Pixelgarden: cellular automata game

[skobin]

http://www.gameprojects.com/uploads/08e5d6049b/thumb_11726.JPG

Pixelgarden is a concept game.
many different kinds of cellular automata and fuzzy logic are used to create puzzles and complex behaviors.
the automatons used in the game simulate: plants, flowers, bugs, fire, sand....

This is the first alpha and it lacks the levels and level editor.

Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNJt6ZLJTpw

Download:
http://www.gameprojects.com/project/?id=08e5d6049b

do you have gameplay suggestions ?

[Wizard]

I downloaded your app but it doesn't work, it gives the following error "This system does not support fullscreen mode" and then it bombs out >:(

Running Vista Ultimate...

[chronozphere]

I have the same problem (also vista ultimate). But i have to say that your screenies look kinda interesting. Would like to take a closer look. :)

Can you fix this?

[pjpdev]

Same prob here. Video looks awesome. :)

[skobin]

It wont work on Vista, I am using Borlad Pascal 7, mode 13h graphics.
I will port it to XNA or something

[chronozphere]

Borlad Pascal 7


You mean Borland Delphi 7 right? Those apps should work on Vista. I'm running Delphi7 here too. :)



mode 13h graphics.


I don't know what you mean. Can you elaborate? :?



I will port it to XNA or something


That probably means a total rewrite. Debugging might be easier. :)

[WILL]

Borlad Pascal 7


You mean Borland Delphi 7 right? Those apps should work on Vista. I'm running Delphi7 here too. :)



mode 13h graphics.


I don't know what you mean. Can you elaborate? :?



I will port it to XNA or something


That probably means a total rewrite. Debugging might be easier. :)



I think what he means is that this is a DOS-based program from back in the 90s or he is still using Turbo/Borland Pascal 7. There are, supprisingly still many sad cases of this remaining, thinking that their only solution is C or C# :P As nice as those languages are... Object Pascal still knocks their pants off. ;) I recommend going with either Delphi Prism if you really want to do XNA or Free Pascal and Lazarus or Delphi it's self and stick with OpenGL or DirectX.

BTW, Mode 13 was when you had to trick your video hardware into displaying 320x200 8-bit graphics resolution due to limitations of the time. This technique is not used anymore, but the graphics mode is sometimes used to portray the older look and feel of the games of the era. :)

[skobin]

I am one of those sad cases ???, I am using Turbo Pascal and yes its DOS based,
I want to move to some more modern compiler but I don't know what, there are so many different pascal compilers its hared to begin.

I have got huge amount of work in pascal and I will be happy if I cloud port it with only small modifications.

fortunately ASCII graphics still works (I think) :-[

http://www.devshared.com/dev/pascal/graphics/img/asciiSCR.gif
ASCII Demo in pascal:
http://www.devshared.com/creation.asp?id=502&dwl=true

[jdarling]

Your project looks really interesting. I can safely say that moving from BP7 to FPC is fairly straight forward. Delphi butchered the OP Dialect quite a bit and migrating from BP to Delphi requires quite a bit of work. Moving to Lazarus could or could not require quite a bit of work, just depends on how you make the move. Considering your working on console apps you won't gain much from Lazarus.

Just my two cents. Hope to see your app ported to something I can run some time soon.

- Jeremy

[Traveler]

If you want to get your hands a bit dirty, give Turbo Delphi (https://downloads.embarcadero.com/free/turbodelphi) a try. Its totally free ;)

Cool image, btw. Could you explain what it involves to generate such an image?

[NecroDOME]

ASCII FTW!!! It made me smile :), reminds me of the good old day's I worked still with DOS.

[skobin]

you need to take a ASCII monkey and a bit of Math generated background...
you got the code in the file... and Turbo Delphi sounds good, I will give it a try

[NecroDOME]

Yeah, it reminds me of my first 3D engine. It was a ray tracer, ASCII rendered :) (80x25)

[skobin]

there are some amizng demos in ASCII, I like them more then the graphics ones.

you can take a look
[urlhttp://taat.fi/tmdc/index.html[/url]

[WILL]

skobin: The sad case is not you,but your situation. BP7 was discontinued looong ago. The idea that people still use it is mind boggling since there are so many newer and better things out there still using Pascal. If you would like a modern compiler/IDE that will help you update all your existing code, try either Lazarus or FPC, yes. Or some version of Delphi. (Turbo Delphi is the free one out of all of them.) As Jeremy says you might have some issues doing code translation to Delphi only if you have been using OOP, but that depends on what you used and how it was used of course.

Personally, I highly recommend Lazarus especially if you are working with console programs. Lazarus (it uses Free Pascal as it's compiler) has a few advantages over Delphi which are:

1) It's FREE! :)
2) It's cross-platform capable, Delphi is not. (Unless you are using Delphi Prism which will allow you to use .NET and XNA only.)
3) IDE is more customizable than Delphi since I've last seen. (Does it still have that ugly pink bar that follows your cursor? :vomit:: )
4) Free Pascal, the compiler it uses, is the most syntax compatible compiler out there. All you have to do is configure it via Lazarus' very simple 'Compiler Options' settings.


Now Delphi Prism, is a totally different animal from Delphi it's self. It specifically does .NET 3.5 not Win32 or anything else. But because of this it is the only one that allows you to do XNA and because of that you can also create XBox360 games too. One of the most attractive things about it really. :)