Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[grubbymonster]

Hi Guys,

I created an evolution simulator and thought you might like to check it out.  Demo is available here: www.grubbymonster.com

I am in need of some beta testers too, but due to the complexity of the system I was looking for smart people who would 'get it'.  At least get it enough to figure out how to selectively breed an interesting creature or two before getting bored.  Then I thought who are the smartest gamers on the internets?  Anyone who can play dwarf fortress, that's who!  (full disclosure, thats not me - I tried, apparently not hard enough though).

Anyway, check it out and if you are interested in beta testing an early release I would be most grateful!!!

Thanks!!!

[Sheb]

Uh, how do you control a creature? Also, wouldn't breeding a creature to food simple remove selection pressure to evolve food-getting abilities?

[grubbymonster]

The demo does not have the controls or mutations enabled.  It only reproduces copies and eventually one creature will dominate.  It's a cross section of all the running instances of the game so it should be different from one day to the next. 

Selective breeding just pushes evolution in a direction, like how we have Dalmatians and weiner dogs.  You can't make a creature like food but if you keep reproducing them, their children might.

[variablenonsense]

Interesting concept. I really enjoy that music, hahaha.

Some of the structures generated were pretty interesting, though it seemed like "just a ball" was most successful in the time span I was watching it. Not as impressive as the zaggy starfish thing I saw, but still neat.

Do the colors have meanings associated with them or are they random? Asking as the starfish looking thing had green ends with little bits floating inside, so I was curious if you had implemented something like photosynthesis as a food source - or were planning to.

:U I'm a sucker for evolution things, so now I'm curious about your game.

[grubbymonster]

The simulation you see is just going to select the most adaptable among the 100 creatures currently in the global "shared pool" (kind of an international airport for the creatures).  Longer simulations start to favor starfish like structures that contract around danger and expand around food, but this iteration is a new run and had some logic errors with transfers.  I had to change the protocols to allow a web client to grab files and not save files since the web client is limited to what it can touch. 

I plan on releasing a similar (and free) version of that web demo where you can manipulate the creatures and they will truly evolve, much more fun.

The colors are indicators of their stats, more green relates to better food storage.  I bypassed the idea of photosynthesis by adding growing plants, the base creatures are herbivores.  Bunches of omnivores will evolve and I've only seen the rare carnivore.  A true carnivore avoids the plants and hangs out by them to feed on the herbivores.  I think they need a bigger pool of running games since even a 1:50 ratio means there can only be 2 and its too easy for them to die off.

Thanks for checking it out!
 

[NJW2000]

WOW. Not much goes on online, but I'm convinced this could be pretty cool, now I've seen one that contracts to feed.

Edit, it just hammered a single celled one by sneakily expanding a bit then contracting at once near food, Now its it vs 2 dozen single brawler cells.

[forsaken1111]

Will take a look when I can. This looks neat.

[Spiderking50]

It doesn't seem to work with google crome, is there any fix? I am quite interested and am a big fan of evolution simulators (I've explored several) and would love to take a look.

[grubbymonster]

It was developed with Uniyt3d and the web plugin is currently not compatible with the latest version of chrome.  It works great in firefox though

Also, I am very close to an alpha release, if you are interested send me a note and I will give you access to it.

[variablenonsense]

And WebGL is very, very new. We're developing in it and honestly it's a pain in the neck at times.

I'm interested in your alpha but I thought it would be strange to post then note immediately after.

[grubbymonster]

I will PM you with the alpha link in a day or so, I just have to compile a clean version that points to a shared 'alpha' world.  Ultimately I plan on letting the player choose the shared world so you can play in your own shared sandbox.

[Spiderking50]

Played the alpha, thought it was interesting, but took me a long time to figure out. Still not completely sure how to fight other creatures. I just sorta bashed mine into theirs until one of us died. Plus I had no idea i could eat plants either. Besides have no idea how to play this simulation (game? not sure which to call it), i thought it looked very nice and think when its finished it will be quite good. Not much seemed to happen while i wasn't playing though.

[grubbymonster]

Appreciate the feedback!  You can only just guide the creatures, much like pulling a dog/cat by a leash - one is going to be far easier than the other.  Attacking will be more obvious when I add sound/particle system for damage etc.  I may create levels where you can pilot a micro ship and battle the creatures directly, but that would be another thing entirely.  This is just a simulator, the controlling bit was added to allow you to help the evolution process along and make it more fun than just watching. 

It can also be interesting to simply let it run for a few hours/days.

Thanks again for the feedback!!

[Spiderking50]

I enjoyed it and got some cool thingies (not sure what to call these cool little dudes). What do you have planned for the other modes? Laboratory sounds very interesting to me.

[grubbymonster]

I am not 100% sure which other modes I will implement but laboratory is on the top of my list.  I am happy just to see what evolves but I suspect only a small fraction of people are like me and just want to see what happens.  Anything that 'gamifies' the simulation and makes it more fun is ok with me.(really I just want to keep people running the game to create new creatures) A laboratory would give you a window into their DNA and see how they tick.  I could let the player tweak the dna to see what happens or put it through a tumbler to get 100 variations then have those fight it out?  Really not sure, its a tough first project to get traction on tbh.   

I am still toying with the miniaturized ship idea to make an actual game where the enemies keep getting harder to beat.  You could play against creatures by level and if they kill a player they level up.  The odd thing is I don't know what would happen, it may keep getting harder forever, become impossible, or level off in a month/year/?  It was a very ambitious project to start with and I cant even begin to describe how complex it was to set up a dna system that procedurally generates such a variety of creatures with virtually unlimited behaviors.  There are somewhere around 2^8000 combinations, I think that number has about 2500 zeros after it, give or take a Googol or two.