Welcome to the first Ecosystem newsletter! We’ll be doing these on a monthly or bi-monthly basis from now on (depending on how much there is to report on), bringing together some of the more important points of the ongoing development Read more…
The Sapling, by Wessel Stoop, has a similar scope to Ecosystem with a terrestrial focus. It includes both plants and animals, a creature editor, and a sandbox mode with random mutations. It’s out now in early access on Steam – Read more…
I’ve got a lot of big news for this update, so I’ll jump right in. Firstly, I am happy to be able to finally release an early playable demo of Ecosystem! It is a bit short and simple at the Read more…
Hi Everyone, Sorry it has been so long since the last update! I’ve been making great progress on development but fell behind when it came time to post what I’ve done. My apologies for that. I’ll have a extra-large post Read more…
This month, I’ve been adapting the game’s simulation of evolution to closer match what happens in nature. Before, every species had a fixed population size. While living out their lives, each creature was awarded a ‘fitness score’, a number that Read more…
Sorry this update is coming in later than usual. I had a long-distance move this month, and also my first wedding anniversary. My wife and I didn’t have a honeymoon when we got married, so for the anniversary we took Read more…
In the last post, I talked a little about adjustments I’d made to make symmetry more common. Before finalizing code changes that will affect creature evolution, I try to generate populations of creatures with those changes and then score them, Read more…
The past few weeks I’ve been looking into why creatures in the game exhibit less symmetry than real creatures do in nature. As a bit of advance warning, this is something I am still working on, so unfortunately this blog Read more…
The past few weeks I’ve been focusing on improving creature physiology. The basic implementation of creature bodies is finished, but they have a surprising sensitivity to the parameters of their environment and to how evolution is implemented in code. As Read more…
A Look Back at the Kickstarter Campaign You have probably seen by now that the Kickstarter campaign for Ecosystem didn’t make it, though it came tantalizingly close, at a full 88% of the funding goal. Kickstarter has gotten a lot Read more…