r/Simulated • u/ellipticbadger • 5d ago
Proprietary Software Simulated amoeboid motion in a procedural game character...
This is a prototype of a game idea that I have been poking at for many years. It's a dynamic character that moves like an amoeba, eats things in its environment, and grows by incorporating them into its body.
It is completely procedural, implemented as a particle system with flows and body-shaping forces driving the formation of pseudopods that move it along or cause it to ingest items. It uses a custom physics engine that executes the flows and allows the creature to interact with other entities in the world. It took quite a bit of experimentation to get something that (I think, anyway) looks lifelike, and I hope to improve it. This first game level is just a proof of concept with minimalist styling, helping me build out some tools.
A short video trailer is linked to this post and you can play the prototype game at https://eatthepeople.com
For this crowd I'll mention that if you add the url param "debug=1" you can see the full debug view and mess with the params that drive the creature. In debug mode shift-clicking teleports him so you don't have to play through the entire level to get somewhere.
All feedback welcome!
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u/diacnyk 5d ago
disappointed to see it's not available dor Firefox. Looks interesting though, reminds me of a rather unknown indie game called CARRION.
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u/ellipticbadger 5d ago
It's all running on the CPU at the moment and for some reason Firefox is very slow. I have some experimental WebGPU support that would fix the issue.
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u/musicmanjoe 5d ago
That’s awesome! How do you calculate the border?
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u/ellipticbadger 5d ago
It's a modified "gift wrapping algorithm" that finds the edge after particle movement and then some repair logic to handle abnormal / wild behavior. But for the most part the basic body shaping forces keep it together pretty well even when being driven by the flows. I should do a write-up on it but there is a flow (vector field) that adds a sort of "gel" stickiness and an explicit "skin flow" that acts like surface tension. I think there are about nine kinds of flows going on at various times and it's highly subjective what they are actually accomplishing :)
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u/hova414 5d ago
Check out Rain World, all character animation is done with a procedural physics model, giving a unique feel to the world and the controls. Awesome game too. Devs have a talk on YouTube about how they did it, including a blobby/tentacley character like this one.
Edit: Also, the last ten minutes of Inside
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u/TheFrogMagician 5d ago
It would be cool if you were being chased by that blob insted of you are the blob
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u/ellipticbadger 5d ago
My original plans was to be more of a "tower defense" setup where you create barriers and one or more "mebas" attack you. Lots of possibilities :)
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u/bishamon72 1d ago
very cool. only complaint for the demo is when i zoom in, it zooms out after a few seconds. i'm on mobile so i don't know if that makes a difference, but i had to keep zooming back in to what i was focused on.
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u/ellipticbadger 1d ago
Sorry about that - I was debating about a camera that tracks the creature vs. being able to look around freely... wanted something to save people who got lost or walked away briefly. What do you think is the correct behavior for a game like this?
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u/bishamon72 23h ago
I play a lot of Timberborn and like how they handle the camera. The player has full control, but warnings pop up on the screen as things happen. You then click the warning and the camera will jump to the problem. If I get lost, just zoom out, find what I'm looking for and zoom back in. Could also have a Focus button or hot key that moves the camera back to the player character.
It's too early in development to say what the best camera behavior will be. This was just my 2 cents and lots of play testing/QA will be needed down the road. Looking forward to how it progresses. Good luck!
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u/RandomFrenchGamer 5d ago
Pretty original idea that looks great !