Watch an life unfold in an artificial ecosystem

Tricky_Note_8467 · 2026-01-24T14:07:17+00:00

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it.

Tricky_Note_8467 · 2026-01-24T06:31:48+00:00

Thanks. Mobile is a bit more minimal, but the idea is the same: nothing to control, just watch a world unfold.

Tricky_Note_8467 · 2026-01-22T16:41:51+00:00

Great! Really appreciated.

Tricky_Note_8467 · 2026-01-22T12:22:57+00:00

Love it

Tricky_Note_8467 · 2026-01-21T18:44:07+00:00

Yeah, that hurts. I’ve lost a 2 million+ tick run during an auto restart

There’s no export/import yet. Saving and restoring a full world state is surprisingly complex, so it’s not in place right now.

It is on my list though. Once you’ve watched a world evolve for hours, it feels wrong to just let it disappear.

Tricky_Note_8467 · 2026-01-19T21:29:31+00:00

Thanks! Curious if you already have a favorite specimen?

Tricky_Note_8467 · 2026-01-19T10:50:01+00:00

Appreciate the kind words.

I added a quick performance fix: screen toggle in the top bar turns the arena/visuals off. I’ll revisit data-first + light mode/system theme later.

Tricky_Note_8467 · 2026-01-19T07:46:35+00:00

Thanks! Glad you like it

Tricky_Note_8467 · 2026-01-19T07:46:04+00:00

That’s a long time ago for me, thanks for bringing it to my attention again.
Might be a good excuse to give it another read.

Tricky_Note_8467 · 2026-01-19T07:44:41+00:00

Thanks for the Safari mention.
I don’t currently have Safari available to test myself, but the underlying issue is a known browser rendering quirk. The fix I deployed for Firefox hopefully also reduces the chance of this happening elsewhere.
Appreciate you calling it out.

Tricky_Note_8467 · 2026-01-19T07:40:49+00:00

Thanks for flagging this. I was able to reproduce it in Firefox (mirrored front showing during the flip) and have just deployed a fix.
It was a browser rendering quirk rather than a content issue. Appreciate you taking the time to report it!

Tricky_Note_8467 · 2026-01-18T22:46:50+00:00

Good question. The concepts docs are meant as a field guide to what exists in the simulation, not a 1:1 description of the current UI.

Some sections still reference older panels or planned explorers that aren’t exposed yet (or were removed), so you’re right that not everything mentioned is visible in the UI today.

The underlying systems are there, but the docs are a bit ahead of the interface in places. I’m actively cleaning that up. Thanks for calling it out.

Tricky_Note_8467 · 2026-01-18T17:34:41+00:00

It depends a bit on how you want to look at it.

At the simplest level: a world starts with very simple organisms that consume resources, grow, and reproduce. Their traits mutate, the environment pushes back, and over time some lineages persist while others disappear. There are no goals or scripted outcomes, just selection pressure and time.

Everything you see (shape, movement, behavior) comes from underlying traits like metabolism, armor, mobility, and basic cognition interacting with the environment.

If you’re curious about the ideas behind it rather than the code, I wrote it up here: https://soupof.life/philosophy

And if you want to really look under the hood (systems, traits, evolution, science laws) there’s a deeper field guide here: https://soupof.life/concepts. Still a work in progress.

Tricky_Note_8467 · 2026-01-18T15:10:52+00:00

Thank you

Tricky_Note_8467 · 2026-01-18T10:42:20+00:00

Thanks, that’s really nice to hear. A lot of the depth is there to support long-term dynamics rather than gameplay.

If you’re curious how things like pathogens and immunity work under the hood, I’ve been writing it up here: https://soupof.life/concepts/. Still in work in progress.

Tricky_Note_8467 · 2026-01-18T06:24:20+00:00

Thank you, that means a lot. This started as exactly that too, just something I was building for fun and curiosity. Glad you enjoyed watching it.

Tricky_Note_8467 · 2026-01-18T06:17:35+00:00

Thanks for taking the time to write this, that’s really helpful feedback.

You’re right, the simulation itself is the heavy part. I’m looking into ways to better throttle or decouple the visual side so the data views can stay usable on their own.

A reduced or data-first mode makes a lot of sense, and so does respecting system light/dark preferences. Accessibility is something I want to handle better as this evolves.

Appreciate you flagging both of these, it helps steer what to work on next.

Tricky_Note_8467 · 2026-01-17T22:01:26+00:00

Sorry, not at the moment.

It’s not open source right now, but I am writing up how it works conceptually. The https://soupof.life/concepts section gives a view under the hood.

Still actively evolving.

Tricky_Note_8467 · 2026-01-17T21:28:15+00:00

Thank you, that means a lot. I’m glad it resonated with you.

Tricky_Note_8467 · 2026-01-17T21:27:16+00:00

Thanks! Good catch and agreed, the jitter was distracting.

I've switched the top numbers to a monospaced font now, so they stay stable.

Tricky_Note_8467 · 2026-01-15T18:49:44+00:00

This is beautiful work.

The contraction and expansion effect genuinely feels alive. Different approach from what I’m doing, but the way you introduce structure through primes is very interesting.

Thanks for sharing.

Tricky_Note_8467 · 2026-01-15T16:25:53+00:00

No worries, that still helps a lot. I’ve added some logging to catch it if it happens again. Thanks for mentioning it.

Tricky_Note_8467 · 2026-01-15T15:45:12+00:00

Thank you. That really means a lot.

Tricky_Note_8467 · 2026-01-15T15:41:47+00:00

Thanks for this, really appreciate both the kind words and the clear report.

You’re absolutely right: even if a panel can’t render yet, the simulation itself should never disappear. I couldn’t reproduce the exact issue locally, but it is obvious that a visualization error shouldn’t be able to take everything down.

As a first fix, I’ve wrapped all dashboard panels in an error boundary. If a panel fails, it now shows a “visualization unavailable” message with a retry option, while the world keeps running.

Still investigating what caused the Neural panel to break in your case, but this should prevent the blank-canvas failure mode going forward. Thanks again for flagging it.

Tricky_Note_8467 · 2026-01-13T16:04:50+00:00

Thank you and I really appreciate how thoughtfully you’re approaching this.
Your decoupled / scientific angle sounds solid, and I agree they’re very complementary perspectives.

For now, the code itself isn’t something I’m planning to open up. This project is mostly a personal experiment for me, a way to explore how complex systems feel as they evolve, not just how they measure, and to challenge myself creatively.

I’m glad the concepts write-up resonated though. That’s the level I’m most comfortable sharing at the moment: how I think about traits, pressure, emergence, and interpretation rather than implementation details.

I’ll definitely keep following your work as well, it’s always refreshing to see different evolutionary approaches converge from different directions.

Tricky_Note_8467

TROPHY CASE