Contents tagged with Terrarium
-
Terrarium : Some data about saving energy
As I mentioned in my last post, it's important to conserve energy in the Terrarium game. So, if you are moving - maybe looking for your next meal - and are not under any threat of attack, it is wise to meander along rather than sprint. Likewise, it is much better writing code which allows you to avoid being attacked as opposed to running away from a fight.
-
Getting ready for life in the Terrarium
I've been working on Herbert (my Terrarium Herbivore) this week and I've made some pretty good progress. When I started I just grabbed a Herbivore Skeleton and ran it - I actually introduced it into and environment chock-full of plant and no Carnivores just to observe how it acted of it's own accord. I noticed that, although they had no competition, my Herbert species would eventually become extinct after several hours due to poor ability to reproduce. In fact, I ran the game for 10 hours and 80 Herberts reduced to extinction after about 12 hours.
Chapter 10 of the Advanced Developer Documentation talks about the requirements for reproduction; they are:
- You must be Ready to grow. That is, your current State must be IsMature and the current GrowthWait must be zero.
- You must a have normal or greater energy level
- You must have room to grow - this could be up to 8px distance from any plant or creature.
So, from that, I was able to determine that the cause of my reproduction issues was that I never quite had enough room to reproduce because I was always parked up against a Plant feeding. So, I changed my original algorithm:
-
Getting started with Terrarium
Getting started with Terrarium development has been on my radar for a couple of years now but lately, Justin got me enthusiastic enough to actually download the bits and give it a try.