week 2
5:24 - Second Elimination Meeting
6:37 - Week 3
11:25 - Final Meeting
14:35 - Even More Cellular Automata
#gamedev #pygame #python

[@DaFluffyPotato]

Remember to wishlist Yawnoc on Steam! store.steampowered.com/app/2824730/Yawnoc/ Thanks again to Blackthornprod for hosting the competition. I'm excited to finally be working on another Steam game after 5 years!

[@alex.g7317]

Cool concept

[@3_or_more_characters.]

where's the game download link idemandthelink(edit) i refuse to get it from steam(edit2)

[@fabianlaibin6956]

@@3_or_more_characters. wtf, did you just really beg for a game for free

[@Sashim1X]

Potato: I didnt work on it to much Proceeds to make an entire steam game in an afternoon

[@damicapra94]

using pygame too, and not a full fledged game engine

[@akhilallamraju9079]

@@damicapra94 That's his speciality

[@Wishbone_Games]

My best description for how i felt competing against fluffy was like going into a boss fight that you know youre not high enough level for. It was a really fun experience and im for sure gonna play yawnoc when its out, also im gonna get my revenge someday

[@OLIVE_MANN]

Nobody else like, 69 is perfect

[@sakshambhitale293]

Kid 😂

[@lobstrosity7163]

Your game is much more interesting to me for what it's worth.

[@xamanto]

Dangit, I spoiled the ending for myself by reading your comment.

[@kbin7042]

@@OLIVE_MANN being the 696th like is a sight to behold

[@AncientEntity]

someone shut this man down he's too powerful

[@langcao3544]

He made a good retro/arcade game in ONE DAY using a low level framework with MS PAINT FOR ART

[@exosproudmamabear558]

​@@langcao3544Omg

[@JessieOC]

SOMEONE shout-out @DaFluffyPotato .. Legend, mention his "Power Level were deemed over 9000". 😅

[@StockworthChanning]

Splitting the prize was a super classy move.

[@jademonass2954]

"I knew i would not win on visuals" literally one of the prettiest games ive ever seen in my life

[@litterbox019]

holy shit v1 ultrakill

[@the_parasites]

​@@litterbox019 that's v2. its red.

[@Yawne.]

Well you havent seen many then

[@JorgetePanete]

I've*

[@the_parasites]

@@Yawne. hey dude how about we just let people compliment a game's graphics, eh?

[@osilayereight2546]

You know you are dealing with smart people, if they are rather split the prize than being greedy.

[@saparapatepete]

it was a wise call because any of them could have won

[@Houtblokje]

@@saparapatepete Not only that, but they knew they wouldn't win or lose on skill but purely on something random like the judges personal preferences, because their games were so different.

[@skeletonwithagun2119]

But gambling is fun

[@RugbugRedfern]

I was super impressed playing your game after the first week, it's even more impressive that you did it in one day! I'm excited to see how you take the concept further in the next devlog. Enemies following cellular automata rules is a strong hook for a roguelike with a lot of interesting opportunities. Best of luck! 🔥

[@DaFluffyPotato]

Thanks! Although it wasn't exactly one day. It was "one day's worth of work" (~12 hrs) mostly on Saturday with a bit of Friday and a couple lines of code on Thursday. The PixKartz playtest absorbed a good chunk of my first Saturday. Game jams have trained me for crunching, but I can't really do long periods of gamedev. lol

[@abbasuccess3155]

@@DaFluffyPotato I think you can inform players before each level what cellular automata the level is based on and the rules and then slow down the spawning of enemies a bit. This can add an element of strategizing to the game, as players can now choose which enemies to fight and which to let be as they would die by the rules of the automata anyways. Great game! Also, how did you do the art with MS-Paint? 🤯

[@Nevir202]

@@abbasuccess3155 As it is a roguelike, and that is all about customization, it would be interesting if the player gained some way to effect the cellular automata rules.

[@WynterLegend]

Yawnoc is just evidence that a solid gameplay loop and concentration on fun means far more than graphics or even story. Well done.

[@greenben3744]

To be fair, the graphics are also quite solid.

[@kesorangutan6170]

Damn, you can burn a whole forest with that amount of cooking.

[@darkmattermango4775]

Man, you have GOT to make natural obstacles like trees that function on *SOME* variation of conway's game of life. it's too cool of an idea for me to not cry if it's never added.

[@nathanpetrich7309]

epileptic trees

[@naked_molerats_are_awesome]

Yeah, make evil trees that grow roots to mess with the player

[@cryoq1]

The fact you made this in 3 weeks is crazy

[@user-ek2jc1xf3y]

more like 2 sundays and an entire week

[@LighthoofDryden]

you working so few hours during the competition is unreal for how much you made Already had Yawnoc wishlisted, it’s great to get to see some more of your process here. You’re an inspiration!

[@centarian2559]

Idea for a level: A smooth life bossfight where it never stops moving, it just moves really slowly, and you destroy chunks of it at a time

[@alvin_row]

YOOOOO Congrats! The judging at the end did feel a bit weird, especially when most judges mentioned their gaming preferences. Everyone has biases, and it's ok to mention them, but it feels like winning or losing depends on what the judges like best, and that's not a good feeling when there's money on the line. Both games look great though, and congrats again on the win!

[@NethanielShade]

Fortunately, they split the prize, so the only thing her really won was the knowledge that more people preferred his game over the other, out of an extremely small pool. Basically he just won emotional gratification. Not to put that down, the game looks freaking awesome and I immediately wishlisted it after this video finished.

[@jemm113]

Tbf with how drastically different the games are it’s hard to judge them on an objective basis.

[@SinfulCreature]

I was halfway through developing a game that turns Conway's Game of Life into a synchronised turn-based 1vs1 strategy game when I moved on to other projects. I might have to blow the dust off and revisit it some day.

[@teodoricusslack4524]

that sounds good, hope you get far with it!

[@ThomasStewartDev]

Awesome stuff! Extremely impressive game

[@DaFluffyPotato]

Thanks!

[@CreativeSteve69]

wow this was a surprise upload popato, it's great to see the noah bros being open with any gamedev tool you can use in their competition. everyone's games all looked equally really fun. Really impressive game in such a short amount of time fluffy.

[@user-ek2jc1xf3y]

just a regular python wizard defeating guys using Unity, Godot and Unreal

[@DanielJoyce]

This actually looks super cool. There are also the cell life automata base on rules on different cells attracting / repelling each other. You could make the player one of the "colors" and have items change the rules.

[@Solanaar]

this is such a fascinating video and splitting the prize is more significant than you might realise. In a time of cutthroat competitiveness in the AAA(A)-industry what sets the indie scene apart is this sense of lifting one another up. That is the soul of art and creativity and this small act shows this spirit wonderfully. This is a really refreshing take. On regards of your game, I am super fascinated, how well you managed to marry the different design elements. I was kind of sceptic when you started out with designing such developed graphics before any gameplay. That's usually a telltale sign of a designer putting visuals before play, but I was proven wrong and i couldn't be more happy abobut it. I am a visual person and having appealing visuals inspires me a lot. How did you manage to not get lost in the art design, though? Because that is the usual point of failure. How do you deal with scope, since each week you had a working product that still left enough room to improve on. That was what amazed me. Each feature was implemented at the right time in the process. Are you using an agile system? I would love to learn from you, because I struggle making meaningful process with my creative hobbies while maintaining a day job. Disregarding the crunch phase at the end the first two weeks seemed like it would be a viable long term strategy to do game dev when having little free time. The game turned out great and I wholeheartedly agree with the judges: The completeness you were able to deliver in such a short amount of time is astounding.

[@DaFluffyPotato]

Most of my gamedev experience comes from game jams. Placeholder art and prototypes are big time sinks, so it's a huge advantage if you can avoid them. Nailing down the art direction is also one of the harder things to get right, so it's easier if I do it first. By the time I start drawing, I already have a fairly thorough game design in my head. Testing out ideas in your head is a pretty important skill for doing well in game jams in my opinion. The revisions later are usually pretty minor gameplay feel type things.

[@Solanaar]

@@DaFluffyPotato thanks for the answer. That's really insightful. And quite the valuable skill to have. It makes sense how game jams helped develop it - it's not something you can do without a lot of experience.

[@Rockyzach88]

Damn, I was just thinking about this a couple of days ago (making a cellular automata into a game somehow) and here's one!

[@timwaagh]

i knew about yawnoc already somehow. congrats. i personally could never handle such a pace.

[@quantum_hg3299]

It's great how you made this game in such a small time ! Congratulations 🎉

[@themoocroo]

Whenever I get too confident as a programmer I watch Potato and he humbles me

[@KingJellyfishII]

literally my exact experience. Working on a game for a year and not getting as far as potato got in 1 week is an experience for sure

[@Backrub3Bucks]

super cool game man - look forward to seeing your skills develop (even further!) and what other creative ideas you can put forward in the software world, be it a game or something else entirely.

[@Vedranation]

I remember finding your channel from watching that same Blackthronprod competition and thought your game was super cool. I'm really happy to see you keep working on it and hope you'll release Yavnoc Soon :D

[@soupnoodles]

Splitting the prize is such a W

[@muskydev]

You deserve all the love youre gonna get from this man, been watching you for a while!

[@StaresStaringly]

I was literally frothing when I saw this in the comp, I'm glad to see this follow up video 🤩

[@ShorteDev]

Cool devlog! Can't wait to see how you update the game even more 😁

[@edoardospagnolo6252]

Amazing work! Wishlisted and I can't wait to see and play the final game once it's out!

[@drivinmecoco1]

awww its nice to know behind the scenes they care about the devs and its kinda just for show😊

[@cuadernoazul5958]

wow the way you implentef the concept of cellular automata in a game is actually so creative and the fact you did a Steam game from scratch in just a few weeks and it looks amazing! Congrratulations

[@OrtinFargo]

Really polished and will be looking forward to it!

[@lalunafate]

This was a fun watch, thanks for sharing your journey, i'll keep an eye out for Yawnoc :)

[@_hallowed_]

Damn, making something of that quality in 3 weeks in incredibly impressive! The win was well deserved

[@Jakob.Hamburg]

Nice story. :D Thank you for telling, showing, coding. Congratulations to the first place. I just wishlisted the game on steam. It looks pretty good. : )

[@SrV4riable]

That's crazy, the other day I was playing with a graphical library and ended up doing the Conway's Game of Life. While I was observing the cells moving around I thought, holy moly, a really nice game could be done using this as inspiration, and then I find this video, KZbin algorithm is sometimes amazing. And by the way, the game looks really cool, I'm looking forward to play it. Also congratulations for winning!

[@ryanmccampbell7]

Maybe you're already doing this, but a cool idea would be to recognize certain stable patterns like gliders and give them custom sprites (maybe even custom abilities), which would give more enemy variety.

[@kinnectar820]

Congratulations! Looks like an awesome game, I wishlisted.

[@bigwhoopgames]

Great video as always!

[@live_destin-3408]

7:30 "Can't wait to add latina's or something" 🤣😂😂

[@x12_79]

I can't express how much I love your videos

[@bounana]

dude gg!!! making this in pygame is INSANE! its really my type of game and i'm totally hyped for release!

[@kiveynen]

I love the concept!

[@thisisnowtaken]

Wishlisted. It looks insanely good for a couple weekends and a week of after-work additions, so I can't wait to see what it's like after a couple months of development!

[@levijeske27]

The moment you showed the discord call 😂 seeing everybody and then your avatar got me

[@Polygonetwo]

This sounds like an absolute blast. All the games in the competition sound cool but Yawnoc in particular is very much up my alley. Gonna lose so much time to it when it comes out, heh.

[@Tnt0gamer]

for 3 weeks this is insane. i wish i had this much creativity and could implement it this quickly

[@bubblyphysics]

You should add some sort of weapon or ability to the game to create your own growing groups of cellular automata that block enemy fire and collide with their forces, you could even make multiple types of these "friendly blocks" and maybe even add an enemy that poisons or burns or even infects these! That would be really interesting in my opinion and I think this game so far is extremely cool and innovative.

[@l9m241]

I was messing around with Conway's Life and was messing with different life types and was thinking about how it would be cool to have a game based off of this. And it was like my wish was granted! This is so awesome. Can't wait to play it!

[@erikgrielenberger2565]

I am truly amazed by how much you achieved in just three weeks. Dude I am so excited for this game.

[@64revolt]

Splitting the price was class af. Also, this looks incredibly fun to play.

[@jeffreyohler2599]

14:41 *Unexpected outcome!* That's a true show of good character right there. You almost never see that now days. Kudos to you. *Now use your half to make that one of the best games on stream!!!*

[@realElzie]

I’m homeschooled as well. Very happy to meet another homeschooled game dev :D

[@Booshly]

I like how he casually says well i cant quit the competition anymore so i guess ill have to win the whole

[@MaartenBroekman]

Smashed the “Add to wishlist” button… this looks like a hilariously fun game… can’t wait to see the released version

[@LesCalvin3]

Wishlisted. Congrats!

[@slendi9623]

im so exiced for you guy's games, they are awesome

[@John-me1hz]

You must be insanely efficient with your development, because making such a fun game with engaging gameplay after just one day is unbelievable.

[@elshadshirinov1633]

Props to you both for splitting the prize. I'd also pick yours, cause nothing beats great gameplay for me. Have used wireworlds in a game years ago, so was happy to see CGL used in a clever way.

[@official-phuh]

Congrats Fluffy your game looks amazing. Very inspiring for gamedev and for those of use who use Pygame especially.

[@seeinggrey7945]

A cool idea for a boss wave could be where the ground falls beneath you in the game of life pattern while you’re fighting

[@pierrenarcisi4658]

The game looks really fun, and props to you for splitting the prize

[@S0ggyW3tW4t4r]

Fluffy's cooking 👌👌👌

[@eduardozanette9236]

I love how this played out! As a biologist that has worked with agent based models... I hope you get some more ideas on mechanics related to the cellular automata! ;)

[@ConfidentlyRong-jo5yt]

Congrats Fluffy!

[@viniciusfs]

I laughed at guys wearing tuxedos to look serious and professional!

[@Matty_Lane]

I just bought 'Drawn Down Abyss,' excited to try it out because you're one of my main inspirations for game dev.

[@DaFluffyPotato]

It's an interesting concept, but it's not really up to par with what I can do nowadays since it's 5 years old now. I hope you enjoy it though!

[@epicmango9]

Just wanted to say that this is an amazing game, and it would be perfect for me and i know some other ppl that would love for this to be a mobile game. Keep growing and one day you'll be collabing with brackeys and more

[@lewisnapper]

Very cool idea! I'm currently working on a compact engine for simulating cellular automata with different grid types and boundary conditions (in C++/OpenGL) as a research project. It'd be interesting to see how you could use the more complex grids in your game...

[@lucomusicofficial]

Wishing you best health Fluff!

[@bullzey4722]

Absolutely love the game idea and the work you did to it. My only critisizm I'd have currently while you are still working on it, is that I often find it hard to see the player even with the minimal effects you've got going on currently. It'd be great if the player stood out a bit more from the grassy fields and red flowers :D

[@WyrdieBeardie]

Love this video. I have alway had a desire to do something involving this and other algorithms. So cool! The game looks great! Maybe Yawnoc 2 can involve "smooth life" 🤔

[@WyrdieBeardie]

I guess I should have waited until the end 😆

[@mohammedal_abi3814]

Things that you should consider to add to your game 1- Different characters with different speeds and health and attack damage 2- Different charms that you can get from doing some tasks like killing this boss or killing one thousand enemies or stuff like that 3-work more on the sound effect 4- Independent levels with some bosses that you can get charms for completing it I really liked your game, and I hope you launching it soon 🔥

[@lemonlordminecraft]

Insane how your pixel art, in both style and quality, is a match for Hyper Light. Damn, bro, that's some good shit

[@HA11EYS_COM3T]

I NEEDED THIS

[@langcao3544]

I played this already, but I didn't know you made this in TWO DAYS! I'm trying to learn pygame rn, thanks for the clear tutorials.

[@DaFluffyPotato]

I didn't. It was ~12hrs week 1, ~12 week 2, and ~24 week 3.

[@Choco794]

So just two days in total! That’s crazy as per me, hope I can reach your stage one day.

[@TheNitrop]

Grats for winning! Well deserved, going to wishlist the game ASAP. Btw, is it only me, or the projectiles look like Poptarts? Nothing bad with that, I like Poptarts :) (I guess, never tried one)

[@simplythecat4068]

Concept kinda reminds me of Demon Spore where you have to escape a research facility under lockdown overrun by a constantly expanding infection. Running into big chunks of the thing is incredibly scary since it starts to form "hub" nodes that rapidly expand creating more enemies and nodes, easily overwhelming you.

[@bgiv2010]

So... Very cool idea. Some lifeforms launch projectiles. They only go in cardinal directions but it could be a cool bullet heaven game.

[@flor18gatar]

This is insane!

[@sleepynuigurumiamalgamation]

Awesome stuff

[@raphaelfrey9061]

The sequel of this game must be something with lenia, a smooth cellular automata

[@LootBndt]

awesome video!

[@jusore]

It would be nice to at the end you both mix your games into one with that different styles 😗

[@peterm.souzajr.2112]

looks so fun!

[@AmaroqStarwind]

I love the player sprite. It's like a raptor with an assault rifle and a skirt.

[@lioninaboxgames]

Very cool!

[@SketchedDoughnut]

I recently started using pygame for a little game project of mine, and I see this- conveniently after I make conways game of life.. this is reallyyyyyyyyyy impressive!

[@Raylative]

I love this gameplay idea.

[@Yuki-rh1ie]

yo it's gonna be bigger?? okay now i'm super hyped!

[@Tablecuppz]

1:23 that bullet is too cute

[@superscatboy]

Always blown away with what you can squeeze out of Pygame.

[@Nananea]

Good for you, man!

[@Hazeiss]

Star wars Rulestring: 3456/278/6 The 6 at the end means that if a Star Wars particle dies, it stays for 6 frames, and dissapears, instead of going away instantly. The 'dying' particle is not counted as a neighbor, and nothing can be born into that space until it dies. The dying particle will also turn from a dark blue to a much brighter blue as it dies It's as cool as you can imagine And i would like to see it in this game

[@Hazeiss]

Btw the description is from the powder toy wiki

[@Ginto_O]

Congratz on winning!

[@gaimnbro9337]

The way you did game of life is so smartttt

[@xCCflierx]

This goes to show how important it is to sharpen your skills and stockpile assets. No project is useless. Your custom game framework did a lot of work early on to get something playable fast.