Biodiversity

 Biodiversity 


Updated 10 June 2012, 14:22 BST .

A game involving genes, and bees.

Created especially for the August 2011 Experimental Gameplay Project.

Screenshot:

This month's Experimental Gameplay Project had a theme of OFFSPRING. My game is a cross between a demonstration of genetics, and a solo puzzle game, and a sandbox, but also with some (small) strategy elements - too few flowers (or too few attractive flowers..) and there aren't enough bees to pollinate the flowers quickly enough before they die... but too many attractive flowers means more bees than you can usefully handle, and this has its own (for the player to discover) side effects!


Powered By LÖVE

DOWNLOADS

Archived versions, including the original entry for the Experimental Gameplay Project, are below
Latest version : 10 Jun 2012 - LÖVE 0.8.0

Prior versions

For the .love packages, you need to have LÖVE installed

Instructions:
The bee follows your mouse pointer. However, if you hold down CTRL , then the bee will not follow the pointer. You can point at FLOWERS and inspect their genes. If the bee is carrying pollen, the genes of the pollen are shown beside the bee.
That's essentially it.
Note the metric, "Biodiversity", is broken down by gene type, and counts the number of UNIQUE genes in the population currently. Total Biodiversity is the sum across all genes; Peak Biodiversity is the best Total you've got in the current level (when plants die, Total Biodiversity may go down, but Peak will not). But there's not really any scoring, just get the best you can!

Let me know if any showstopping bugs please!
Special keys: f to toggle on/off fullscreen, v to toggle videomode, and m to toggle a mouse pointer bug workaround. (you may not need 'm'). If you find that, when you hit CTRL, the mouse pointer jumps somewhere else, then you probably need to hit 'm' to fix it. For me, it only occurs when running in fullscreen mode on my laptop, and windowed mode doesn't have the bug. Suspect a video driver problem or just weirdness in Love itself.

Updated versions and help will appear here over time. There is a forum/discussion page over at love2d.org.
Ideas that had to be cut out due to time constraints:

Credits for audio:
Samples used from Freesound
By FreqMan:
By Mart1001:
By Robinhood76:
By schademans:
By Leady:
By anamorphosis:
By acclivity:
By Benboncan:
By dobroide:
By Department64:
By pete668:
By HerbertBoland:
By lematt:
By cmusounddesign: