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SeanAnderson
Nezteb
I love ants and replicating their behavior in code!
You might like these projects:
"Coding Adventure: Ant and Slime Simulations" by Sebastian Lague:
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-iSQQgOd1A
Code https://github.com/SebLague/Ant-Simulation
"C++ Ants Simulation 1, First approach" by Pezzza's Work:
SeanAnderson
Thank you for the resources! I'll add them to my list of bookmarks. :)
harrisi
This is maybe a bit too specific to Clojure and more generally about concurrency in it, but Rich Hickey introduced Clojure with an ant simulation demonstration. The video quality is not great, but there's an article (sadly not up anymore, but on the way back machine):
https://web.archive.org/web/20160409080236/http://juliangamb...
Video directly: https://youtu.be/dGVqrGmwOAw
dang
Discussed here:
Making Sandspiel - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34555913 - Jan 2023 (10 comments)
Making Sandspiel - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19793835 - May 2019 (9 comments)
Sandspiel – A falling sand game built in Rust and WebGL - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18696291 - Dec 2018 (185 comments)
phailhaus
I am a sucker for falling sand games, thanks for making this. Makes me want to make my own, I've been brainstorming ideas of complex "ecosystem" games for a while but never thought to just use a sand engine!
mystickphoenix
If you haven't been exposed to it, check out Noita. It's a falling sand action roguelike where the entirety of the world is simulated.
phailhaus
Haha, already got it! Super hard though, if it wasn't for mods I'd never play that game.
DonHopkins
Also check out Sandspiel Studio, which lets you explore, edit, and define your own rules with a Scratch-like block visual programming language!
https://studio.sandspiel.club/
Making Sandspiel (maxbittker.com):
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34555913
https://maxbittker.com/making-sandspiel
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34561910
DonHopkins 3 months ago | parent | context | favorite | on: Making Sandspiel
I am a huge fan of Sandspiel, which Max described in this article from 2019, and recently I was delighted to discover that he and TodePond have been doing a huge amount of wonderful work since then.
What happens when you combine Sandspiel with a Scratch-like blocks based visual programming language that lets you look inside and see how rules work, tweak and modify them, and even define your own rules for different types of particles? And then form a community around it for sharing and learning from each other and building on top of each other's work.
Here is Max's and TodePond's brilliantly ambitious visually programmable sequel, Sandspiel Studio!
https://studio.sandspiel.club/
Here's my profile, where you can play with the version of Max's flower growing rule that he shows here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifyYITDq1oo
...to grow underground potatoes and fancy flowers:
https://studio.sandspiel.club/user/clanzgor8006109mtjooi348t
I've written more about Sandspeil Studio and related topics of artificial life, cellular automata, and visual programming, and quoted some interesting discussion with Max and TodePond from their Discord server (they actually already knew about most of this stuff, but they love it as much as I do), in the "Ask HN: What weird technical scene are you fond/part of?" discussion, in reply to api's comment about Digital Artificial Life:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33698163
api 67 days ago | parent | context | favorite | on: Ask HN: What weird technical scene are you fond/pa...
Digital Artificial Life -- as in evolving program ecosystems, artificial chemistries or cellular automata that can manifest life-like phenomena, etc.
Haven't done much with it in a while but was very into it in college. It's both a minor scientific field (would probably be grouped under both theoretical biology and AI research) and a hobbyist field with some really interesting projects.
DonHopkins 67 days ago | prev [–]
That's one of my long time interests and hobbies, which I write about on HN and discuss with other people frequently. I'm supposed to be doing something else right now so I'll quickly drop a few disorganized quotes and links here. (Sorry I didn't have time to be more concise!)
A few years ago I ran across Max Bittker's beautiful "Sandspiel", which is a delightful cellular automata toy that simulates sand and other rules:
A few days ago I saw him tweet some amazing stuff that resonated with me, which then led me to discover what he's been working with Lu Wilson (TodePond): Sandspiel Studio -- user definable rules using a block based visual programming language.
https://twitter.com/maxbittker
"working on goth fungus kidpix":
https://twitter.com/maxbittker/status/1593868837111451649
Lu Wilson (TodePond):
Sandspiel Studio:
https://studio.sandspiel.club/
Sandspiel introduction:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecCVor7mJ6o
Sandspiel Studio in 60 seconds:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOA-lR3Xc34
Rainbow Sand:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGTsy79wx4U
Huegene:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltpkO7jcFOY
Flower:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifyYITDq1oo
TodePond's Spellular Automata:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvlsJ3FqNYU
We had a great discussion on the Sandspiel Studio Discord server, where I posted some interesting links:
[lots more links and info in the original post:]
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34561910
Also be sure to check out TodePond’s amazing videos and software!
For example, "Screens in Screens in Screens":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4OIcwt8vcE
"Top 9 Ways to Make Sand":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDyvjkAs5-Y
"Top 9 Ways to Make BIG Sand":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mbs0sx3z2A
"Tourism 2: Off-Road":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvlsJ3FqNYU
"Spellular Automata":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvlsJ3FqNYU
There's so much more, and I think you’ll love it all as much as I do:
https://www.youtube.com/@TodePond/videos
London Creative Coding - Feb 2023: The Spatial Programming Pipe Dream - Lu Wilson:
taneq
> For example, "Screens in Screens in Screens":
WTF. What starts out as boxes turns into some kind of recursive self-referential nightmare which can generate IFS fractals and then... wait that's not affine, stop, help, and now it's totally destroyed all frames of reference.
That's not a tech demo, that's an epistemological nightmare, that is.
humbugtheman
Hi, glad you enjoyed(?) it! It was a fun video to make!
oersted
The balancing seems a bit off. But oh man, this thing is so mesmerizing and addictive :)
Daphnia are too aggressive eating algae and produce too many eggs when doing so, so the algae population gets constantly suppressed in most settings.
Fish also barely eat daphnia so it is hard to control their population with them.
It is also too hard for daphnia to eat grass. It slowly grows uncontrolled to fill a lot of the tank, significantly reducing mobility and blocking light. Grass also produces too little oxygen.
Bacteria always end up dying off quickly because there is not enough material for them to decompose. It's unclear where the stuff they eat comes from and how the nitrogen bacteria produce affects plant growth.
As a result of all of this, oxygen is always fluctuating at the minimum, going into the red at night often. Which means fish always die eventually, which seems to be making people sad :(
But again, really entertaining and beautiful :)
RajT88
You have to tinker a bit. I haven't figured out the role that the bacteria play yet, but too low of oxygen means you need more algae/grass to generate more O2 during daylight hours. (And yes, it will crash at night when there's less photosynthesis)
Don't put too many critters in there either. Mine is pretty stable for a few hours now with 3 fish, and ample grass and algae.
Side question: Is it in my head, or are the fish slowly growing?
fishtoaster
For bacteria: I believe their role is to provide nitrogen in the sand by eating algae poop. Nitrogen in the sand is required for plants in that sand to grow.
You can test this a bit:
1. Create a new sphere and fill it with water. Add a bit of sand at the bottom
2. Add algae and fastforward.
3. The algae will multiply, causing the o2 to shoot up.
4. The algae will die off because of the high o2. Their dead bodies (purple dots) will litter the sea floor.
5. Put in some bacteria.
6. You can watch the bacteria eat the purple dots. Note that the sand changes color slightly as they do - I think that's the sand becoming nitrogen-rich.
oersted
Yes the sand seems to darken a bit under where bacteria were eating, that might be the nitrogen, although it doesn't seem to spread over the rest of the sand, not sure if the plants are getting it.
Also you need to keep adding bacteria because the keep dying off. They don't have the mobility to find all the dead algae, so they are gone pretty quickly.
Areading314
You need a nice wood tree in the tank, can increase your grass area a lot
LorenDB
Yeah, they grow.
oersted
Adding a lot of algae always makes daphnia reproduce a lot and eventually they eat all the algae.
But I think I figured out the solution: many fish. With enough fish you can keep that initial wave of daphnia under control, so that they don't eat all the algae and crash the oxygen, so the fish don't die.
This seems to last, although it is still right on the edge of oxygen.
imakira
I figured out you can limit the living area of Daphnia using glass and sand, and then feed the fishes with only grass.
syx
I love these kinds of sandbox games, Orb Farm is super nice to have it running directly in the browser for a little procrastination break. Although my favorite is probably The Powder Toy [0], I've been following this project for years.
ldayley
The guy that created orb.farm[0] is the same guy behind sandspiel.club[1], which is a browser-based Rust/WebGL powdertoy-like implementation. I added it to my phone's home screen so my kids have been playing with it for years!
[0]: https://maxbittker.com [1]: https://sandspiel.club
uSoldering
You should check out Noita on Steam. :)
hutzlibu
Do you happen to know if powdertoy is using the GPU for the simulation or do they manage it all on the CPU?
degenerate
FYI you can use "glass" selection to build walls/cliffs at the start, so all your sand and stone isn't piling into a hill at the bottom.
LorenDB
Who else has figured out that you can expand the orb into a square?
shever73
Oh yes, I've also added secret passages in which fish seem to die trying to find their way out :/
peddling-brink
In a similar vein, grass floats, and supports rocks, which are water tight. The rocks can support sand, and therefore more plants. The rocks also stack.
I now have a glass-free orb (square).
xtian
Nicely done take on the form. The original game of this type was a Japanese Java applet known as "Falling sand game". I'm not sure it's preserved anywhere though.
unglaublich
Old and similar https://dan-ball.jp/en/javagame/dust/
EscapeFromNY
One of my fish died and I don't know why :(
trhr
You need to build a stateless fish tank via replicas. It's pretty common that a new feature gets introduced into the upstream. You never even see it until one of your tanks crashes. That's why it's critical to have a backup strategy, n+1 redundancy, and a robust change control process to limit contagion risk.
I used to have a roommate that had like 12 tanks going all the time. I couldn't even complain, because I hosted my own kubernetes cluster, so I understood exactly why he needed them.
2023throwawayy
Welcome to the world of fish keeping.
dang
Related:
Orb.Farm - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31321645 - May 2022 (3 comments)
Orb.Farm, a Virtual Aquatic Ecosystem - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23218186 - May 2020 (6 comments)
dreen
Can the fish multiply? If so I have failed them
mileycyrusXOXO
They can! It takes a while for them to grow to adulthood though
onemoresoop
Mine die after a while...
programmarchy
I got a little microchip. Maybe an easter egg? Put it in my farm although it doesn't seem to do anything.
eric-hu
I think on every reload it's a different item. It seems to be an ornament, like a castle or ship one might put in a fishbowl.
01100011
Fun! Also funny because I've gotten into container ponds, medaka (Japanese ricefish), daphnia/moina and other microfauna over the last 2 months. It's an interesting hobby. The biggest thing I've noticed is how much local bees need a water source.
afandian
If you like honey, water sources is one of a few things that might disconcert you.
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:) Love seeing this at the top of HN! This project, along with sandspiel (by the same creator), are some of my biggest inspirations!
If you're not aware, there's a relatively deep technical explanation of how sandspiel was built which I found interesting. If you're into orb.farm then you'll probably find it interesting, too: https://maxbittker.com/making-sandspiel
And, shameless plug, I've been teaching myself Rust/Bevy/ECS lately and am creating a simulation ant farm. The project is still in its infancy, and is nowhere near as cool as these, but https://meomix.github.io/symbiants/ for some ants that scurry around and emergently create piles of sand. Pan/Zoom launching in a couple of hours, feeding them hopefully in the next week or so. If you have ideas for simple features I'd love to hear them or if you want to follow along with the project check my profile for a Discord link.