Woah, this was really really fun! Cute narrative and a very original twist on using cellular automata. I started to understand how these systems behaved intuitively after using them for a while. Managed to 100% the entire game. Great work! It took me a little to understand I could flip multiple times per jump but once I figured that out it was over. So much fun!
Play game
MEANINGLESS's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Game Design | #2 | 4.230 | 4.588 |
| Execution | #11 | 3.742 | 4.059 |
| Overall | #11 | 3.715 | 4.029 |
| Visuals | #16 | 3.796 | 4.118 |
| Audio | #19 | 3.091 | 3.353 |
Ranked from 17 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Comments
WOW, absolutely fantastic idea, excellent execution, great polish, great soundtrack. I don’t really like most puzzle games, so consider it high praise when I say I finished this one :) I love the little float the guy does when at the apex of the jump, I love the detail of the cells showing you what their next and last states are, and I love the little jokes on the signs. Great work!
Sometimes my feet would get stuck, but otherwise this feels really polished! And great insight using game of life rules!
Very nice and creative use of the game of life rules, being able to step back and forth felt good and the level design was solid.
I wonder how it would play if your moves were turn based as well instead of the platforming mechanics with more focus on puzzling mechanics and solutions like interacting with cells in different ways (like you have one insert/delete operation to do and you have to choose wisely etc). Or just with some form of undo as it-is to ease on the memorization/precision aspect a bit.
Think the level menu could automatically select the just unlocked level for you (or just go there automatically) for a more seamless experience. Having your progress saved here was a nice touch!
Overall a great entry with a high level of polish!
Bog is good! Bog is great! BOG!!!!
The level design is so good. Being able to tick back/forwards without much of a cooldown means it was possible to cheese some of the levels, but that could have been intentional.
Only real issue was getting my toes stuck in a brick and having to accept my fate.
Overall very nice.
This is a genuinely fantastic concept and you executed it with style! I think often maths-derived concepts like these are very difficult to turn into a recognizably fun gameplay experience but the way it was done here I think was really good. I could see it being a full game with additional mechanics like creating/removing some number of cells manually to influence the patterns, or even adding cells that follow other Cellular Automata rules aside from Game of Life (such as wireworld or langton's ant).
Was not familiar with wireworld/langton’s ant, thanks for the suggestions! I can imagine a lot of fun level ideas with both those.
I spent a couple hours trying to figure out if adding/removing blocks would make sense, but ultimately found it too brainmelting/unpredictable to yield satisfying puzzles. Worth trying again though, I think with a less chaotic automata like wireworld it may be more effective.
Thanks for playing!
super fun! love the game of life influence. the audio wasn't working (don't think it was a me problem because it happened across multiple devices and i can hear other itch.io games, but could have been), but i went to the link and listened to the song and thought it fit the game nicely! only issue: as someone who isn't very familiar with the game of life, the rules were kind of hard to follow. i wish it eased you into it a bit more!











Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.