A fascinating simulation of evolution

I really like the sim, thanks for developing it. Are you planning to keep working on it?

I would love to see an explanation of the workings of the sim, maybe on your "About" page. What does the "Seed DNA" box do?

Also... any way of speeding it up? (I left my computer running overnight to see the effect of hundreds of generations, but maybe it just can be done faster?)

They have to reach a certain distance in a certain time (physics steps) or they die. If you adjust the "Steps per creature", the first number represents the "check points" the creatures have to reach. The second number represents the total time the creatures have.

Quadrupeds at gravity 30 turn out to be some pretty interesting leapers. I think I'm going to do worms at 15 next - worms at 10 don't even touch the ground unless they reach for it, which seems to tend to send them flying backwards for some reason.

Dammit, I were just about to tell everyone here about the epicness of low gravity worms! you stole my idea before i discovered it! :p

I don't know how to get Breve to evolve stuff, but Michael Goodfellow has a great simulation of evolution that attempts to evolve a computer program (a finite-state machine with 40 states) capable of following a trail of food. Its input is whether or not there is food in front of it, and its output is whether to turn left, turn right, move forward, or do nothing. I've already evolved creatures suitable for two types of trail (the one the applet uses by default, and one where each line of food is followed by a second line whose length indicates which way to turn). They sometimes stumble upon the optimal solution, but figuring out how to get them to do that can be an interesting challenge.

You are correct. The name is just to tie into one of the more exciting moments in the evolution of animals. I am thinking of expanding on the project to have multiple environments which will allow for modeling speciation.

This is a bug. At this point, populations only work if they are multiples (1 / successful parents cutoff) so by default, 20. If you want less, you can go with 16.

I have a suggestion, as I myself was getting grossed out, especially if you increase the thickness of the worms. Set the render to "Wire" and see what you think :)

Try the different body types - there are four to choose from. Quadripeds very interesting, you can see the various distinct evolutionary branchings like "gazelle", "rabbit", "kangaroo" and "velociraptor" if you run the sim enough times.