Pochacco, that Gene Pool app is hella cool. I just wish I could view the genomes and histories of the critters, but that’s exactly the kind of thing I’m looking for.
Yeah, well… Sim Life goes back to 1992. It’s ancient.
You could take a look at Seed. It’s probably not quite what your looking for, but it’s not bad- you’re basically growing and breeding flowers. The plants themselves have a code-driven DNA which can mutate over time- so you can breed for the traits you want, but still get surprises.
Hmmm. Works fine for me.
Gene Pool sounds just like what the OP is asking for. It simulates a little pond populated with “swimbots”. The body shape and behavior of the swimbots are genetically determined and when two swimbots mate they mix their DNA. The swimbots compete for food which provides selection pressure and you can also impose artificial fitness criteria like length or complexity.
It’s fun to let it run overnight. It doesn’t take long for a random group of starting organisms to evolve some really efficient and aggressive food gatherers.
Whoops. Guess I should have read the whole thread before replying.