Evo(rand) is an artificial world created to study under which conditions evolution and the "pressure" of the environment can produce co-existing specialized species in a diverse ecosystem. The picture above shows a 3D view of Evo(rand) with no creatures.

If you play with this simulator, and have patience, you will see various types of behaviors appearing, depending on the parameters you have set for the creatures and their interaction among themselves and with the environment. You may have a world of plants, a competition between plants and herbivores, or an emerging race of parasites wiping out everybody else...

Join Evo(rand) group on facebook. See the I-Am-Darwin video manifest.

New: see results of some experiments.

This project

This project was started in the early 1998 by a software engineer (me), who had no more opportunity to produce lines of code at work.

I initially had the goal of using computers to simulate a world according to Darwin's rule of evolution back in 1989. Unfortunately, computers were too slow by then. Now personal computers are fast enough to simulate large populations (thousands and even tens of thousands) of creatures with complex behaviour, all within a second.

This simulator is the current result of that ambition. It permanently evolves to test new ideas as it is more of a research tool for me than anything else. Yet, it is made to allow anybody to do its own experiments, and share results with others.

Some features of Evo(rand) are:

• Variable length DNA with coding genes and non-coding DNA portions. A creature with no coding gene moves randomly, reproduces randomly and gets energy from the sun.
  
• DNA encoding of mutation rate, DNA growth rate, speed, energy/weight at birth, metabolism, behavior rules, etc.
  
• The DNA can lead to plants, herbivores, carnivores and parasites (and any combination of course).
• Possible actions include cloning, mating, killing, eating, fleeing, nesting and several more.
  
• Real time dynamic definition of species based on the analysis of the genealogical tree.
• Realistic terrain constructed using fractal algorithm, with lakes, rivers, sea and tide.
• Bounded terrain (non tore) with continuous space and time allowing smooth slow motion.
  
• 2D and 3D graphics.
• Meant to simulate large populations: more than 1,000 generations with a population of 10,000 creatures in 24 hours on a Pentium IV.
  

The simulator initially developed with Borland C++ 1.0, then 4.0, has now been ported to Turbo C++ Explorer, a freeware from Borland, now CodeGear. The installer package has been produced using Advanced Installer, using the basic features, also freeware.

Source code?

The source code can be found in the Download section of the Web site.

Any suggestion, question, or bug report can be sent to: herve dot g dot noel-at-gmail.