On May 9th of 2023 (today as of writing this), my Biology teacher assigned an activity. In this activity, each student would receive a card with an organism on it. Of these organisms were Algae, Shrimps, Cods, and Sharks. Each student was also assigned a paper bag with fifteen beans in it, representing energy. A timer would start, and students would walk around and interact with other students. During interactions, if the organism on a student's card was able to consume the organism on the other's, that student would take five beans from the other's bag. After each interaction, both students would place two beans in a bucket full of them. If a student is an Algae, after placing two beans in the bucket, they would take ten out of the bucket and into their own bag, representing photosynthesis. Of course, the activity was built to be played in real time, and it would take extra hassle to get that working in Scratch, so I decided to bend the rules a bit. Instead of interacting in real time, the game is sorted into rounds, each organism interacting once per round. The general rules are the same, and the game ends after a set number of rounds.
There are five algae, four shrimps, three cods, and two sharks, shown by the "Organisms" list. In this hypothetical food chain, shrimps eat algae, cods eat shrimps, and sharks eat cods. Each organism starts out with 15 energy, as shown in the "Energy Count". Eating another organism "steals" five energy points from it. If an organism's energy level goes below 1, it is considered dead and is removed from the game at the end of the round. Each organism can interact with another organism only once per round, shown by the "Interactions" list. At the end of each round, each organism loses 2 energy points, representing energy lost in doing organism things, and algae gain 10 energy points, representing photosynthesis (for a profit of 8 energy points). The game currently lasts 6 rounds.
