Asymptote’s Zombie Infection Simulator — Version 2.0

NOTE: I submitted the model to the NetLogo website, and it can now be found in applet form (and downloaded) here.

After discovering that my previous Zombie Infection Simulator post had gotten a mention on SquidTalk, and found that they were expecting a release in a few weeks, I thought I ought to try not to disappoint them. However, my previous simulator was, to put it nicely, rather rough around the edges, so I spent a lazy afternoon re-writing it. Without all the extra garbage cluttering up the code, it ran a little faster, and exhibited some new behaviors I hadn’t seen before. I also built in a simulator mode that includes the walls seen in the original version of the simulator, although that mode is somewhat broken.

Flocks of humans form as they did in the previous version. Nothing new, really.

The infection has started. I don’t know if it’s visible or not, but the zombies are displaying a great deal more organization, thanks to a greatly improved directional targeting method. Thank goodness for towardsxy.

The infection is spreading rapidly, and, as seen in the previous version, social order is beginning to degenerate. I know it’s not exactly obvious in this still picture, but note the dense little group of humans just above the large group in the center, to the upper left of the cluster of zombies. This group actually broke away in a coordinated fashion when some of its members panicked and fled. I’d expect to see runaway parties like this in a real zombie infection.

Social order begins to falter. Human flocks are beginning to be broken up by panic, and there aren’t enough fighters to rally them.

The little simulated society begins to break down. A few groups are still together, but they’re beginning to collapse as the onslaught continues. The zombies are much more organized in Version 2.0, which actually puts them at a great advantage over the humans. Not only do they form flocks, but they are much more effective hunters, so they tend to infiltrate human groups and pick them off and infect them before panic can disperse them.

As I said in the introductory paragraph, I added a secondary mode to the simulator complete with walls. Since there is still a bug in my simulator, and all the flocks tend to become oriented towards the South, the flocks tend to get “stuck” to the Southern walls of the buildings, where they become immobile. Also, panic is able to spread through the walls. So, I guess I’ll leave fixing these bugs for Version 3.0.

AZIS 2.0 (sounds like the name of a guided missile or something, doesn’t it?) can be found in applet form at here.

More Random Words

Yesterday, I wrote a post about generating completely random names/words from a character set. Well, out of boredom, I’ve refined my algorithm, and, somewhat to my surprise, it now produces names/words which are not only interestingly alien, but actually phonetically consistent:

SEMAREMA
SALISEMA
HUTEÉMA
MATEMO
REMOLIRENA
REÉNANARE
SAHUMAÉ
ÉSEMOTERE
TETETE
LILI
MALINASASA
SEHURELI
SEHULITE
NAÉSALIMO
HUÉHU
REMO
LILINARE
HUÉ
RELIHUSASE
TEHUMOHULI
REÉMO
LISAMOMAMA
TELIMOMA
SEMASASARE

What I did was to modify the original algorithm so that, rather than just sticking together random letters cushioned by a vowel every other letter, it creates a list of possible two-letter phonemes (in addition to an occasional sprinkling of extra characters), and builds the words from those phonemes. This is good in that it produces pseudo-consistency in the words I generate (it’s not real consistency like you find in language, since there are no rules (not yet, anyway) for how phonemes can and cannot fit together). The only downsides are that: 1) the generator now very rarely produces three-letter words, and 2) the generator never produces inanely amusing things like “FUKER” and “CUJO’” from the previous list.

If I ever optimize it to a degree with which I’m satisfied, I’ll be sure to post the Python source code.

P.S.: Sorry about the lack of real content lately. The holiday season’s made me sluggishly overfed and rather lazy.

Randomness is Fun!

I was fiddling around again in Python, and I decided to throw together a little random word generator. Trying to be as culturally diverse as possible, I was sure to include the apostrophe as a possible character, in addition to the ever-awesome alveolar click (written as “!”). I discovered that randomness can be rather amusing, as well as being useful for producing incredibly unfamiliar names. I conjecture that these would look odd to the speaker of pretty much any language on Earth, since the phonology is determined entirely at random.

Without further ado (or further clichés), I present you with one hundred completely random names. (Note: The algorithm I used ensures that there is a vowel at least every other letter, because I got tired of ending up with garbage like SPDQGXL)

DI
EINI
PIRIIARA!
UUTIQOYADIK
FAVIXAIE
QAAETU!OEAY
CIROW
AADAAUE
SOTUNORUV
SOHULIB
QITAQUKEE
HOHUROVOLAO
PO’OHATA
EUHE
TO
QIOO!IO
EOPAEIZUH
ZI
DILA’EHUX
GIZE!ETA
QU
VULUUE
FUXAIE
JACUX
RUYEWIM
ZOZOGEI
XI
LA
VABADOUO’
XI
LU
ZUCIZOLI
SUDUXI!IE
WOQAJOEILIG
FIZOI
WEUUW
OABOK
IUVIQEWOAA
!A!IWU’UL
!UVOSEROHI
DIGUO
EIZE
CUJO’
!ANE
RA
ZALUBOVAR
NIXEUAMEPER
CEN
RAHOMU
LUG
LAL
!AVA
LUVAZIGURI
JE
PINAFUPE
FUKER
QUCE’AOO
AELI
ZO
NI
‘EQIVOLEYUF
TIQ
LOWAMOGIME
LOGOV
TOSUMI
SUUIDUPEQOQ
IUBI!UNA
HOCI
UAG
MESOP
JEKOJELI!UA
OEEAX
JOGEUUWOI
UINERE!UP
MAYOZET
EOMUSUKOGIJ
KOLETEN
NABURIZ
BE
RAPIZOMIC
AIKA!OWER
JUSILIBE
ZII
AO
DICIB
FULIHEKUL
TEVAZO
JA
QI!EXOEAC
NACUVONAC
QIXA
YONE
MAJAWOBIP
YEAEYE
FUZEEEBEYE
HEXIZOS
SE
MOKA!EMUGEN
‘UCIH
IO

I also found that throwing in all the accented characters that I could find made some amusing pseudo-European names:

VIOECILOSOW
RU’IKABULI
SIEEWUV
POWÀXEÕ
FE’ARIÎEJE
JE
HOWEXA’Ø!A
FAQEQOXEYUI
RÊIAPABEH
FI’UVIÖIZ
YAGOKE
QAO
POLÔKO
ÉEBÆÊUXA
JOÑOBOTICUY
GE
YINA
ÑOVIROJIROR
FOWU’ACEG
LIPA
MÝ
JÝ
UEDE
CAÈAFOSOD
PUSEKOEUV

Review: “SimCity Societies”

Ever since I first played the original Sim City Classic sometime last century, I’ve been a fan of pretty much all of Will Wright’s games. I’m the sort of guy who really enjoys open-ended experimentation, and Will Wright certainly delivers in that department. I played the original “Sims” for untold hours, and The Sims 2 for untold hours more. Needless to say, when I stumbled across an advert for his upcoming game Sim City Societies, I was immediately interested.

The game’s basic premise is something like a combination of The Sims and Sim City 4. You build your city from premade parts such as row houses and workplaces, and all that other good stuff. Each of these buildings produces or consumes a slew of things. Most buildings consume power, and the other kinds of standard resources, but what’s interesting about SimCity Societies are the societal resources buildings produce and consume. The “Propaganda Ministry,” for example, produces 40 units of what the game calls “Authority.”

After taking a brief run through the tutorial — which, I must say, was rather more controlling than many I’ve experienced — I decided to get to work constructing my own society. I plunked down some wind farms for power, and built a couple of row houses, then struck upon the idea to see if I could build something of a dystopian Orwellian hell-hole. I went to work immediately, building Conditioning Theaters, police stations, and of course, the obligatory Re-Education Facility. It didn’t take long for my authoritarian society to begin collapsing. Criminals ran wild, unhappiness was rampant, and rioters rapidly shut down all of my bureaucracy offices.

After about ninety mintues’ worth of play, I discovered another of the game’s lovely little aesthetic features. As my society leaned more and more towards a totalitarian police state, the road’s appearance changed. Now, where there had been plain asphalt roads, the roads were replaced with some kind of bland stuff that could only be described as “institutional concrete.” Then, as I scrolled around my city to see what else had changed, I happened to notice the security cameras sprouting from every lamppost, and the listening devices atop the fire hydrants. This had to be one of the game’s most endearing features.

All that said, it should come as no surprise when I say that “SimCity Societies” is incredibly fun. Will Wright’s high standard of simulation design has not faltered, and this game may arguably be one of his deepest yet. The dynamics are incredibly rich, it’s creative and energetic, and — thankfully — it has all the personality that Wright’s games have been lacking of late; he finally brought back the ever-amusing News Ticker, and seemed to finally be re-incorporating some of his famous dry wit, which I found disappointingly absent from The Sims 2.

One of the game’s features which was pleasantly surprising was the music. Since Sim City 3000, Will Wright’s games have always had great music, and SimCity Societies was no exception. The game’s music is pleasant, atmospheric, and generally lovely. What surprised me, though, was how appropriate it was. As my socialist dystopia began to blossom, I was regaled with what sounded like an amusingly modern rendition of the Russian National Anthem, a perfectly ministerial, bureaucratic piece for my ministerial, bureaucratic city. And when I leaned a bit towards environmentalism, I was rewarded with a very soothing New-Agey piece that sounded like it belonged in an Al Gore film.

But what kind of reviewer would I be without complaints? I suppose my chief complaint would have to be the graphics: they’re somewhat excessive, and ran a little slow with the default settings. I had to dial the resolution down to 800×600 and turn off the shadows and day-night cycle altogether to get it to run smoothly enough to be playable. Another problem is that the game is a bit hard to get into at first, since the menu system is so incredibly complex.

The game is also plagued at times with a feeling of excessive direction. Maybe it’s because I haven’t played it long enough to really explore the possibilities, but there are some facets of SimCity Societies which give the general impression of being overly rigid.

But the thing that irritated me the most was the evil hand of British Petroleum (BP, the oil company) marring Will Wright’s otherwise-environmentalist game. Somehow — don’t ask me how — they conspired to have their name and logo put on the wind power plants, and on the signs at the gas stations in the game. What is this? Some kind of subliminal advertising? It struck me as incredibly sinister, and irritated me to no end. Whatever they might like to think, as long as they buy and sell petroleum products, BP will never be as environmentally-friendly as they think they are.

Still, SimCity Societies is a lot of fun, and it looks poised to revive Will Wright’s now-sluggish gaming juggernaut. It will certainly keep myself and my fellow simulation junkies glued to their monitors for the rest of the winter, or at least until Spore comes out.

Overall Rating: ********~~ (8/10 asterisks)

Portal Continued…

Well, by accident, I managed to finish Portal in a single day. Sure, I would have liked to go through it slowly and have a look at all the scenery, but when you get immersed in a puzzle like that, you become like a lab rat in a maze: the cheese doesn’t even matter anymore; all that matters is the goal.

Still, despite that, Portal turned out to be one of the best games I’ve ever played. It’s definitely the best first-person-shooter-like game I’ve ever played. The environments were perfectly designed, the puzzles were challenging, but not brain-hurting, and it was incredibly, incredibly immersive. It was so immersive, in fact, that when I became trapped in a room filling with poisonous gas, I realized that my heart was actually hammering. (People who have played Portal will agree with me…for everybody else, that’s just a cruel teaser).

So, my previous conclusion stands: you should buy Portal. If you can’t buy it, or don’t want to, find someone who has (and no, you cannot come to my house. Don’t even try it. I keep vicious attack ostriches).

And one last note on Portal (this may be a semi-spoiler, so don’t read it if you want to keep all the mystery intact):

Portal

This morning, I woke up at 8 A.M. Willingly. I didn’t have to get up that early. I could have chosen to sleep in. The fact that I didn’t must mean that today is a special day. And it is. Today, Portal was released.

I have been awaiting this game since last year. For those who don’t understand why, you can learn more about the game here.

It is, as I expected, Portal is one of the most original FPS-style games that I’ve ever seen. After all, what other first person shooter allows you to bend spacetime? And the way the designers incorporated this bendiness into the multitude of puzzles is absolutely brilliant. My waiting, it seems, was not in vain.

But perhaps even cooler than the ability to step through a wall and drop out of the ceiling is the psychological aspect of the game. I won’t give anything away, but I’ll just say that this game, more than any other game I’ve ever played, will mess with your head. You begin to get the distinct impression of being a lab rat. Add to that the confusion of popping through one portal and ending up somewhere you hadn’t intended, and it becomes a disorienting (but incredibly amusing) ride.

If you don’t own Portal, buy it. Unfortunately, you can’t buy it separately from the Orange Box (the game set that also contains Half Life 2: Episode 2, Portal, and Team Fortress 2), but Portal alone is worth the US$49.95.

Given all the effusive gushing praise I just heaped on Portal, one might wonder why I have not slipped entirely into a disoriented, game-induced trance. Well, as much as I enjoy it, I’m not always very good at puzzles…so, before I started babbling to myself and pulling my hair out, I thought I’d give my weary brain a chance to rest and work out all the cramps I just caused it.

Many, many thanks to Valve and the other producers/distributors of Portal.

Nomic

Some months ago, I was flipping through a book on game design, and I ran across a link. That link led me to another link, which led to my discovery of the game of Nomic. Nomic is, by far, the most intriguing game I’ve ever come across. Developed in the 1980’s by Peter Suber, as part of an exploration of the ways governments can legislate themselves into corners, it has received, in my opinion, far less attention than it deserves. Here’s the gist of it.

The primary goal of Nomic is to change the rules. That’s right, the game is all about changing the game’s own rules. Readers familiar with my style and personality will see now why I was so drawn to the game. Play begins with an initial rule set. For example:

1. All players must obey all rules at all times, in the current form in which they are written.
2. A rule may be modified, added, or deleted in the following way: a player proposes the rule on their turn, and all other players vote on it. The rule will be enacted, changed, or removed if the proposal to do so receives a simple majority (51% or greater) of votes.
3. Players perform actions in turn, moving from left to right around the play-circle. On each turn, a player rolls a die and receives the number of points shown.
4. The winner is the first player to reach 100 points.

This initial rule set is intended to be quite boring, in order to encourage players to begin amending it immediately.  (Note: Peter Suber’s original incarnation included a division between two rulesets: the mutable and the immutable, the latter of which can be changed right away, and the former of which must be “transmuted” into a mutable rule first. This distinction seemed arbitrary and unnecessary to me, and so I took the liberty of doing away with it.)

As I searched the Internet for a good, active, on-line Nomic game, I discovered very quickly that almost no active games exist. As usual, it seems, I’ve stumbled upon something fascinating a couple of years too late. My attempts to start up a forum-based Nomic derivative failed completely.

Oh well. I just thought I’d get the word out about one of the coolest unknown games I’ve seen.