Conway's Game of IVAN

Sep 26, 2009, 7:02 pm
#1
Joined: Mar 21, 2008
Location: Your ears!
Posts: 209
Because of my recent fascination with invasive species, I've decided to invade Attnam with regular giant mushrooms.

The thing that I noticed is, those mushrooms don't just randomly sprout out new ones. They grow according to a pattern.

If anyone knows Conway's Game of Life, you should get the idea. I know Conway's Game of Life is also used as a basis for ADOM herbs. Basically, what it means is that cells "live" or "die" depending on how many cells surround them.

IVAN mushrooms don't follow regular Conway's Game of Life - they use a slightly modified version. To live, any mushroom has to have more than one, but less than six neighbours. In other words, mushrooms are generated only if the space they'd appear in fulfills this requirement (2-5 surrounding shrooms), otherwise, if a mushroom already exists in such a square, it may die over time.

Check for yourselves:



Kind of... interesting for a behaviour that plays such a minor role in the game, isn't it? Then again, it's what keeps giant mushrooms in reasonable numbers. Magic mushrooms are except, since they can teleport and levitate.
Sep 26, 2009, 7:20 pm
#2
Joined: Mar 21, 2008
Location: Your ears!
Posts: 209
Oh, and in case you're wondering what's a non-magical mushroom invasion good for...

Guard: Lord Petrus! There's a psychopath murdering your citizens and stealing your treasure!
Petrus: Ahem, I can't leave my room because there is a politically neutral mushroom in the way which I cannot touch. Sorry!

Sep 26, 2009, 8:44 pm
#3
Joined: Dec 3, 2007
Occupation: Chaos Weaver
Location: Standing between all life and death
Posts: 2,888
HAHAHAHAHA

Holy shit, a use for mushroom invasions in Attnam. I'm recommending you a title.
Uchuudonge wrote
creating stable chaos
making patterns where there should be none
sewing order into the chaos
you spit in the face of random numbers, of chaos
Sep 26, 2009, 11:36 pm
#4
Joined: Dec 2, 2007
Location: New Attnam
Interests: bananas
Posts: 2,299
That is awesome! Could make beating the game a lot easier!
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