EvoLife

EvoLife - Demo

I am just a solo dev, I could test the simulation on an RX 6750 XT, a GT 710 and an NVS 4200M. To remedy this issue I want to provide a free demo you can try out, to check if the game works on your machine.

Please make sure you have the newest drivers installed for your graphics card.

Demo limitations:

• Only the smallest world size is available

• No built-in savefiles from the trailer

• No DNA editing

EvoLife - Evolution Simulator

For this simulation my vision was to simulate a whole ecosystem of cells. There are many grid-like simulations, where artificial life exists in a grid. There are many game-like simulations where whole creatures are simulated. Sadly none of these fills the niche I am interested in.

I am specifically interested in the boundary of single celled and multicellular life. How did multicellular life come to be? How cells work together as an organism? How many ways can multicellularity evolve? There are only theories as the answer lies in the un-fossilized past.

To achieve this I simulate individual cells, and their individual organelles. I do not want to force multicellularity by having dedicated types of cells. Each cell can perform multiple things, can decide which organelles to grow. I want single celled life to be just as feasible and diverse as multicellular. I want the local environment to decide how the most successful life form should look like.

I choose deep sea vents as the setting for my game, deep underwater. At the beginning of the simulation, random species are generated and spawned in. Sadly most of the random generated DNA is garbage, and most species die out very fast. But after a while, there are some winners. First these are very simple creatures, as there are a lot of gas bubbles and dead cells floating around, and both can be broken down for energy, with the correct type of organelle. There is a chance that DNA mutates when a cell divides. If we are patient, complexity emerges. Food becomes more and more scarce. Species differentiate, as they find different niches to fill.

This simulator is my pet project, 10 years in the making! It is running entirely on the video card. You don't need a supercomputer, just a mid range card to simulate hundreds of thousands of cells. The world in the trailer is the result of running the biggest world preset on my RX 6750 XT for a week. Hopefully the advancement of video cards makes even bigger worlds a possibility!