Cell city

Been thinking through an idea that a friend put in my head a while back: ambient games. Basically, games where instead of having to pay them constant attention, you just make occasional adjustments and the game happens mostly by itself. The main source of enjoyment is satisfaction in watching your decisions unfold over time, rather than big hits of activity at once.

I've started sketching out some ideas for how I might make such a game, and the above is what I've got so far. Essentially, it works a lot like a cellular automata version of a city-building game: you have a big grid of cells, which change intensity or color, points, which cause activity in nearby cells, and zones which set rules for how activity in one cell causes activity in nerby cells. By changing the arrangement of points and zones, you can create any number of different crazy patterns.

But it's not just about making pretty shapes. The cells are constantly moving and changing, and stability is by no means guaranteed. Depending on the rules you use, your world could die off and leave nothing behind, or chaotically spiral into a seething mass of white noise. Getting that balance right over time to make a world that you find pleasant is the ultimate goal of the game.

And of course, it's never truly complete. Just like a garden, there'll always be something that needs doing. But you don't have to do it right now.