Description as a Tweet:

Spaceships! Gliders! Oscillators! Inspired by Conway's Game of Life, players are pitted against each other to generate the longest lasting cellular automata. The player with the most cells at the end wins! Check it out at https://conwaybattleroyale.web.app

Inspiration:

We wanted to start out with a clone of the Reddit April Fools experiment, r/place. We then pivoted to Conway's Game of Life because it was more feasible to make and derive off of. Furthermore, we were able to implement a fun 1v1 game out of it.

What it does:

Our project is a strategy game that allows users to input a certain amount of pixels onto a grid and then simulate those pixels as cells in Conway's Game of Life. Each player has a specific color for their cell. At the end of the simulation, the player with the most of their color on the grid wins the game. We also implemented a single player sandbox mode of Conway's game of life for a player to test out strategies or just experience the game in its original form!

How we built it:

We used JavaScript and Firebase for the game logic and backend, HTML5 and Canvas API for frontend, rendering, and animation. We also used Firebase, specifically its Realtime Database and hosting capabilities, to enable multiplayer functionality.

Technologies we used:

HTML/CSS
Javascript
Misc

Challenges we ran into:

We had to build the logic of the game from the ground up, since there is no model for a multiplayer version of the Game of Life.

Accomplishments we're proud of:

We are proud of making the Canvas HTML API work within our application, integrating Firebase, generating game PINs, and using purely JS, CSS, and HTML files with no frameworks (No React or Angular).

What we've learned:

We improved our knowledge of how to use Canvas API and learned how to create new logic to better suit a multiplayer game.

What's next:

1) Making it a true battle royale by allowing more than two players to play a game
2) Improving the aesthetics of the game
3) Creating a more sophisticated landing page
4) Enabling user auth, adding ladder 1v1 leaderboards
5) Input Sanitization, Database cleanup, test suites
6) Different rulesets, obstacles, reward/penalty states... the possibilities are endless!

Built with:

Visual Studio Code, GitHub

Prizes we're going for:

Best Software Hack
Best Web Hack
Best Beginner Software Hack
Best Use of Google Cloud
Best Domain Name from Domain.com
Best Space App

Conway's Battle Royale