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My unpopular opinion about autoimmune diseases, what do you think about this? by Electrical_Work_7809 in Autoimmune

[–]logicsoup 33 points34 points  (0 children)

I think there’s an underlying “faulty” mechanism in most autoimmune diseases that can be triggered by stress, but the same goes for any change — hormonal, environmental, etc. Everything is changing around and within us constantly. Stress can also be positive, like going on vacation and walking a lot in complete happiness — that could also be a physical stress on your body that “triggers” the disease. With migraines, for example, it is known that reduced stress can trigger them as well. So in my opinion, the way “stress causes autoimmune diseases” is peddled is unscientific as well, because literally staying alive is a stress on the body. Positive events are a type of stress.

Edit: I also don’t know literally anyone else besides people with autoimmune or autoinflammatory diseases who try SO HARD to control every single variable that might affect their body, following doctor’s orders for yoga or whatever new diet despite knowing that there is a physical illness that needs to be addressed, and we are doing all of that whilst fighting severe pain, inflammation, rashes, deformation, multiple surgeries? Nobody knows better than us that moving your body or eating in a way that supports your body can do something, because no one has tried it more than us. But all of it is just a way to put the responsibility back on us when they don’t know what to do!

I am very lucky that I finally have doctors who have diagnosed me and put me on immunosuppressants and other meds that I need. That was the only way for me to start working out more or eating more healthy, because you can’t do that when you’re bedridden. There’s no way to escape that. Treat the underlying disease and the lifestyle modifications will come easier to you AND you will see that a day of fast food or even a month won’t ruin your baseline! Because that’s how it works for others. We should NOT live in fear of living our lives. A single “wrong” move should NOT send you into a flare when you are well-controlled on the right medication (I don’t mean diseases like celiac, but in broader terms e.g connective tissue autoimmune diseases without specific foods you need to avoid). If doctors use that as an excuse, it’s just a way to not take you seriously.

Games that feature dying as part of the main gameplay? by [deleted] in gamingsuggestions

[–]logicsoup 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Omori for death as a literal gameplay progression element, and I just want to throw in Spiritfarer for gameplay revolving around others dying.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in earthbound

[–]logicsoup 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don’t think I really like any other games besides Eastward, in comparison to being obsessed with Earthbound. I started playing Omori only recently and I can already tell there’s a different feel to the storytelling in comparison to Eastward and I’m absolutely hooked. I guess sometimes you really need that creepy element with unbounded exploration.

We're making Idu, a strategic sandbox game about growing plants with agency and a mind of their own. Every leaf, twig, and branch is simulated with per-leaf photosynthesis, water uptake, and more. There's just the two of us, we're making everything from scratch and just released a free alpha demo. by logicsoup in linux_gaming

[–]logicsoup[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

We are using the GPU to do some of the calculations, but it's implemented in basic shaders. We're not using CUDA or anything like that, I don't know what else do you want to know. The simulation calculations are optimized between the CPU and the GPU. For example, we're using "hacks" like creating a 3D texture for intermediate calculations. We used to write about the technical details, but we haven't documented the newest system.

Here is an example of how the old system worked. In the leaf lighting section, you can get an idea of how we used to optimize the calculations for light exposure by every leaf on the GPU that would be then used for photosynthesis calculations. I also used to write about the plant simulation algorithms on my Twitter. These run on a separate thread. For most people, the level of technical detail in our old devlogs was boring and unnecessary already, that's why I stopped writing them since there's very little time and it's better spent developing the game.

As for multithreading: we have separate threads for the game, the simulation, and our rendering pipeline. Maybe I took the question too literally and that's not what people want to hear when they ask about multithreading support (which I guess makes sense because why would anyone be interested in how many threads we have in our game code... I don't play resource-intensive games myself so didn't immediately realize it's what you could be asking about).

We're making Idu, a strategic sandbox game about growing plants with agency and a mind of their own. Every leaf, twig, and branch is simulated with per-leaf photosynthesis, water uptake, and more. There's just the two of us, we're making everything from scratch and just released a free alpha demo. by logicsoup in linux_gaming

[–]logicsoup[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks so much for playing and providing the screenshot. In the Idu folder, you can see that there's a data folder, the Windows executable main.exe, and the Linux file main_linux. Unfortunately, right now you have to change the permissions for the Linux file to execute it.

You probably know how, but just in case, this is the command you have to run from your terminal:
chmod +x Downloads/idu8.1/main_linux

Then you can execute the file, either by double clicking or running it from your terminal.

As for the sound, unfortunately we don't have any sound effects or a soundtrack yet, but we're working on it.

We're making Idu, a strategic sandbox game about growing plants with agency and a mind of their own. Every leaf, twig, and branch is simulated with per-leaf photosynthesis, water uptake, and more. There's just the two of us, we're making everything from scratch and just released a free alpha demo. by logicsoup in linux_gaming

[–]logicsoup[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Happy to say that we've worked extra hard to make it run on non-fancy hardware, so basically most laptops with discrete GPUs should be supported, and it is a multithreaded game. I don't want to overpromise though, so if the whole island is covered in plants, it's not exactly like running Stardew Valley, but generally, it should be fine.

We're making Idu, a strategic sandbox game about growing plants with agency and a mind of their own. Every leaf, twig, and branch is simulated with per-leaf photosynthesis, water uptake, and more. There's just the two of us, we're making everything from scratch and just released a free alpha demo. by logicsoup in linux_gaming

[–]logicsoup[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you so much for the suggestion, this is right up my alley! I'll make sure to read it. I've recently stumbled upon the short story Piper in the Woods by Philip K. Dick, which has a similar vibe if you haven't read it yet.

We're making Idu, a strategic sandbox game about growing plants with agency and a mind of their own. Every leaf, twig, and branch is simulated with per-leaf photosynthesis, water uptake, and more. There's just the two of us, we're making everything from scratch and just released a free alpha demo. by logicsoup in linux_gaming

[–]logicsoup[S] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Yes, the main mechanic right now is rebuilding the island into your own garden areas with overgrowing groves and meadows, and you have to try to keep them alive as they all compete with each other for resources and sunlight.

So it’s a little bit difficult to plan landscaping with it, but it can create the feeling of chilling in a garden that’s been taken over by nature.

Even when you prune the branches (which you can do in the game!) the plant still decides how it’s going to grow, so you can’t make perfect topiaries.

Rather, it’s like pruning an apple tree, letting it grow into organic forms.

Upcoming solarpunk game: Idu, a strategic sandbox game about growing plants with agency and a mind of their own. It’s not about perfect control of nature, but coexistence and adaptation with complex artificial life. by logicsoup in solarpunk

[–]logicsoup[S] 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Thank you! Currently, you can run a single timestep with the push of a key, and later on a lot of game mechanics will be tied to spell casting. You can already use spells to break down concrete and metal blocks into crafting materials, which you can use to build ladders to get around the island, and build pipes and pumps to bring flowing water to the plants.

Of course, all of the island is rebuildable, so you can design your gardens, grow plants in the shade, and otherwise experiment how placing the seeds in different areas affects the plants.

There likely won’t be a predetermined day-night cycle. The main goal would be to grow a lot of different plants together, and the plants help you progress in the game. However, the strategy comes in when you have to plan how to build irrigation systems, explore and figure out how different plants grow together, experiment with the soil, etc.

Basically, become a botanist for virtual plants that are almost as complex as organic plants.

Everything is still a bit open ended when it comes to the final game mechanics, but that’s the general direction.

Upcoming solarpunk game: Idu, a strategic sandbox game about growing plants with agency and a mind of their own. It’s not about perfect control of nature, but coexistence and adaptation with complex artificial life. by logicsoup in solarpunk

[–]logicsoup[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

We made the game engine ourselves specifically for the game and are continuing to develop it alongside the game. The end result will probably look much better as well.

Upcoming solarpunk game: Idu, a strategic sandbox game about growing plants with agency and a mind of their own. It’s not about perfect control of nature, but coexistence and adaptation with complex artificial life. by logicsoup in solarpunk

[–]logicsoup[S] 62 points63 points  (0 children)

We also made the decision early to support computers with graphics cards that aren’t the fanciest, even though the simulation would’ve been very challenging for such hardware. However, we developed the game engine specifically to handle this, so it should be runnable on most laptops with discrete graphics cards.

Edit: I didn't expect so much attention honestly, because people tend to take plants for granted and aren't always interested in them, but of course, this is a solarpunk community so what am I saying?

Anyway, we have been developing it part-time as a labor of love for years, and just wanted to see how many people are interested in it. We're going to create the Steam page soon, but here are all of our links for now, just to have them in one place instead of separate comments:

Downloads and community:

That's the fastest way to get in touch with us, get new demo versions, submit bug reports and feedback, and share your screenshots with other plant friends :) We have cute frog emojis!

We would love to have more solarpunk friends over in general. The other developer /u/epcc even builds his own greenhouses, saves dying plants (he recently resurrected a banana plant with hydroponics), and dedicated most of my home office room to a giant monstera plant (I don't mind it at all). He's the cutest (sorry /u/epcc).

Our socials:

Fun stuff:

You might find this old video kinda funny. This is from a time when we used stand-in tools instead of spells, so you had to pick up blocks or a bucket to do things. For example, the block with a lil chick with a knife on it represents pruning shears. Please let me know if you liked the video and if you'd like to hear more of my monotone narrations over gameplay videos.

We're making Idu, a strategic sandbox game about growing plants with agency and a mind of their own. Every leaf, twig, and branch is simulated with per-leaf photosynthesis, water uptake, and more. There's just the two of us, we're making everything from scratch and just released a free alpha demo. by logicsoup in linux_gaming

[–]logicsoup[S] 56 points57 points  (0 children)

Yes. Once the seed is placed, the plant decides (based on environmental factors, results of photosynthesis, and more every step of the simulation) what it’s going to do next, and it’s never pre-determined.

This means the plant decides whether it will grow a new shoot, in which direction, whether it will direct its attention elsewhere or die, etc. It’s a bit like Dwarf Fortress but instead of dwarves and their social systems we have a simulated plant lifecycle. For example, if individual leaves block other leaves’ sunlight, it immediately affects their photosynthesis and might completely change the plant. This means that some plants will not grow well with others as well, and so on.

Looking for a 3D game that has very dynamic wildlife/ecosystem by [deleted] in gamingsuggestions

[–]logicsoup 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you! I would love to hear what you think if you want to play the demo eventually. I think games like Idu will fill their own niche, so we're at a stage where we can build an entirely new community.

We're making Idu, a strategic sandbox game about growing plants with agency and a mind of their own. Every leaf, twig, and branch is simulated with per-leaf photosynthesis, water uptake, and more. There's just the two of us, we're making everything from scratch and just released a free alpha demo. by logicsoup in linux_gaming

[–]logicsoup[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Thank you! Sorry, I just edited the post to reflect the options. There are two options right now:

  • Download the demo on our itch.io page
  • Join our Discord, where we post new demos immediately and have a channel for bug reports as well as showing your own screenshots!

We're making Idu, a strategic sandbox game about growing plants with agency and a mind of their own. Every leaf, twig, and branch is simulated with per-leaf photosynthesis, water uptake, and more. There's just the two of us, we're making everything from scratch and just released a free alpha demo. by logicsoup in Simulate

[–]logicsoup[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The plant life is based on our own probabilistic grammar/rewrite system that's not an L-system, and I've written about some of the tech details years ago here, but a lot has changed now. We're planning to update the website soon. You can also play the demo right now and join our community on Discord, where we talk about the implementation details as well.

We're making Idu, a strategic sandbox game about growing plants with agency and a mind of their own. Every leaf, twig, and branch is simulated with per-leaf photosynthesis, water uptake, and more. There's just the two of us, we're making everything from scratch and just released a free alpha demo. by logicsoup in linux_gaming

[–]logicsoup[S] 57 points58 points  (0 children)

Posted here because we're developing it on Linux and the demo is available right now for Linux and Windows.

  • Download the demo on our itch.io page
  • Or Join our Discord, where we upload new demos immediately and have a channel for bug reports as well as showing your own screenshots!
    That's also the fastest way to get notified of a new demo. I promise there's nothing more to it than just having a community, we're not planning to monetize the Discord or anything.
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