SaltPeter

A WebGPU pixel simulation game.

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SaltPeter is a pixel simulation game built on Nitrate — a custom WebGPU engine where every cell in the world is simulated in parallel on the GPU. Materials flow, react, burn, freeze, and dissolve with no shortcuts.

Inspired by the cellular automata of Noita and the open simulation philosophy of Cortex Command.

Algorithms & Techniques

One of the main goals in this project is to obtain a better understanding of game-engine subsystems and the processes that provide us as gamers with reliable behaviors during gameplay.

Concept	Source	Formula
Cellular Automata	John Von Neumann	$s_{t+1}(x,y) = f(s_t(x,y),\ \mathcal{N}(x,y))$
Chebyshev Distance	Pafnuty Chebyshev	$d(p,q) = \max(|p_x - q_x|,\ |p_y - q_y|)$
Lennard-Jones Potential	John Edward Lennard-Jones	$V(r) = 4\varepsilon\left[(\sigma/r)^{12} - (\sigma/r)^{6}\right]$
Graham Scan	Ronald Graham	$\text{cross}(A,B,C) = (B_x - A_x)(C_y - A_y) - (B_y - A_y)(C_x - A_x)$
Perlin Noise	Ken Perlin	$f(t) = 6t^5 - 15t^4 + 10t^3$
Worley Noise	Steven Worley	$F_1(\mathbf{x}) = \min_i\ d(\mathbf{x},\ \mathbf{x}_i)$
Ridged Multifractal Noise	Ken Musgrave	$n_i = 1 - |f(\mathbf{x} \cdot 2^i)|$
Dot Product	Josiah Willard Gibbs	$\mathbf{a} \cdot \mathbf{b} = \sum_i a_i b_i = |\mathbf{a}||\mathbf{b}|\cos\theta$
Coulomb Friction	Charles-Augustin de Coulomb	$F_f = \mu N$
Baumgarte Stabilization	Joachim Baumgarte	$Jv + \beta \frac{C}{\Delta t} = 0$
Bresenham's Circle	Jack Elton Bresenham	$d(x, y) = x^2 + y^2 - r^2$
Thermal conduction	Joseph Fourier	$q = -k\nabla T$
Euler's Identity	Leonhard Euler	$Δω += (r × n) * j / I$
Herringbone Wang Tiles	Sean Barrett	$E_i(d) = E_j(\bar d)$

Guides

Guides are available for the proprietary systems such as the Editor.

→ EDITOR GUIDE

Engine

Nitrate is the simulation engine powering this project — released separately under CC0, fully public domain.

→ src/engine/

Changelog

→ CHANGELOG

License

Scope	License
Engine (src/engine/)	CC0 1.0 Universal — public domain
Game (src/game/)	All Rights Reserved