![]() ![]() ![]() Time sinks can also be used for other gameplay reasons, such as to help regenerate resources or monsters in the game world. Many players consider time sinks to be an inherently poor design decision, only included so that game companies can increase profits. For example, one Slashdot article describes time sinks as "gameplay traps intended to waste your time and keep you playing longer". In most games, boring and lengthy parts of gameplay are merely an annoyance, but when used in subscription-based MMORPGs, where players are paying recurring fees for access to the game, they become a much more inflammatory issue. Game designers must be prudent in balancing efforts to produce both involving gameplay and the length of content that players expect. Time sinks are often associated with hardcore games, though whether this is a positive or negative association depends on the context. Implementing time sinks in a video game is a delicate balancing act. Excessive use of time sinks may cause players to stop playing. But, priced at $.99, Otomata is pretty interesting as it is….However, if not enough time sinks are implemented, players may feel the game is too short or too easy, causing them to abandon the game much sooner out of boredom. We’d like to see Otomata support MIDI sync & MIDI out via CoreMIDI & the Line 6 MIDI Mobilizer. I will make a standalone version of this at some point which will emit OSC and MIDI. I will look into my possibilities for doing this. Otomata currently has no MIDI capabilities – but that may be in the app’s future, according to Bozkurt: Otomata is distinct in this sense (it only cares about collisions) and I’m not even sure if it can be classified as a CA system technically. ![]() I mean, all the CA systems I’ve worked with in the past relied on neighborhood rules (like in Conway’s Game of Life). Actually, this was the first time I experimented with such a system. A few tweaks (not to the rules but to the way they generate sounds) and I liked the result. Later I thought it wouldn’t work well, or it wouldn’t be interesting at all, but I implemented it anyways to see how it behaves. The idea just popped into my mind just as I was drifting into sleep one day. That said, the rules Otomata uses were derived without any type of experimentation whatsoever. So, if we take my past interest in these types of systems into account, it is an evolutionary step for me. They are very simple to implement, use, and understand, yet they include almost all of the ingredients I care about. Working with cellular automata (CA) is like a recreational hobby for me. I’ve been programming my own tools to make art for many years and I don’t always work with very simple systems. They have clearly defined states, they use feedbacks (the system is fed back its previous state and generates a new state), they have well-defined rules, and as a result they have emergent behavior. ![]() I always found them fascinating for a multitude of reasons, the most important one being that they included the most essential elements I tend to employ for creating generative art. I have experimented with cellular-automata systems a lot in the past. Otomata originally was created as a browser based music app and has been adapted for iOS.īozkurt discussed his interest in cellular automata systems and generative art in an interview with disquiet: Go add some cells, change their orientation by clicking on them, and press play, experiment, have fun. This set of rules produces chaotic results in some settings, therefore you can end up with never repeating, gradually evolving sequences. If a cell encounters another cell on its way, it turns itself clockwise. If any cell encounters a wall, it triggers a pitched sound whose frequency is determined by the xy position of collision, and the cell reverses its direction. at each cycle, the cells move themselves in the direction of their internal states. Otomata is also surprisingly deep, though, because it uses cellular automaton style logic:Įach alive cell has 4 states: Up, right, down, left. On one level, Otomata is a music toy – just press the buttons and something musically interesting emerges. Batuhan Bozkurt’s Otomata is a generative sound sequencer for iOS. ![]()
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