Bitcoin Forum

Can you guys come up with a good game name by 0:00 UTC April 5? If you can, you will win 6 BTC. But if it is not better than the name choice, you will get 5 BTC. Fair?

My current choice is "Automata RTS".

Here's a description that will help you figure out a good name:

My game is in essence cellular automata crossed with core wars.

My game is in essence Globulation 2 crossed with core wars.

Basically, you have a colony of square cells in a square world that reacts to certain rules. Your job is to basically make the colony gathers energy, stockpile, reproduce, and destroy the opposing enemy colony all with indirect operations.

You can control one cells at a time but it will be hard for you to organize an military strike, gather energy en masses. But you can organize them through swarm logics, chemical emitter cells, and other tools of the trade.

For example, you could combine a danger sensor cell with a "avoid emitter cell" to create a cell that tells the rest of the colony to avoid an area in case of an enemy attack.

I really like "Automa", it describes that the game contains Cellular Automata, but isn't specific enough to make it sound like a bland research project-turned-game.

automatactics is good too, but maybe a little bland...

I would suggest "Life" but I think that name is already taken.

It's not exactly "cellular automaton" but the game does evolve from following discrete rules. It's up to the players to design cells.

Microcosmic God

What the idea behind that name?

It's one of my favorite short stories, by Theodore Sturgeon.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/52204927
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcosmic_God

The Autoverse (Like Plato's, it comes from one of my favourite novels: Permutation City (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permutation_City#Themes_and_setting))

Very interesting take. However, the colony doesn't evolve on its own without designs by the players. Perhaps, I could add a random evolutionary mechanism.

This sounds really fun, do you have something playable? Will it cost bitcoins?

No, there is no playable version yet. I am on a verge of completing a project, then I will switch to work on this project.

It will cost bitcoin, as the game use bitcoin as energy. However, energy use will be priced in satoshis. You would need to purchase memory slots to spend beyond 1 BTC.

I will work on this project full-time, provided that there is enough funding.

It sounds plausiable for my game's name. I don't know if I will be able to design "chemical system" for artificial life but it would be great to design more sophisticated rules that will eventually honor the name.

What console?  pc / android / iOS?  flash-based?

I'm curious, it seems like a good game in theory.

It's canvas and javascript with processing.js. If you have firefox 4 or google chrome, it should run.

Not sure about IE 9.

Evolooshun (unique and kind of describes what it does...)

hmm...... :-X

I think I like the others better.

Heh, I know, it was worth a shot. A long shot.

Here a few ideas:

* Swarm (perhaps with the logo emphasizing the "war" part)
* Swar
* Swarmy (pushing it?)
* Goop Army
* Gene Control
* Unit Power (both referring to the power of having all the individuals, but also how they all working together as one gives the group power)
* Massatack
* Infec
* Biowar
* CA
* Krowd
* S.O. (Super-Organism)  (the expansion of the abreviation, parenthesis and all, is meant to be part of the name)

Btw, have you played with Evolve 4.0 (http://stauffercom.com/evolve4/)? Seems to share several aspects with your game idea.



Oh, and could you elaborate on how Bitcoin gets involved in the gameplay please? Is it real bitcoins or a game money that works on a similar algorithm?

Primary, it's an energy source. Basically, each cells in your colony uses energy to carry out tasks. However, they are priced in satoshis, informally known as the smallest unit of bitcoin. For example, a transporter cell uses 1 satoshi every 3 discrete movement. That mean, for the distance of 3 squares, it uses 1 satoshi.

These energy sources come from "white holes", which continuously pump energy into the game. It fill the surrounding in a white pool, which is basically collected energy. The map will be filled with such white holes. Your job is mostly to stockpile those energy somewhere safe, usually surrounded by solders/walls of apoptoiszed cells/natural protected terrain until you can use them something. That could be reproduction, stockpile in siege attempt, supplying the frontline, cell repair, and so on.

Usually, each game costs a certain amount of satoshi in order to play or otherwise, there will be no energy for either of the colonies to go to war. If it does happen, the game happened in an entropic death, as there is no more energy in the game.

In larger context, bitcoin is used to mostly buy memory slots to store genetic memory of your creatures so that you can reuse them in other game.

what Overlord?

I decided The Autoverse is the best name for my upcoming game. So there will be a 6 BTC prize rewarded.

Think you can do better? Go submit a name!

I'm confused, is Bitcoins just game money used for the game mechanics that happens to have the same name or you have to pay real money for playing the game for a given amount of time?

Both.

Chemicland Wars
Chemicland Swarms
Chemicland Swarm War
Chemicland Swarm Wars

18TYQ5TKV7qCrgED8x4y9qteRmNKEiQas6

Thanks :) One thing I'd say though, you should probably check how the name is being used already (http://www.google.com/search?q=autoverse) before you decide.

:( I will have to pick something else then.

Whoever suggested autoverse won the prize. Gimme your address!

bencoder: do you want the 5 BTC award or not?

Sorry Kiba, I have to sleep and hold down a day job.

13DbJQ5np5TYVLRL5G6EuRtXRDBsJ6HrsX

Thanks!

Edit: Received & confirmed, +1 Kiba

What do you think about instead of explicitly charging people to play, you instead add real mining functionality in the game code that will send any earnings to an address you own?

Surely you don't mean bitcoin mining?

I meant real by comparisson with the make belief process that happens inside the game universe.


Btw, regarding the ingame mining, does having more mining cells, therefore increasing your hashing power, allows you to get more game BTCs than your oponents, like what would happen IRL? And the "whiteholes" thing, wouldn't it better mimic the Bitcoin nature if location for mining wasn't important, the only things that matter being your hashing power and the profit margin of running the miners? (perhaps part of the gameplay would involve protecting your mining cells, that are more expensive (either in energy,cash or in time to create) than other types of cells, and roaming the environment in search of places with better temperature (for reducing energy wastage) and better sources of auxiliary energy (sunnier places if the cells run on solar power, or places where some plant that produces some chemical "fuel" grows more easilly etc); you can consider the two different types of "energy" (the game BTC, and the Sun, or chemicals or whatever) as somthing kinda analog to food and air, each type does somthing different, life forms can live without one or the other for a small period of time, but both are essential for the long term survival of individuals)

Energy gathering works by diffusion. In short, the temperatural difference will be equalized until the cells and the square it is occupying are equal.

In fact, I just come up with a new idea:

Instead of the energy usage going directly to the game, players will play a 10% fee on the game price in order to play. They will get 90% of them back, regardless of how the energy is used. However, they can shift the distribution of energy so that it could be a profitable operation. Thus, the idea of transporter cells dropping energy into the respective players' black hole. (Reverse diffusion is how transporter cells stockpile white pools)

I will also make a big change: work produced will become heat. The heat will be dispersed twice the cell's size. Eventually, the game will end in cells not being able to operate because they are unable to acquire more energy, as energy distribution are all even.

Minecell :)