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Food Chain Farm v0.1
amarillion
Member #940
January 2001
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Hey guys,

I'm proud to present to you the first release of "Food Chain Farm"

video

(P.S. can I get some likes on youtube?)

It's a construction game, where you have to connect plants and animals so they can form part of the cycle of life: plants produce food and oxygen, animals consume food and oxygen and produce carbon dioxide. And then you can combine animal and vegetable products into delicious recipes to feed to your humans.

I've worked on this for over 15 months. There is still tons to do, but I wanted to do an early release to get some feedback. I'm sure there are still glitches and rough patches, so please let me know what isn't clear or where you get stuck. Oh and what do you think of the style of graphics?

Download it here, try it, and let me know what you think!
Windows installer
Windows zip bundle
Linux tar bundle

By the way, this was not made with allegro. I used JavaScript, Phaser, and Electron to package it all up. I used JavaScript so that I could easily make a web version for classroom settings.

Website: https://games.helixsoft.nl/game/foodchainfarm/

Erin Maus
Member #7,537
July 2006
avatar

I'm not usually a fan of puzzle games, but it's the premise is great. I played the first 5 levels and enjoyed it! (I'd have played more but there's a hurricane and the power keeps going in/out).

The progression is good. It effectively eased me in. The graphics and animation are good. I'm not sure about the realistic backgrounds with the cartoony sprites though.

The bugs I noticed:

1. Sometimes you can select the text on the GUI buttons.
2. There's flickering on the resource requirement bubbles.
3. Sometimes the text on the scenario text (not sure what else to call it) wraps off the screen.

The only gameplay criticism bit was it took me a few levels to understand where the connectors are, but that's probably my fault. I'd make the connectors on the ... environments? more visible or noticeable.

Good job!

---
ItsyRealm, a quirky 2D/3D RPG where you fight, skill, and explore in a medieval world with horrors unimaginable.
they / she

Edgar Reynaldo
Major Reynaldo
May 2007
avatar

Well, it looks cool, but I didn't get very far. I got to the third level and couldn't feed the pig or the tree because there were no resources!

LMB drag building would be cool.

EDIT
I made links as far out as I could go, but for the life of me I can't figure out how to place water or air.

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amarillion
Member #940
January 2001
avatar

Thanks for the feedback!

I got to the third level and couldn't feed the pig or the tree because there were no resources!

They are each others resources. Just as in real life, the pig breathes oxygen produced by the tree, the tree consumes CO2 produced by the pig. And the pig produces excess water, which can be consumed by the tree (yes, happens in real life too).

I'm not usually a fan of puzzle games, but it's the premise is great.

I want this to be more of a construction game than a puzzle game. Once you've got the core mechanic figured out, it shouldn't be a puzzle anymore. I'm planning a sandbox level where you can mix a whole bunch of plants and animals, to make various recipes, from hot dogs to pizza to sushi.

Quote:

The only gameplay criticism bit was it took me a few levels to understand where the connectors are, but that's probably my fault. I'd make the connectors on the ... environments? more visible or noticeable.

It's a fair point. There are graphical indicators on the "environments" (In the code they are called Factories) where the connectors go, but perhaps they are too subtle right now. I'll try to think of a way to improve this.

Quote:

I'm not sure about the realistic backgrounds with the cartoony sprites though.

I'm curious if more people dislike this combination. I used free backgrounds (e.g. from NASA) as placeholder. But it is growing on me and I was considering making it permanent.

Also thanks for your other bug reports, I'll work on that.

Btw, the game doesn't save your progress, but if you want to skip a level ...

You can type the secret code "iddqd"

Edgar Reynaldo
Major Reynaldo
May 2007
avatar

Okay, I'm dumb. Got to level 5 and couldn't zoom out far enough to see the whole board. Still want mouse button drag building though, as otherwise it's just click click click, and its not as much fun.

EDIT
Got stuck. Nobody's producing anything because everybody needs something, but everything is connected. Deadlock. ;P

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EDIT2
Got stuck a little further. The mill doesn't work. It won't send the flour to the oven. ???

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Not being able to zoom out far enough to see everything is frustrating.

Peter Hull
Member #1,136
March 2001

Any chance of a Mac version?
I haven't tried it myself but if you are using Electron Packager it looks pretty easy to do.
Pete

amarillion
Member #940
January 2001
avatar

Got stuck. Nobody's producing anything because everybody needs something, but everything is connected. Deadlock. ;P

Sorry, seems you're running into one of my bugs here. I've seen that happen once or twice, although I haven't figured out the exact conditions to trigger it so that makes it kind-of hard to debug. Also a deadlock is pretty rare on the 5th level, at least when I test myself. On the 6th level, deadlocks seem to be more common.

I was thinking of adding a little dropper tool to pick up resources from one place and move them manually. It's a bit of a cop out, but maybe that's just what's needed here.

Quote:

Got stuck a little further. The mill doesn't work. It won't send the flour to the oven.

That's also a bug. You're not supposed to be able to run the conveyors across the mill like that, I must have forgotten to mark those tiles solid. When I test, I let the grain enter from the left and the flour exit to the right. You let the grain enter from the right which it will accept - but apparently there is a bug where the flour can only exit to the right. Then, I think as soon as you overwrite the mill tiles (which you're not supposed to be able to do) the whole system gets broken beyond repair. So yeah, I should do something about that.

Anyway, thanks for being the guinea pig... I'm getting a good list of bugs already.

Any chance of a Mac version?
I haven't tried it myself but if you are using Electron Packager [github.com] it looks pretty easy to do.

I'm using electron-builder, but nevertheless, yes in theory a Mac version can be done. Just one problem.... I don't have a Mac! I'm almost considering buying a second hand macbook to use as a build server. Or do you know of some cloud service I can use somewhere? That would be really great.

Edgar Reynaldo
Major Reynaldo
May 2007
avatar

To avoid deadlock, I made everything connected, but I left it broken in a couple key places. I did the conveyors first, since nothing was being produced. Then I made almost connected water pipes and air ducts. Then I hooked up the holes and watched everything start going. Neato!

EDIT
If you marked the mill entrance and exit with arrows like the furnace has, it would help.

EDIT2
I swear I did everything right, and I waited to hook things up, but the eggs aren't going to the oven, so I can't make any apple pies.

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EDIT3
I did everything except hook the water system up to the furnace. Then a whole ton of water flew out, and then it deadlocked after a little while again. There's a ton of oxygen, but it's not going anywhere? Clues?

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amarillion
Member #940
January 2001
avatar

I'm seeing it too now. It almost looks like factories somehow get permanently deactivated. Even if more resources appear, they are somehow not processed.

I'll investigate. Stay tuned for version 0.2, it might take a few weeks.

Edgar Reynaldo
Major Reynaldo
May 2007
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Chris Katko
Member #1,881
January 2002
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I really think the artwork detracts from the gameplay. It looks like a live flash animation or java applet for a physics demo.

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I think more random strangers would be interested if it had a more professional artwork style. Whether cartoon or realistic. This feels more like clip art. Like a powerpoint presentation.

p.s. I gave you them likes on youtube.

[edit] Though I like the animals/people. It's got a certain charm to them.

<quiote>
I could easily make a web version for classroom settings.
</quote>
And that might actually be pretty applicable for the art style.

-----sig:
“Programs should be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.” - Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
"Political Correctness is fascism disguised as manners" --George Carlin

Edgar Reynaldo
Major Reynaldo
May 2007
avatar

Food Farm doesn't remind me of Java physics applets in the least bit. ???

I think the artwork is pretty good. The cow and the wheat and the chicken and the person, they're all drawn with the same style and I really like it for whatever that's worth. ;)

I just wish the view could zoom farther out.

More levels please!!!!1111

SiegeLord
Member #7,827
October 2006
avatar

Tried it out on Linux, but unfortunately input lag made it unplayable (it took about 5-10 seconds for clicks to be registered, the FPS seemed fine). Since I couldn't get to too much gameplay, I'll make a comment about the graphics. I found them endearing, but only because they remind me of Russian games from the 90's... I'm not sure that'll match the sensibilities of the modern audicences :P.

"For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increases knowledge increases sorrow."-Ecclesiastes 1:18
[SiegeLord's Abode][Codes]:[DAllegro5]:[RustAllegro]

amarillion
Member #940
January 2001
avatar

I think more random strangers would be interested if it had a more professional artwork style. Whether cartoon or realistic. This feels more like clip art. Like a powerpoint presentation.

[edit] Though I like the animals/people. It's got a certain charm to them.

I think the artwork is pretty good. The cow and the wheat and the chicken and the person, they're all drawn with the same style and I really like it for whatever that's worth. ;)

I'll be the first to admit there is room for improvement. And I'll probably never be able to please everybody. But I'm wondering if you are talking about different things here. It seems that Edgar likes the cow, chicken and other animals graphics, whereas Chris dislikes the enclosures and other secondary graphics (maybe the conveyors, the UI, the menu screen?). Is that right? The animals are flat shaded whereas the enclosures and connectors have gradients. Maybe that's what you dislike about it?

SiegeLord said:

Since I couldn't get to too much gameplay, I'll make a comment about the graphics. I found them endearing, but only because they remind me of Russian games from the 90's... I'm not sure that'll match the sensibilities of the modern audicences :P.

Yeah, that's what they call "damning with faint praise" :) I'm aiming for a high school / teenager audience, so I can't just rely on nostalgia.

Quote:

Tried it out on Linux, but unfortunately input lag made it unplayable (it took about 5-10 seconds for clicks to be registered, the FPS seemed fine).

That's a new one to me. To help troubleshoot this, could you check if you get the same lag for keyboard input? For example, once you've started construction on a pipe, you can use the cursor keys as shortcuts.

Chris Katko
Member #1,881
January 2002
avatar

I kind of like the cow/animals/etc. They have a certain cute style / theme to them that reminds me of children's books.

But the conveyors, background, it doesn't "mesh". It all pops like it's all from different artists with different art styles. It kind of has a "flash/java applet game" feel to it and that usually comes with an automatic negative impression because of the tens-of-thousands of bad/"shovelware" flash games that were made.

Look at this one, for example: (Slightly bad example because it's an exceptionally good art indie game)

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It's all the same style. The color tone matches between sprites and background. I'm no artist so I don't know all the terms. (Though I've got artist friends I could forward this to if that'll help.)

For some examples:

At 8 seconds in your trailer video:
- The barrel is flat shaded.

- Everything else is SUPER SUPER gradient shaded. Like "use the entire RGB spectrum" gradients. Which reminds me of Microsoft Word/Powerpoint clipart from the 90's.

That's an art disconnect.

Also, using the full gradients makes things extremely "metallic" but not adding a texture in them to break the transition up (over the large screen area) makes them look too perfect for reality.

Now, I'm NOT SAYING that "this sucks, you sucks, die in a fire." I just noticed that the second I saw the video my brain subconsciously went "negative_impression();" and I'm trying to explain why.

[edit] On the other hand, the trailer music DEFINITELY drives a feeling of "Hectic management" which is a good thing. (TM) Great job on that.

[edit] More stuff. The sound effects (and the FONT) don't match the art style at all. It's C64 sounding beeps and buzzes, but the art is clip-art style. Also, if C64, throw some C64 style chiptune music in there.

[edit] Also, upside down tiles are graphically flipped. Like, turning down, the tile will have the shading flipped from the rest of the tiles.

Edgars pic:
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Silver pipe, lower left corner. A turn pipe.

[edit]

Text cut off:

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[edit]

Most puzzle games have a "speed up simulation because I'm done" button. Consider that if applicable in the later levels.

[edit]

HAAHHA I just crashed it. It was super easy too. Just drive around with the conveyers over yourself back and forth.

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[edit] Also, the INPUTS and OUTPUTS of every building need to be VERY CLEARLY labelled. It's also weird that you click on the starting pipe position OUTSIDE of a structure instead of the label of the structure itself indicating the direction.

[edit] I do LIKE the first two levels. You figure out what's going on through trial and error pretty quickly.

[edit] Also a "PAUSE SIMULATION" might be useful.

[edit] The CLOUDindications are confusing. Cloud water. Do I NEED water piped in? Or does it PRODUCE water and it can't because there's no output, or not enough inputs?

[edit] CLEARLY mark the play area. If I can't go outside it, make sure it's marked before I run into it.

[edit]

WTF!!!!!!

You can build OVER OTHER PIPES? But using ARROW KEYS doesn't do that? I've been playing the first three levels trying to never run a pipe over another! >:(>:(>:(>:(>:(>:(>:(

[edit] ADD A "mission objective" button that retells you the objective.

[edit] I REALLY don't like the resource decay in this game. One wrong link, or a link you don't understand yet, and it eats away at the total resources in the system and the TIMER IS ON otherwise you lose everything and have to start over. So you try again, get a little further... and once again, make one missing link (because no factories have ANY context tips to explain them) and you start all over again.

[edit] I'm at the same part with Edgar. Once you hook stuff up, you quickly run out of O2 or food if it's not connected perfectly. And then you fail and have to start from scratch. That's not very fun. I'd remove that game mechanic entirely (or at least nullify it).

-----sig:
“Programs should be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.” - Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
"Political Correctness is fascism disguised as manners" --George Carlin

Edgar Reynaldo
Major Reynaldo
May 2007
avatar

One thing that is rough is that if you connect things too soon, then they can get used up. Are all the resource production rates and cost balanced for each level?

The only thing I really don't like is the big flat panel on the left. It could be much narrower, given a vertical set of buttons, and less text. The more play area the better. The panels are flat colors, where everything else is colorful and shaded. The buttons look fine, they have an outline glow.

EDIT for all your edits

You can build OVER OTHER PIPES? But using ARROW KEYS doesn't do that? I've been playing the first three levels trying to never run a pipe over another! >:(>:(>:(>:(>:(>:(>:(

[edit] ADD A "mission objective" button that retells you the objective.

[edit] I REALLY don't like the resource decay in this game. One wrong link, or a link you don't understand yet, and it eats away at the total resources in the system and the TIMER IS ON otherwise you lose everything and have to start over. So you try again, get a little further... and once again, make one missing link (because no factories have ANY context tips to explain them) and you start all over again.

[edit] I'm at the same part with Edgar. Once you hook stuff up, you quickly run out of O2 or food if it's not connected perfectly. And then you fail and have to start from scratch. That's not very fun. I'd remove that game mechanic entirely (or at least nullify it).

I've been trying to build everything with the mouse!!! I didn't know you could use the cursor keys! But yeah, you have to manually make the pipes go over or under each other. You'd never be able to connect everything if you couldn't do that.

There's a big problem with the second to last puzzle, the one Chris is on. If you pipe the cow milk to the churn instead of the oven, then you never get pies and the fat little kids eat all the cheese.

Chris Katko
Member #1,881
January 2002
avatar

If I could access / unpack the artwork, I'd make a retropixel version just as a proof-of-concept because with your soundeffects, this kind of music fits perfectly (the pacing as well):

video

So "retro-ifying" the artwork to be C64/ZX Spectrum/etc might make it really POP artistically. You could even integrate the retro feel into the factory names/types/structures. Like eventually you make electricity and feed a retro computer with electricity. (Of course I understand it's your game and I'm only going on a snippet work-in-progress of your idea. Just putting it out there.)

In a way, this kind of reminds me of The Incredible Machine meets Factorio.

-----sig:
“Programs should be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.” - Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
"Political Correctness is fascism disguised as manners" --George Carlin

amarillion
Member #940
January 2001
avatar

Now, I'm NOT SAYING that "this sucks, you sucks, die in a fire.

Don't worry, I wasn't offended. I asked for feedback and you gave it, thanks for that. Now it helps to be as specific as possible, and your second post is rather helpful in that respect. That is much appreciated.

Quote:

(Though I've got artist friends I could forward this to if that'll help.)

Yes, maybe, although I think I'm still at the point where the major flaws are hiding the minor flaws. So perhaps it's better to wait until after I've done the first round of improvements.

All in all, you've convinced me that I'll have to do a graphics overhaul. I will first focus version 0.2 on fixing deadlocks and other playability issues. For version 0.3 I will improve the graphics.

So "retro-ifying" the artwork to be C64/ZX Spectrum/etc might make it really POP artistically

I'm more inclined to go the other route. I got the best feedback on the animals, so I'm going to go all out with that style. Which means more cartoony graphics and fewer gradients. Your point about the sound effects mismatch is fair, but I can fix that also simply by replacing the sound effects.

edit:

Also, upside down tiles are graphically flipped. Like, turning down, the tile will have the shading flipped from the rest of the tiles.

I'm not sure if that is true, or maybe I misunderstood you. All connector tiles are shadowed on the lower left and highlighted on the upper right.

Edgar Reynaldo
Major Reynaldo
May 2007
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amarillion
Member #940
January 2001
avatar

So there is a bug in the way the keyboard building is handled. If you try to run through a pipe it just leaves those blank instead of going underneath / over it.

Well, maybe it's not intuitive, but it's like that by design.

If you cross a pipe with a pipe, then there is a choice: you can go under/over, or intersect it. But if the connector types don't match, e.g. when you build a pipe though an air duct, then you cannot intersect, you must go under/over it.

Using the mouse buttons, the buttons should always reflect that. But the keyboard works differently. Using the cursor keys is always like intersecting. If the connector types differ, then it refuses to build (but the cursor moves one position further regardless). If you want to go over/under using the keyboard, hold down shift.

I'm thinking of ways to build connectors with LMB drag to make it easier in a future version.

Edgar Reynaldo
Major Reynaldo
May 2007
avatar

IMHO, when using the keyboard to build a connector, it should automatically go under / over the obstacle in the way. If you did that, there wouldn't be much of a need for the mouse at all. LMB drag building would be nice, but I think I prefer the keyboard. Maybe if you could draw 'lines' of pipes, like start here and go there, that would work too. It would go as far as possible in the main direction, and then turn to follow the mouse, if you know what I'm talking about.

Any news on the resource balancing and production?

Chris Katko
Member #1,881
January 2002
avatar

I'm not sure if that is true, or maybe I misunderstood you. All connector tiles are shadowed on the lower left and highlighted on the upper right.

No they're not. :P

Some of the connector sprites get rotated. You can see it in the posted screenshots.

-----sig:
“Programs should be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.” - Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
"Political Correctness is fascism disguised as manners" --George Carlin

amarillion
Member #940
January 2001
avatar

Any news on the resource balancing and production?

Yes, some news...

It helps to think of the system as a battery that can go from fully charged, to fully drained, and every state in between. The various foodstuffs (with a side of O2) represent the charged state. CO2 and H2O represent the discharged state. The system goes from food+O2 to CO2+H2O and back. Plants use solar energy to charge the battery. Animals discharge the battery again.

The deadlock problem shows up primarily in the bake-off level. The unique aspect of this level is that 5 resources have to be produced at more-or-less the same rate. If you have a lot of one (e.g. eggs) but none of another (apples), then the excess of eggs cannot be used in the oven. They are stuck, they represent congealed energy that can not be discharged. It's like one of those old NiMH laptop batteries that could "forget" their charge.

Simply increasing the amount of available resources didn't help by itself. By itself that would simply mean that even more resources are converted to eggs, just making the problem worse.

Instead I implemented some rate limiting system: the chicken stops laying eggs if the oven already has one. And this cascades down: the wheat plants stop producing grain if the chicken already has enough food in stock. The same goes for the milk, the churner, the mill... you get the picture.

Secondly I also increased the amount of available resources (i.e. CO2+H2O), but I didn't want to overdo that. First of all, I want the resources to feel like discrete units that you can count. If you have millions of them, that feeling goes away. Have you already noticed that it takes 6 units of H2O and CO2 to produce one unit of food? It's true. The exact chemical formula holds: 6 CO2 + 6 H2O <-> 6 O2 + 1 C6H12O6. Also, it's still JavaScript. It does fine if there are just a few hundred moving resources, but I don't think it will scale up to factorio levels.

Thirdly I implemented a sort of emergency reshuffle system. Plants can expel some of the CO2+H2O they've collected in certain situations, rebalancing the distribution of resources a bit. This should kick in only in rare situations.

So all that was a bit complicated, but I have a version sitting on my hard drive that is pretty hard to get in a locked state, if not altogether impossible. I haven't managed it yet myself (but that's not saying everything of course).

I'm still working on some of the other usability issues you guys brought up.

I'm pretty close to releasing an 0.2. No more than one week, I promise.

Edgar Reynaldo
Major Reynaldo
May 2007
avatar

The problem was that when you hook things up incorrectly, for example, feeding cheese or eggs to the humans, that then everything else runs out.

I found a bug - when you are making a conveyor and you go left and then turn down and use the keyboard and press up to go backwards, it throws an exception.

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