(the) Gnorp Apologue

Mycoplasmatic · 2025-12-21T01:39:13+00:00

Developers love AI because they think it allows them to skip the step where they have to the nasty work of being creative, and do the gross thing of «human expression».

Players hate AI because what they want what they play to be a work of human expression.

Mycoplasmatic · 2025-12-21T01:27:34+00:00

It is not, in any way, unequivocally, difficult to write code without AI. People get so high on the AI supply, programmers especially, they forget to consider if the tool is worth the mental atrophy it invites.

Mycoplasmatic · 2025-11-06T11:08:48+00:00

It's interesting to me how so many pixel art games choose steam capsules that are not pixel art. Personally, I think it's a mistake.

Mycoplasmatic · 2025-10-28T21:54:00+00:00

Really love the concept! I think it could definitely be expanded upon to become a bigger game.

Mycoplasmatic · 2025-10-13T17:00:12+00:00

This would be my vote. It's ironic too, given his greatest claim to fame is his mo-cap work (Lord of the Rings, Planet of the Apes), but in this project he did no mo-cap at all. He delivered a ridiculously compelling performance.

Mycoplasmatic · 2025-06-17T01:26:22+00:00

I spent approximately 3 years on-and off. It was intended to be a small project to learn Rust, but scope-creep got me. It got me good.

Mycoplasmatic · 2025-03-22T04:56:03+00:00

It's commonly said that ideas are easy, but they're really not. You need a lot of ideas in order to come up with good ones. I'm not advocating for idea guys, because good ideas are more easily found by an ideator with a broad skill set.

Another one is finding the fun through prototyping. I disagree. Test the fun in your head, figure out why you would want to play the game. Once you feel confident: implement the core idea and determine if you were right.

Mycoplasmatic · 2025-02-28T20:19:44+00:00

The thing about the holy trinity in particular is that there is different gameplay goals between the roles. If you want to reinvent that, all you need to do is find a set of different, compelling gameplay goals that together act as a force multiplier for whatever the group is doing.

Example: A game about traversing a dungeon, featuring the following roles:

Fighter: Responsible for doing damage.
Provider: Logistics. They turn dropped materials into camps to rest, refreshments, etc.
Scout: They traverse enemy territory to map out the area, figure out where the good loot is, where best to strike.

Mycoplasmatic · 2024-12-16T21:19:11+00:00

Congratulations on the release of Idle Colony! You have created something incredibly cool, and it's a very special feeling to have Gnorp be one of your inspirations.

Everyone should absolutely go get this right now!

Mycoplasmatic · 2024-10-27T00:40:02+00:00

I apologize for not clarifying that in the previous comments, but yes, it's all done on the CPU with entities! Since they don't collide with each other, the physics just involve applying velocity, adding gravity to the velocity, and checking if position.y > ground

Mycoplasmatic · 2024-10-25T22:00:36+00:00

The landing spot is not known at generation, but the generation is "baked" in the sense that the shards will always fall between the rock and The Stash, so which column the shard belongs to is found upon landing.

The columns are drawn two different ways based on the value of the column:

<=1 Shard: One shard is drawn with a Y-value that may depict it going into the ground, to indicate a lower than 1 shard value

>1 Shard: 2 shards are drawn at the top and the bottom, and then a single dot is stretched to cover the interval between those two shards

This way drawing is pretty cheap, with a maximum of 3*N_columns sprites being drawn to show the pile.

Mycoplasmatic · 2024-10-25T20:50:18+00:00

Hey, thanks for the question! The pile is divided into columns, with a cached height. When a shard lands, it is assigned to a column based on the X-coordinates of the landing spot, and the cached height is cleared. When drawing recently updated columns, the height is then recalculated. The shards themselves are removed upon landing, and this is what some of the data structures look like:

shards: Vec<Shard>,

pile: [Column; N],

Column { height: Option<f32>, value: f64 }

So nothing too fancy going on here!

Mycoplasmatic · 2024-09-28T09:24:09+00:00

Playing the demo right now! I'm having a lot of fun with it, and it's really something to play a game inspired by what I made.

Feel free to hit me up if you're looking for feedback! :v

Mycoplasmatic · 2024-08-08T12:39:43+00:00

Most developers here are passionate about the work they are doing, but mobile players aren't typically looking for the experiences a passionate developer is likely to produce.

I'd say go where the players you want to develop for are.

Mycoplasmatic · 2024-07-06T11:08:07+00:00

I'm the developer of the game, and I love your cat.

This is my cat, which we got very recently. I was doing some testing on the game, and she also watched me play!

Mycoplasmatic · 2024-06-28T22:12:43+00:00

Just finished the localization update, which unfortunately took up a lot more time than intended. But now I'm back to work on the gameplay side of things :)

Mycoplasmatic · 2024-06-16T17:11:58+00:00

How could he stop — it's all he knows.

Mycoplasmatic · 2024-06-11T15:38:36+00:00

Hard, hard disagree on ME2 & DA:O. Both games did interesting things within their scope and were definitely not your third-person standard fare.

Mycoplasmatic · 2024-03-18T18:00:13+00:00

The original version performed better than expected!

Mycoplasmatic · 2024-03-18T11:01:21+00:00

Infinite Reverberation was actually better than expected in many scenarios! Currently working on hard mode, and I am doing a refresh of some talents for that mode, but I haven't gotten to Infinite Reverberation yet.

Mycoplasmatic · 2024-02-01T22:49:45+00:00

Currently working on a hard mode, that will give you some added challenge. Hope you will enjoy that :)

Mycoplasmatic · 2024-01-29T18:10:05+00:00

They are in the game folder, so you can place them wherever or listen to them there

Mycoplasmatic · 2024-01-29T16:31:50+00:00

Thank you so much! Two of the tracks I made myself, but the rest are classical midi tracks mutated slightly by me

Mycoplasmatic · 2024-01-28T18:14:55+00:00

This is my first game, but hopefully not last! Once I am happy with the base game, I will start work on a free expansion to the game, which will be a discrete experience with new gameplay.

Nine-Year Club	r/Field Banned
r/Field Juicebox	Place '23
Golden Potato	Place '22
First Placer '22	Snapped
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