M'Fing Dots on a M'Fing Grid was an fxhash speedrun any% < 720 minutes project. Started at 10:30am Fri 5th August 2022, and finished at 10:30pm Fri 5th August 2022.
The repo for the code base can be found at: https://github.com/revdancatt/mfing-dots-on-a-mfing-grid - progress of writing code over the 12 hours can be seen in the commit history.
## THE PROJECT
The idea behind the project was to take one of the simplest things in generative art, randomly coloured dots on a grid.
Many projects use dots on a grid as the base foundation for building more complexity. However, just the dots themselves are often considered too simple to have as a project on their own.
Given the limited amount of time for a 12-hour speed run, I decided to see if I could take something as simple as dots and inject just a little bit of GenArt personality into it. Adding textures, variations and controlled colour selection.
It's about as simple you can get with dots on a grid, without being simple. This is my [speed run] version, show me yours.
## SPEED RUN
The tradition of doing a "speed run" on fxhash was started by Alexis André (@MacTuitui) and his "fxhash SpeedRun: any% < 960 minutes" project (#11995), described as "A performance piece. From cloning the template to a decent piece in less than 960 minutes".
Two more speed run collections have been created "Consequence Broadcast" (#13359) and "Beacon" (#17542) both by Amy Goodchild.
This is a fxhash speedrun any% < 720 run.
The any% is from game speed running and means "to get to the end with any % finished", meaning you don't have to 100% complete the game, just get to the end credits. For a gen art project it means you can use libraries and copy bits and bobs from your previous code, without having to do everything from scratch.
< 720 means that it's done in less than 720 minutes, in this case 12 hours.