6 ms·

The Powder Toy

144 points by agluszak 5y ago

netr0ute 5y ago
The "Powder Game" version used to be my favorite "game" of all time. However, I always got limited by how many things you could use at once which I thought should be no problem on modern hardware.
- AlotOfReading 5y ago
  I spent far too much time playing Powder game before Minecraft came along to scratch the same itch. Some of the popular maps were incredible works of art within the limits of the game. A larger canvas, determinism, and better zoom/editing capabilities are all that would be needed to make it perfect.
- vortico 5y ago
  Most powder models have O(n^2) interactions per step, so it's nontrivial to approximate it in O(n log n) while keeping it just as fun, especially when pushing the models to their limits.
  - wyager 5y ago
    Isn’t it automatically O(n log n) if you don’t have accurate gravity and you use some sort of special tree to find neighbors?
  - rhn_mk1 5y ago
    Where does the O(n²) come from? Is the number of neighbors unlimited? I was always under the impression that only a constant number of immediate neighbours counts.
    - sdflhasjd 5y ago
      Yes, it is linear, with a few small exceptions. The vast majority of element types in the game only check a fixed number of neighbours. Neighbour checking uses a 2-D map so it's constant-time.
      - sandos 5y ago
        Just randomly selected neighbours then I assume?
        sdflhasjd 5y ago
        Most elements check the entire immediate neighbourhood at a taxicab distance of 1 or 2 (between 8 and 24 neighbours). Not all elements check neighbours, An A+B interaction may have A checking for B or B checking for A.
  - tozder 5y ago
    it is mostly linear and there are lots of optimisation opportunities. rapid movements like explosions are the exception. then again you have the gpu and the other cores, i rarely see below 60fps on my sand game and map size is the only limitation.
- tozder 5y ago
  with toz[0][1] the only limit is the map size (which is 256x256). more than 90% of the gameplay is perfectly parallelizable (1 neighborhood automata) [0] https://store.steampowered.com/app/1170330/toz/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1170330/toz/ [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/toz/ https://old.reddit.com/r/toz/
sodality2 5y ago
Oh wow I played this game so much on the middle school computers. We got the binary on the whole district's blacklist too. I remember searching the most elaborate and cool-looking... recipes and had a dozen... boom devices memorized. (am trying to be careful to not get on NSA's blacklist here) It was really fun and we probably got dozens of hours of enjoyment out of it. I still have it on my old school USB, so this is extra cool to me.
DoktorDelta 5y ago
Fans of this should check out Noita, a rogulike game based on a similar idea (every pixel being a simulated substance/effect) https://noitagame.com/ https://noitagame.com/
- SilverRed 5y ago
  I loved powder toy but found noita very boring. Aside from being able to blow up part of the map and burning things, I felt the pixel simulation part to not add much. It certainly wasn't the creative sandbox that powder toy is.
  - Smithalicious 5y ago
    It certainly is a very different game, I don't think the comparison is apt either (though noita is a contender for my favorite game ever and one that I plan to sink dozens more hours into)
    - Impossible 5y ago
      Yes, the falling sand roots of Noita make it a little tricky, because it's a really good Roguelike platformer/shooter, that has a lot of interesting systems and mechanics, but the sand mechanics and physics are kind of a "value add" rather than core gameplay. I haven't played much Noita, but from what I know the wand system is more important for success than taking advantage of the environment. It somewhat misleading because the game was introduced with "ever pixel is simulated", but that doesn't actually matter as much as advertised in most runs. For years (I even pitched it to Dennis Gustafson, the creator of Teardown) I've wanted to do a 3D falling sand game that could naively be described as Noita x Teardown, but outside of the technical challenges I haven't thought of a concept that truly takes advantage of falling sand automata and isn't just a sandbox.
      - ehnto 5y ago
        I think that's the trouble, there aren't a wide range of stories that benefit at their core from detailed "atomic/particle" level physics. You can get 90% of the gameplay for half the cost in most cases. The only thing I can really think of are games centered around construction and civil engineering, fluid dynamics, mining and infrastructure systems. I'm not sure if you have played the game "Infra" but it made me think it would be fun to have a procedurally generated structural inspection game based on real physics, and you were tasked with fixing it with the right materials and processes. Another example would be a game centered around big engineering projects, like what you see on Discovery channel documentaries. Having to build or maintain a water treatment plant, or some kind of simplified oil rig. Teardown did a great job of gamifying the mechanic of detailed destruction and physics but it did always feel like it was a story trying to sell the mechanic, which is fine, I absolutely loved the game.
nonbirithm 5y ago
Here is one of the earlier iterations in this genre, which I remember playing around with a lot in my childhood: http://dan-ball.jp/en/javagame/dust2/ http://dan-ball.jp/en/javagame/dust2/
- ycuser2 5y ago
  Reminds me of: https://sandspiel.club/ https://sandspiel.club/
- besnn00 5y ago
  Powder Game was what got me into Powder Toy
dang 5y ago
A couple past threads: The Powder Toy - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24389920 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24389920 - Sept 2020 (37 comments) The Powder Toy - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11052473 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11052473 - Feb 2016 (16 comments)
sdflhasjd 5y ago
There are some interesting electronics driven by arcane magic R216K2A by LBPHacker. A 16-bit computer https://powdertoy.co.uk/Browse/View.html?ID=2303519 https://powdertoy.co.uk/Browse/View.html?ID=2303519 Complete with instruction manual and assembler: https://trigraph.net/powdertoy/R216/manual.md https://trigraph.net/powdertoy/R216/manual.md Of which siraben has written a Forth implementation for: https://github.com/siraben/r216-forth https://github.com/siraben/r216-forth
- prox 5y ago
  This is insane. Hats off and all that :)
7373737373 5y ago
There are many impressive computers build in this, they look really cool when running: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4eHgnLFk9k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4eHgnLFk9k

144 points by agluszak 5y ago

The "Powder Game" version used to be my favorite "game" of all time. However, I always got limited by how many things you could use at once which I thought should be no problem on modern hardware.

AlotOfReading 5y ago
I spent far too much time playing Powder game before Minecraft came along to scratch the same itch. Some of the popular maps were incredible works of art within the limits of the game. A larger canvas, determinism, and better zoom/editing capabilities are all that would be needed to make it perfect.
vortico 5y ago
Most powder models have O(n^2) interactions per step, so it's nontrivial to approximate it in O(n log n) while keeping it just as fun, especially when pushing the models to their limits.
- wyager 5y ago
  Isn’t it automatically O(n log n) if you don’t have accurate gravity and you use some sort of special tree to find neighbors?
- rhn_mk1 5y ago
  Where does the O(n²) come from? Is the number of neighbors unlimited? I was always under the impression that only a constant number of immediate neighbours counts.
  - sdflhasjd 5y ago
    Yes, it is linear, with a few small exceptions. The vast majority of element types in the game only check a fixed number of neighbours. Neighbour checking uses a 2-D map so it's constant-time.
    - sandos 5y ago
      Just randomly selected neighbours then I assume?
      - sdflhasjd 5y ago
        Most elements check the entire immediate neighbourhood at a taxicab distance of 1 or 2 (between 8 and 24 neighbours). Not all elements check neighbours, An A+B interaction may have A checking for B or B checking for A.
- tozder 5y ago
  it is mostly linear and there are lots of optimisation opportunities. rapid movements like explosions are the exception. then again you have the gpu and the other cores, i rarely see below 60fps on my sand game and map size is the only limitation.
tozder 5y ago
with toz[0][1] the only limit is the map size (which is 256x256). more than 90% of the gameplay is perfectly parallelizable (1 neighborhood automata) [0] https://store.steampowered.com/app/1170330/toz/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1170330/toz/ [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/toz/ https://old.reddit.com/r/toz/

sodality2 5y ago

Oh wow I played this game so much on the middle school computers. We got the binary on the whole district's blacklist too. I remember searching the most elaborate and cool-looking... recipes and had a dozen... boom devices memorized. (am trying to be careful to not get on NSA's blacklist here) It was really fun and we probably got dozens of hours of enjoyment out of it. I still have it on my old school USB, so this is extra cool to me.

DoktorDelta 5y ago

Fans of this should check out Noita, a rogulike game based on a similar idea (every pixel being a simulated substance/effect) https://noitagame.com/ https://noitagame.com/

SilverRed 5y ago
I loved powder toy but found noita very boring. Aside from being able to blow up part of the map and burning things, I felt the pixel simulation part to not add much. It certainly wasn't the creative sandbox that powder toy is.
- Smithalicious 5y ago
  It certainly is a very different game, I don't think the comparison is apt either (though noita is a contender for my favorite game ever and one that I plan to sink dozens more hours into)
  - Impossible 5y ago
    Yes, the falling sand roots of Noita make it a little tricky, because it's a really good Roguelike platformer/shooter, that has a lot of interesting systems and mechanics, but the sand mechanics and physics are kind of a "value add" rather than core gameplay. I haven't played much Noita, but from what I know the wand system is more important for success than taking advantage of the environment. It somewhat misleading because the game was introduced with "ever pixel is simulated", but that doesn't actually matter as much as advertised in most runs. For years (I even pitched it to Dennis Gustafson, the creator of Teardown) I've wanted to do a 3D falling sand game that could naively be described as Noita x Teardown, but outside of the technical challenges I haven't thought of a concept that truly takes advantage of falling sand automata and isn't just a sandbox.
    - ehnto 5y ago
      I think that's the trouble, there aren't a wide range of stories that benefit at their core from detailed "atomic/particle" level physics. You can get 90% of the gameplay for half the cost in most cases. The only thing I can really think of are games centered around construction and civil engineering, fluid dynamics, mining and infrastructure systems. I'm not sure if you have played the game "Infra" but it made me think it would be fun to have a procedurally generated structural inspection game based on real physics, and you were tasked with fixing it with the right materials and processes. Another example would be a game centered around big engineering projects, like what you see on Discovery channel documentaries. Having to build or maintain a water treatment plant, or some kind of simplified oil rig. Teardown did a great job of gamifying the mechanic of detailed destruction and physics but it did always feel like it was a story trying to sell the mechanic, which is fine, I absolutely loved the game.

nonbirithm 5y ago

Here is one of the earlier iterations in this genre, which I remember playing around with a lot in my childhood: http://dan-ball.jp/en/javagame/dust2/ http://dan-ball.jp/en/javagame/dust2/

ycuser2 5y ago
Reminds me of: https://sandspiel.club/ https://sandspiel.club/
besnn00 5y ago
Powder Game was what got me into Powder Toy

dang 5y ago

A couple past threads: The Powder Toy - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24389920 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24389920 - Sept 2020 (37 comments) The Powder Toy - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11052473 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11052473 - Feb 2016 (16 comments)

sdflhasjd 5y ago

There are some interesting electronics driven by arcane magic R216K2A by LBPHacker. A 16-bit computer https://powdertoy.co.uk/Browse/View.html?ID=2303519 https://powdertoy.co.uk/Browse/View.html?ID=2303519 Complete with instruction manual and assembler: https://trigraph.net/powdertoy/R216/manual.md https://trigraph.net/powdertoy/R216/manual.md Of which siraben has written a Forth implementation for: https://github.com/siraben/r216-forth https://github.com/siraben/r216-forth

prox 5y ago
This is insane. Hats off and all that :)

7373737373 5y ago

There are many impressive computers build in this, they look really cool when running: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4eHgnLFk9k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4eHgnLFk9k