Collagol

[Uriopass]

Collagol stands for Collaborative Game of Life, and is pretty much multiplayer GoL.

It's not a game, it's just an editable and shared online GoL world on a 2000x2000 torus. It runs at 5 gen/s all the time.
I didn't see anything like it after looking a bit online so there it is.

It supports RLE importing, has a few default patterns, has a few shortcuts for flipping and rotating, and there's a chat. You can also share a position using the URL (that updates when you move/zoom).

Link: https://collagol.douady.paris/

It's open source if you want to check out how it works, it uses Golang and vanilla JS: https://github.com/Uriopass/Collagol.

I worked it to a state where I'm happy about it, so I won't take big feature requests although PRs are welcome .

What do you think about it ?

[Moosey]

Neat! It's a little hard to zoom in to the degree where you can draw your own patterns (at least on mobile) though.

[Gamedziner]

It seems to keep a single cell on an empty board two generations after being drawn. Is this a bug?

[Uriopass]

It seems to keep a single cell on an empty board two generations after being drawn. Is this a bug?

Not a bug, this is what's happening:
- Cell is sent to the server and drawn on the board locally
- Cell is received by the server and put ON for the next generation
- The map updates and is sent to the clients with the cell as ON, looking like it was the second generation that the cell is alive.
- Another update is done and map is sent to the clients, cell is OFF.

Neat! It's a little hard to zoom in to the degree where you can draw your own patterns (at least on mobile) though.

Thanks , and yes mobile use is not optimal. I didn't want to put too much effort in making it mobile friendly, as it pretty much doubles the frontend work.

[Hdjensofjfnen]

This is an interesting concept that I've thought about before, but I've never thought of it quite in this way. I was thinking clearing the board could be removed, and erasing patterns could be limited.

[dvgrn]

This is an interesting concept that I've thought about before, but I've never thought of it quite in this way. I was thinking clearing the board could be removed, and erasing patterns could be limited.

Don't know about that, given that the shared space is quite full of random ash at the moment. I haven't been able to clear the board and start over, either by clicking the Clear the Board button or by scribbling with the eraser. As soon as I get started, the number of users online goes from 1 to 0, and whatever changes I make seem to have only a local effect -- they don't get sent back to the server, and the next time I reload the changes are gone again.

The universe got that full, by the way, by some troublemaker (um, well, it was me) clearing the board, pasting in a custom LongLine pattern, waiting a few ticks, then pasting another LongLine in some distance away... and then eventually finding a small open space and dropping in a glider. This has very exciting results, but Collagol seems to start to find the expanding chaos to be a significant challenge after a while.

[Hdjensofjfnen]

... whatever changes I make seem to have only a local effect -- they don't get sent back to the server, and the next time I reload the changes are gone again.

Are addition changes also local? I made a loaf into a mold near the centre of the simulation.
EDIT: I don't see the bug you're seeing. I cleared a large swath with the eraser around the mold, so can you see that?

[dvgrn]

I don't see the bug you're seeing. I cleared a large swath with the eraser around the mold, so can you see that?

Yes, but I can't clear anything else or add anything else. Apparently the key symptom is that the number of users goes from 1 to 0 for me, before I can make any changes. Eventually the various oscillators stop moving sometimes.

Must be just me -- maybe I got banned for dropping evil LongLines into the universe. (But someone else should clear the board and try it...)

[Moosey]

This is an interesting concept that I've thought about before, but I've never thought of it quite in this way. I was thinking clearing the board could be removed, and erasing patterns could be limited.

Don't know about that, given that the shared space is quite full of random ash at the moment.

We could have a button reading "vote to clear the board" or something along those lines so that nobody can abuse the clear the board thing but we could still collectively do it.

[GUYTU6J]

Sorry to bump the thread, but the site has been down for me currently. Can anyone retrieve it?
I remember having put one of my repeat waves inside the universe back in 2019 though.

[dvgrn]

Sorry to bump the thread, but the site has been down for me currently. Can anyone retrieve it?
I remember having put one of my repeat waves inside the universe back in 2019 though.

I hadn't tried to visit the site for a while, but it's down for me as of this morning.

[Uriopass]

It's up again!