Self-Avoiding Morphing Creature

For this week’s assignment, I combined a self-avoiding walk with a morphing creature shape. Basically, I wanted to create something that grows organically without ever crossing itself, like a blob that’s aware of its own body.

The creature starts as a small circle and then tries to expand outward by adding new points. Before placing each new point, it checks if that spot is already occupied using a simple grid system. If it’s clear, the point gets added and the shape grows. If not, it tries a different direction.

What makes it feel alive is the constant wiggling, each point shifts slightly every few frames, but only if it won’t cause a collision. This creates this pulsing, breathing effect that’s kinda so cool to watch.

Code Highlight

An interesting part in my code is the collision (closely distant) detection:

isBlocked(x, y, skipIdx) {
  // Check if grid cell is taken
  if (occupied[this.gridKey(x, y)]) return true;
  
  // Check if too close to other points
  for (let i = 0; i < this.points.length; i++) {
    if (i === skipIdx) continue;
    if (dist(x, y, this.points[i].x, this.points[i].y) < cellSize * 1.5) {
      return true;
    }
  }
  return false;
}

It’s doing a double-check: first looking at the grid to see if that cell is occupied, then measuring the actual distance to nearby points. The skipIdx parameter lets a point check if it can move to a new spot without counting itself as a blocker. Simple but effective.

Embedded Sketch

Future Ideas

For future improvements:

• Add multiple creatures that avoid each other
• Make the growth pattern follow the mouse or respond to sound
• Different growth strategies (maybe prefer growing upward, or toward light sources)
• Color shifts based on age or density of the creature