So, yesterday, in the middle of The Blind Watchmaker, I thought to myself: "Self, someone really ought to make an evolution simulator."
Dawkins wrote The Blind Watchmaker in 1986, and there's a chapter where he "evolves" various shapes on the computer. I did something vaguely similar later (not with shapes, but behavior). You can get some pretty shapes from selection and random variation, and he mentions that he'd like to do a computer simulation and hopes to see if the flowers end up looking like the bees.
Fortunately, someone else seems to be working on it. On XNA, one of the platforms I was considering during the "oh crap what was I thinking going with IF" crisis. It's an interesting project, and reading through the dev blog is at least two hours' worth of procrastination on deciding whether I should chuck in some non-native fish to give a little variety.
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Hey, thanks for the shout-out.
ReplyDeleteFarming the Apocalypse sounds interesting: I'm not much of a text game connoisseur (unless you count Homestuck), but I'd definately give it a try: it sounds like what you'd get if you crossbred The Sims with Minecraft.