PyWeek - Theory of Celldoku

Celldoku - An introduction to the theory and how it works in the game

Celldoku is based around a area of complex systems research called Cellular Automata. The interest in these systems is the emergent complex behavior that arises from the extremely simple rules that control it.

The system exists as a two-dimensional grid of cells. Each cell has two states, either alive or dead, on or off. The simple rules that control the system are applied to the whole one cell at a time until a new generation or configuration is created.

The rules are applied to each cell individually, and the result of the rule determines whether or not the cell of the same position in the new generation, is alive or dead. Each rule considers the state of the cell which being checked and the state of its eight neightbors. Based on what these values are the rule might determine this cell to either live or die in the new configuration.

Different rulesets cause different behavior to be displayed in the system. One of the most interesting and well known rulesets was created by John Conway in 1970. Despite doing all of his automations by hand on paper he aimed for a truely interesting ruleset and his hardwork resulted in the following three rules:

* A dead cell will birth if it has EXACTLY three neighbors (Nurture)
* A live cell will die if it has 4 or more neighbors (Overcrowding)
* A live cell will die if it has 2 or less neighbors (Starvation)

How does this work in Celldoku?

In Celldoku, each level exists as a broken progression of generations in a Cellular Automata. The player is given an initial configuration on the board and a target configuration is indicated on the board in red. It is up to the player to "fix" the configuration so that when submitted it results in the generation of the target.

In this screenshot the live cells in the player's board are indicated by the dark areas. The target configuration is indicated by redness on the empty cells. If a live cell is currently occupies the target its indicated by a green shading of the cell. A legend:

Clear : Dead cell
Black : Alive cell
Black-Green : Alive cell occupying target
Red : Target


— ldle on 2008/04/01 04:42 of fydle - fydo and ldle

Comments:

By saluk on 2008/04/01 05:00:

So much awesome! But what's with the japanese characters. Looks like, um, rodoshito, I think. (I'm probably wrong) Of course with no "L" you'd have trouble writing celldoku in any case. Good luck with the game.

By saluk on 2008/04/01 05:17:

Whoops, thats roboshito. Now it makes sense :)

By adam on 2008/04/01 06:35:

I think it's 'robotto'.

By saluk on 2008/04/01 06:45:

You get a cracker.

By keeyai on 2008/04/01 22:22:

It's definitely robotto - check the small tsu... Anyway, this screenshot is soo much better looking than my game it makes me cry.

By kfields on 2008/04/02 00:57:

Oh yeah ... Steven Wolfram thinks CA's are the secret to the Universe. Hopefully it will make a better game than a theory of everything. Or is it 42? :)

By djfroofy_c_ on 2008/04/02 16:35:

Haha!!! Roboshitto! つまり、お前のゲームはまったくシットだべ！「頑張れ」と言っとくけど、テメィ是非負けるぞ！ウァハッハッハッハッ！