EvoSims are just.. so mesmerizing to watch. Seeing an entire virtual ecosystem come to life and evolve before your very eyes, in real time, is unspeakably satisfying.
It is amazing, but it’s also cool to see a creature and know that it has meaning and came about naturally. Makes it seem much more real than just an artwork.
Another thing I want to mention about Thrive is that they've only just recently started taking tentative steps towards multicellular gameplay, it's fascinating to see this game that realistically should've only existed in the dreams of gamers slowly but surely coming to fruition
Slowly but surely should be its tagline. It had a decade of development and imho will take atleast another one, but due its open source nature and captivating ambitious goal it will probably never be abandoned. It will be made.
yeah some games are in fact very good training. but you need to work on stuff that actually will teach you real life dynamics efficiently. Eco is good, I hear.
As a programmer, I have absolutely loved creating life simulations, along with neural networks. The ability to watch an ecosystem or species evolve, live, move, and learn, is absolutely wonderful. It's like watching millions of years of evolution go by in a few minutes or hours. It also shows parallels, with how even us people and the plants/animals around us are all just made of basic molecules, which just react to the things around them and move, which makes us able to do things. Wonderful video, I love every one, keep up the great work CA! 👍
gDitto, I got into computers in the early 80's after reading about Conways game of life in a magazine. I got sick of doing it on graph paper and when a friend was trying to sell his apple 11, I bought it and taught myself to program. I later studied computing at uni and have been a degree qualified SE for 30+ years.
@AstroSamDev yes yes absolutely this, it's insane and fascinating in such a profound way, realising just how easily we can simulate life now all the learning possibilities that presents
I literally bought a gaming PC to play spore... I remember the strange feeling playing it, of being both profoundly disappointed given what I'd expected, yet still very much in love with the cute silly little game it was. To this day nothing has ever lived up to what I thought that game would be.
11:12 - Spore! I remember it being 2008 (when iPhones were totally new) and yeah, the hype behind Spore was insane. I couldn't afford it so a friend gave me a pirated copy on a disc and I loved it but it definitely wasn't what I was expecting 😅
I remember reading about this in a gaming magazine, which tells you enough about how long ago this was. I also remember re reading one of the pre release articles multiple times because ut sounded sooo cool, and then being so disappointed when the same magazine told me it was released without so much that would make the game for me. I played it a couple years later and still really enjoyed my time but definitely one of the reasons why I have trust issues with game problems these days
Just like you said in the ending, the future of this genre looks VERY big I would go as far as to say that this kinda of game/experiment is what will really blend the line of "What is Life", like, not only intelligence and sentience, but all kinda of lifes in general
Never been this early!!! Just wanted to say love your content, you’re the channel that first got me into speculative biology and I could never thank you enough.
To me I’ve always wanted another more cartoony evolution sim like spore. I understand what games like Thrive are going for, it’s just that spore is fun, and it has charm.
I highly suggest checking out Elysian Eclipse. It's another in-development evolution sim, but it's aiming for that cartoony style and has 7 total life stages: Cell, Aquatic, Creature, Tribal, Medieval, Industrial, and Space. It's been in development since last year, but there's already a public cell creator demo and a patreon-exclusive live cell stage demo. There's more stages then Spore planned, but the developer has proven that they work very hard and have enough time/resources to meet the hard goals they set on their website every month. I'm very excited for its full release. The developer estimated last July that it would take about 1 year per stage to complete, so maybe it'll be released in 2029?
@@parmenterlore I’ve never heard of it but thanks for sharing. Sounds like a lot of fun. Something that spore always felt like it was missing was a little complexity. It is still very charming and goofy and overall good fun but for me it’s just a little too simple.
Now this, this is fascinating as hell! (This is nothing against the darker, more post-apocalyptic videos, but I mostly come to this channel for much more "natural" type content)
It never fails to amaze me how humanity has advanced to the point that we are basically creating whole artificial universes by simply using math and programming. Life simulators will always have a soft spot in my heart. It’s always such an interesting and cool experience to watch these “organisms” evolve, prosper, reproduce, and eventually die. Really makes me appreciate the real world and the laws that created it a whole lot more by actually seeing it in action, even if it is just a game.
the soft bodied creatures at around 9:14 kinda looks like the in silico models they used in the making of the Xenobots, even with the contracting (heart muscle)/passive (epidermal) cells and the generally cube-y form. I wonder if the two projects are actually linked
if you're reviewing more spec evo stuff how about Tribbetherium's "Hamster's Paradise"? It's like Serina but with hamsters instead of canaries and we get stuff like lizard-like hamsters that fly with wings made of modified hair, or giant hamster mammoths called hammoths, and there's also a warmongering intelligent race of Skaven-like hamsters called Harmsters. it's some crazy stuff and a fun read
@@mr.random2877 yes, it's a pretty good take on the sapient animals trope, i like how they aren't portrayed as benevolent like so many other spec evo projects do with their races/species
I was so happy when you mentioned The Bibites, I have been following it's development for a few months now and it's just such an amazing sandbox-esque game.
I am so glad you have made this video. I have for a long time had an interest in evolutionary simulation games, and have actually played quite a few of the games mentioned, but there is a lack of videos on this subject. You have filled that lack well. Thank you.
Great video, CA! I think Evosims are fascinating to me personally because of the poetry of it. It's a complex multicellular lifeform (us) trying to understand and recreate the exact mechanisms of its genesis. So fascinated are we by our own seemingly random existence that we tirelessly create complex equations, simulations, and so on in an attempt to understand it. With the lack of other sapient life (that we can recognize as such), it almost seems that evosims, especially combined with learning AI, are an interesting attempt by a sapient creature to create something it can recognize as itself, or like itself. To create a friend we can talk to. Maybe - truthfully - we're just lonely as a species. Maybe we're like a lonesome child, dreaming up imaginary friends... except one day they might not be so imaginary.
And someone is running the simulation and making the rules and programing things and yet it's so complex This only means that the theory of evolution without God is false Someone created and desgined this universe and that's God
that first game LIFE is literally the perfect embodiment of, like you said ''how effective simple rules can be at creating emergent behavior. it show's how life just...happens because some chemicals happened to be mixed around just right in the right environment and then BAM!!! the run away chain reaction that is life.
Evolution games/Evolution Sims are such a beautiful niche genre that I adore following. Maybe it's the dream of crafting your own lineage of lifeforms that behave and interact like real creatures. Maybe it's being able to bring about complex interactions natural from basic rules. Maybe it's just a god complex. But damn oh damn, I just love playing around with them! Also, I'm so happy you brought up Thrive. It's got its head in the clouds for sure, but development's really picked up in the last year or so. Hell, they're even tweaking around multicellular prototypes! Even if we never see all the stages, I love watching them chip away at the problem, little by little.
I remember watching a video by Wessel Stoop once (maker of The Sapling) and he said that one of the main reasons he made the game is because, while he liked Spore, it was a let-down, so he wanted to make a game that was more like what he wanted Spore to be.
OMG! I love all your videos, and this one really takes the cake. One of my favorite creators of content to look forward to. So interesting to learn about all these different simulators 😮💯
Honestly, as much as I love this category of games and that its begun to get more traction, there's still a certain charm to a more light-hearted and less brain-required game like Spore as opposed to some of these games coming out. I think it'd be nice to, in addition to games that are more sciency, also see games that are less learning based and more fun based crop up in this genre as well, much in a similar way of spore.
i just wanna say i found your channel like 3 days ago and ive already watched almost all your videos. Your work is amazing and its one of the most interesting styles of content ive seen
Alien-project and space simulation toolkit are the coolest ones I’ve seen lately, although the creature evolution elements of them aren’t emphasised or very well visualised. Cell lab is my favourite of all time but it only works on android which is probably why it never took off, despite achieving amazing multicellularity mechanics.
On the ethics of things, it partly comes down to complexity, consciousness and chaos. If there is some great absorbtion of data and continuous operation to process it, in complex interconnected ways, that might be ethically significant, so you wouldn’t want to make disruptive changes to such things that they werent prepared for, and that can only be a question for humanity’s biggest AIs, not the tiny neural networks that accompany these virtual creatures. However, the general principles of not causing harm to life are important to hold, so in some ways, you should treat virtual creatures as if they were real.
@@123TeeMee i have tried so incredibly hard to get evolution to work in cell lab. I always have to start with a swimmer with three cells, because anything smaller usually doesnt see mutations.
What's fascinating about the mythology of evolution? Evolution is pure myth with no evidence whatsoever, where Is that evidence AKA transitional forms, where are the transitional forms anyways? Can you name and provide evidence of them? The earth should be cover with all sorts of transitional forms.
You've clearly missed out on an education, but I'll try my best. Every organism is a so-called "transitional form". All life forms are constantly evolving to their highest potential for survival. We know this because of genetic variation. All life forms pass down their DNA to offspring with some variations which can alter a single living thing's chances of then passing down its own genes.
@@Joshua-nn9leEarth is, in fact, covered by them XD, you know what a fossil is? Well, that's what you're looking for. Evolution has a lot of proves, it has so much proves, that evolution is already a *fact*
I just love your videos, I started watching you recently but I already really like your videos. I used to love speculative biology, but your channel has become a real Klondike for me, my ideas and dreams. By the way, I am Russian and I watch your videos with subtitles, it’s a pity that there are almost no well-known Russian TH-camrs who talk about speculative biology in such detail and interestingly.
I'm trying to simulate a really basic ecosystem with types of boids and evolution rn and I really love how from a few simple rules such beautiful behavior can emerge. Great video and I hope it gets more people into this mind-blowing topic
As you mentioned at the end, there is also species. This game is very brutal, literally seeing creatures turning to piles of meat infrint of your eyes. The game doesn't really have many limits, allowing for really weird things.
Glad this video is here. I’ve been searching and have found many of these games over the last two years so it’s great to see a lot more and other people interested in these games.
Every time I see a video like this, it makes me want to play Spore again. Even though I love that game with all my heart, it always did feel like something was missing. Guess I'll have to spend some time in Adapt and The Sapling now lol I hope Thrive is still being worked on and doesn't end up in game development limbo. It sounds like my (and many others) dream game
Hey, I'm loving all of your videos. I recently discovered the channel and I've been watching them all. I specially like the way you go through Biology in games. This got me thinking on other games you could go through maybe in the future, like the Wasteland of Fallout for example with its wacky biology after a nuclear holocaust.
A human puts in an algorithm with his presuppositions, and desired outcomes that creates a program to simulate the human desired outcome. Best demonstration i have ever heard. 👍
18:53 "If one day we are able to truly render a universe in a box, flled with virtual creatures indistinguishable from biological life, wonder if we'll have to start having more serious conversations about what we do with that power?" We're not even doing that now while factory farming actual animals
This reminded me of the The TechnocCore from sci-fi series "The Hyperion Cantos". It's a sentient AI kind that that exists on its own realm and wich evolved from an evolution simulator just like the first ones you showed us.
AMAZING video. Really extensive, exploring and showing different simulations with the why and how. Games linked in the description, awesome. Just a really complete video.
I feel like usually the most basic ones are actually the most realistic ones and the ones that are closest to real life animals because they were never made to become lifeforms, they just did based off of the rules, which is exactly how it hapened in real life. Meanwhile other evolution games are coded to have life. Also you mentioned all the cool details in the sapling, but completely forgot to mention how you can just leave your creatures to evolve without any interference.
I remember around 2006 or so I used to poke around at another evo sim called Darwin Pond that would simulate generational adaption and mutation, at a rate that you could play with. I certainly think my interest in these were directly tied to my hype for Spore ahaha
This reminds of this computer that just started making digital lifeforms without warning one day. It has done all sorts of things like change the "biome" and altered the physics, and the lifeforms have to adapt or go extinct. This is something that should be looked into more.
On one hand, I am so sad that this video hasn't introduced me to any new games. on the other, I am so happy that so many games I have interest in are getting attention
Wow, I'm surprised just how many of these I have never heard of given how much I like the idea of these sorts of games. I find that most of them tend to suffer from a lack of niches. Stuff becomes samey. There isn't much in terms of infinite compound complexity. You eventually hit a complexity ceiling. (Of course some of them don't even attempt to capture that sort of complexity in the first place) Either way, all of these are cool as heck!
I really liked this video. Thanks for your work. Made me think of xenobots, a bunch of cells reprogrammed into a lifeform but in real life. Or like these artificial cells they made recently.
The is also one game called "Cell lab" by Petter Säterskog. You make an cel and give her genetic code and just see how it does, basically. Also Im big Thrive fan. Epic vid
I remember seeing the first spore prototype back in the mid to late 2000s. Seeing it and comparing it to the game we got, I feel that it looked better then the final release. Still enjoyed it but I would love to play that prototype. Adapt looks like the Spore game that we should have gotten.
Another game that is building on the outline of Spore is Elysian Eclipse. There are some videos showing off the upgraded customization options, and they are planning cell, aquatic, creature, tribal, medieval, industrial, and space stages.
But it doesn't have natural selection, does it? Also, like Elysian Eclipse, there's a game called Thrive based off of Spore, but it's 10x more realistic and has actual evolution
About the games inspired by Spore. I personally LOVE this trend of people who grew up playing imperfect games by big companies and go on to develop high quality indie titles that end up surpassing or building on those games, you see a lot of those coming from fans of Maxis (now EA) games like Spore itself, Sims and Sim City. In a way I guess that's a kind of evolution too.
Big corporations tend to "play it safe" and try to appeal to a wide audience, plus a bigger team can lead to a "too many cooks" situation. Since the biggest motivator is profit, big studios will try to cut costs more often. Meanwhile smaller studios and devs are usually more passion driven (there are definitely exceptions to this, plenty of people are out to make a quick buck). People working on passion projects have the goal of making the best possible version of the idea inside their heads. This shift in goal from profit to product can have drastic affects on the final product's quality. However,successful profit-driven studios tend to amass more resources since they are larger, so its not always easy to make direct comparisons.
7:39 my first thought seeing these creatures is “they can move but they look like they’re in pain”. The way some of these creatures move do not look at all comfortable and efficient. I can imagine it hurts pretty bad. Despite being a computer programme, it’s pretty tragic
Hey, kinda surprised to not see Ecosystem mentioned, as it's a pretty good underwater Evo sim, and it's even published by the people who also publish Adapt
this is something i’ve wanted to make for quite a while, as part of a larger game with a focus on realism and making the player do actual science. though i want to simulate life at the planetary level, so it wouldn’t be simulating individual organisms unless you’re nearby. but it’s too ambitious for just me and where i’m at in life, so it’s been on pause for a couple years i think. also on my list of stuff i want to do for it is simulating plate tectonics and a coarse version of the evolution sim to create a fossil record so it’s up to the player to figure out how the life came to be.
You could make a documentary-style video about the "Zone"'s biology from STALKER (Anomaly, but the others could do as well, they are all quite similar). From what I understand, the games do have an ecosystem of sorts that is not centered around the player.
im unfamiliar with stalker's technique, but theres an enormous difference between presenting it that way using gamedev facade techniques, versus actually simulating the interactions
10:37
“Sometimes they succeed in tripping the AI up.”
Throws a 1/2 ton crate at it, proclaims victory.
Everyone is a gangsta until the AI evades the blocks...
@@molybdaen11 we’re training AI to escape their Matrix
the scientists aftera huge ad box predictably kills the lifeform:
me n the boys killing the boomer
Hey don’t knock it till you try it I can say that large boxes are very useful at stoping people from escaping my basement
EvoSims are just.. so mesmerizing to watch. Seeing an entire virtual ecosystem come to life and evolve before your very eyes, in real time, is unspeakably satisfying.
It is amazing, but it’s also cool to see a creature and know that it has meaning and came about naturally. Makes it seem much more real than just an artwork.
I can imagine curious archive reading this
dude i've seen you everywhere
And then killing them all, accept some few lucky ones
I have seen you on terraria and JoJo vids my gosh
Imagine being in class and your teacher says, “Alright guys, today we are going to learn about evolution. Pull out your gaming setups.”
“Good thing I have my high-end gaming computer so I can simulate a LOT”
Hah that would make school better
Finally those backpacks that were basically suitcases that some kids randomly had will be able to be used without wasting space
“alright kids, we’re on the evolution module- but first
rate my setup.”
If I was a teacher I would problem do that for space physics/ evolution module.
Another thing I want to mention about Thrive is that they've only just recently started taking tentative steps towards multicellular gameplay, it's fascinating to see this game that realistically should've only existed in the dreams of gamers slowly but surely coming to fruition
Thrive is a bit lacking on the design side of things
Its pretty much spore 2
Slowly but surely should be its tagline. It had a decade of development and imho will take atleast another one, but due its open source nature and captivating ambitious goal it will probably never be abandoned. It will be made.
@@25439 Or spore 3 since elysian eclipse is inbetween and is intentionally meant to be basically a copy of spore but alot better
Unlike Star Citizen
I knew it. Playing video games is the key to ensuring the future success of humanity.
Maybe not for *your future success tho
yeah some games are in fact very good training. but you need to work on stuff that actually will teach you real life dynamics efficiently. Eco is good, I hear.
Depends on the game. There are directly science-advancing games, like Foldit.
I choose to believe this too
3:59 *THE BIBITES!!!!!!!*
I would have never expected him to cover evolution simulators but it makes so much sense that he did
As a programmer, I have absolutely loved creating life simulations, along with neural networks. The ability to watch an ecosystem or species evolve, live, move, and learn, is absolutely wonderful. It's like watching millions of years of evolution go by in a few minutes or hours. It also shows parallels, with how even us people and the plants/animals around us are all just made of basic molecules, which just react to the things around them and move, which makes us able to do things.
Wonderful video, I love every one, keep up the great work CA! 👍
gDitto, I got into computers in the early 80's after reading about Conways game of life in a magazine. I got sick of doing it on graph paper and when a friend was trying to sell his apple 11, I bought it and taught myself to program. I later studied computing at uni and have been a degree qualified SE for 30+ years.
@AstroSamDev yes yes absolutely this, it's insane and fascinating in such a profound way, realising just how easily we can simulate life now all the learning possibilities that presents
I literally bought a gaming PC to play spore... I remember the strange feeling playing it, of being both profoundly disappointed given what I'd expected, yet still very much in love with the cute silly little game it was. To this day nothing has ever lived up to what I thought that game would be.
I would love a modern remake of the game but something tells me that won’t happen.
@@Blanch590 Did you forget about Thrive or Elysian Eclipse?
@@anastaswinn4630 thrive doesnt exist
@@anastaswinn4630 he probably means a official remake
I quite like phase one, but by phase three I think they phoned it in. Such a pity.
11:12 - Spore! I remember it being 2008 (when iPhones were totally new) and yeah, the hype behind Spore was insane. I couldn't afford it so a friend gave me a pirated copy on a disc and I loved it but it definitely wasn't what I was expecting 😅
@Life Is Cats he's talking about discs. Im sure by saying iPhones were new he's just comparing the time and a popular thing back then
@Life Is Cats.
@Life Is Cats someone's slow
I still have my disc and the amount of hours i pit into as a kid..
I remember reading about this in a gaming magazine, which tells you enough about how long ago this was.
I also remember re reading one of the pre release articles multiple times because ut sounded sooo cool, and then being so disappointed when the same magazine told me it was released without so much that would make the game for me.
I played it a couple years later and still really enjoyed my time but definitely one of the reasons why I have trust issues with game problems these days
Imagine your simulated lifeform evolved so much that it realized it lives in a simulation
Imagine we evolve so much that we realise we're in a simulation
Imagine the computing power needed for that.
@@ragg232 shhhhhhut mouth
Even though it’s not possible, that’s pretty scary 😂
@@person4579 then you realize..there was never a spoon
Just like you said in the ending, the future of this genre looks VERY big
I would go as far as to say that this kinda of game/experiment is what will really blend the line of "What is Life", like, not only intelligence and sentience, but all kinda of lifes in general
Never been this early!!! Just wanted to say love your content, you’re the channel that first got me into speculative biology and I could never thank you enough.
It’s evolvin’ time.
Yeah
Yeah
Yeah
Yeah
Yeah
To me I’ve always wanted another more cartoony evolution sim like spore. I understand what games like Thrive are going for, it’s just that spore is fun, and it has charm.
I highly suggest checking out Elysian Eclipse. It's another in-development evolution sim, but it's aiming for that cartoony style and has 7 total life stages: Cell, Aquatic, Creature, Tribal, Medieval, Industrial, and Space. It's been in development since last year, but there's already a public cell creator demo and a patreon-exclusive live cell stage demo. There's more stages then Spore planned, but the developer has proven that they work very hard and have enough time/resources to meet the hard goals they set on their website every month. I'm very excited for its full release. The developer estimated last July that it would take about 1 year per stage to complete, so maybe it'll be released in 2029?
@@parmenterlore I know about EE. For now though, we don’t have access to it.
@@parmenterlore I’ve never heard of it but thanks for sharing. Sounds like a lot of fun. Something that spore always felt like it was missing was a little complexity.
It is still very charming and goofy and overall good fun but for me it’s just a little too simple.
Now this, this is fascinating as hell! (This is nothing against the darker, more post-apocalyptic videos, but I mostly come to this channel for much more "natural" type content)
It never fails to amaze me how humanity has advanced to the point that we are basically creating whole artificial universes by simply using math and programming.
Life simulators will always have a soft spot in my heart. It’s always such an interesting and cool experience to watch these “organisms” evolve, prosper, reproduce, and eventually die. Really makes me appreciate the real world and the laws that created it a whole lot more by actually seeing it in action, even if it is just a game.
the soft bodied creatures at around 9:14 kinda looks like the in silico models they used in the making of the Xenobots, even with the contracting (heart muscle)/passive (epidermal) cells and the generally cube-y form. I wonder if the two projects are actually linked
it also kind of looks like among us
@@tanelialahuhta5841 among us
@@tanelialahuhta5841 amogus
@@tanelialahuhta5841 fussy sussy baka
10:37 They threw a whole man sized box towards that dude, ofc he got caught off guard.
Justice for boxdude.
if you're reviewing more spec evo stuff how about Tribbetherium's "Hamster's Paradise"? It's like Serina but with hamsters instead of canaries and we get stuff like lizard-like hamsters that fly with wings made of modified hair, or giant hamster mammoths called hammoths, and there's also a warmongering intelligent race of Skaven-like hamsters called Harmsters. it's some crazy stuff and a fun read
Whoever wrote that must have really liked hamsters.
I actually enjoy Hamster's paradise and have been trying to do little fan art.
massively underrated series
@@blueblaze27 Indeed it is on par with Serina in my opinion. Have you read over the Harmsters?
@@mr.random2877 yes, it's a pretty good take on the sapient animals trope, i like how they aren't portrayed as benevolent like so many other spec evo projects do with their races/species
I was so happy when you mentioned The Bibites, I have been following it's development for a few months now and it's just such an amazing sandbox-esque game.
Hiii, i have a game play to you 🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲 th-cam.com/video/0nORmN0Eojk/w-d-xo.html
I am so glad you have made this video. I have for a long time had an interest in evolutionary simulation games, and have actually played quite a few of the games mentioned, but there is a lack of videos on this subject. You have filled that lack well. Thank you.
Great video, CA! I think Evosims are fascinating to me personally because of the poetry of it. It's a complex multicellular lifeform (us) trying to understand and recreate the exact mechanisms of its genesis. So fascinated are we by our own seemingly random existence that we tirelessly create complex equations, simulations, and so on in an attempt to understand it.
With the lack of other sapient life (that we can recognize as such), it almost seems that evosims, especially combined with learning AI, are an interesting attempt by a sapient creature to create something it can recognize as itself, or like itself. To create a friend we can talk to. Maybe - truthfully - we're just lonely as a species. Maybe we're like a lonesome child, dreaming up imaginary friends... except one day they might not be so imaginary.
This gives me an idea for a story
@@ragg232 I'm a writer myself, so it's all I think about. Good luck with it!
worst one is 2:32
great vid, thanks for the shout out! :D
Agree! A purple flower would be enough to destroy those simple organisms.
At first, I thought that statement was a zootopia reference.
evolution is so simple yet so complex at the same time
(fill in blank) is so simple yet so complex at the same time
evolution is so easy to understand yet...
And someone is running the simulation and making the rules and programing things and yet it's so complex
This only means that the theory of evolution without God is false
Someone created and desgined this universe and that's God
exactly, wish they realize and analyze@@sifouad6945
@@sifouad6945 lmao no, the laws of physics are what makes evolution happen.
it's the second law of thermodynamic that makes life possible.
@@sifouad6945 nice theory.
that first game LIFE is literally the perfect embodiment of, like you said ''how effective simple rules can be at creating emergent behavior. it show's how life just...happens because some chemicals happened to be mixed around just right in the right environment and then BAM!!! the run away chain reaction that is life.
Evolution games/Evolution Sims are such a beautiful niche genre that I adore following. Maybe it's the dream of crafting your own lineage of lifeforms that behave and interact like real creatures. Maybe it's being able to bring about complex interactions natural from basic rules. Maybe it's just a god complex. But damn oh damn, I just love playing around with them!
Also, I'm so happy you brought up Thrive. It's got its head in the clouds for sure, but development's really picked up in the last year or so. Hell, they're even tweaking around multicellular prototypes! Even if we never see all the stages, I love watching them chip away at the problem, little by little.
I been developing a free one
9:29 i know i'm not the only one who thinks that this look cute.
I remember watching a video by Wessel Stoop once (maker of The Sapling) and he said that one of the main reasons he made the game is because, while he liked Spore, it was a let-down, so he wanted to make a game that was more like what he wanted Spore to be.
He made this because spore was anything but a simulation game
OMG! I love all your videos, and this one really takes the cake. One of my favorite creators of content to look forward to. So interesting to learn about all these different simulators 😮💯
Honestly, as much as I love this category of games and that its begun to get more traction, there's still a certain charm to a more light-hearted and less brain-required game like Spore as opposed to some of these games coming out. I think it'd be nice to, in addition to games that are more sciency, also see games that are less learning based and more fun based crop up in this genre as well, much in a similar way of spore.
Evolution didn't spare you
I’m not a big gamer but I love myself some biology/ecology. I was just thinking about rain world and now this, loving this channel!
i just wanna say i found your channel like 3 days ago and ive already watched almost all your videos. Your work is amazing and its one of the most interesting styles of content ive seen
Alien-project and space simulation toolkit are the coolest ones I’ve seen lately, although the creature evolution elements of them aren’t emphasised or very well visualised. Cell lab is my favourite of all time but it only works on android which is probably why it never took off, despite achieving amazing multicellularity mechanics.
On the ethics of things, it partly comes down to complexity, consciousness and chaos. If there is some great absorbtion of data and continuous operation to process it, in complex interconnected ways, that might be ethically significant, so you wouldn’t want to make disruptive changes to such things that they werent prepared for, and that can only be a question for humanity’s biggest AIs, not the tiny neural networks that accompany these virtual creatures. However, the general principles of not causing harm to life are important to hold, so in some ways, you should treat virtual creatures as if they were real.
@@123TeeMee i have tried so incredibly hard to get evolution to work in cell lab. I always have to start with a swimmer with three cells, because anything smaller usually doesnt see mutations.
This is the funniest video i think you have made lol. Just the chaotic music at the beginning and the humor throughout the video.
This is one of my favorite game genres. Being able to evolve your own creature, or watch as they evolve on their own...
It's VERY interesting.
Seeing a new upload from this channel is a blessing from go- i mean science because im an atheist
Shut up
@@Texan_christian1132 Why
@@person4579 how dare you be atheist. God obviously created earth. Who else did?
@@Texan_christian1132"How you dare to have your own beliefs? I don't get why people don't have my beliefs!!!"
Thank you so much for making these videos. Biology and evolution have always been so fascinating to me.
What's fascinating about the mythology of evolution? Evolution is pure myth with no evidence whatsoever, where Is that evidence AKA transitional forms, where are the transitional forms anyways? Can you name and provide evidence of them? The earth should be cover with all sorts of transitional forms.
You've clearly missed out on an education, but I'll try my best. Every organism is a so-called "transitional form". All life forms are constantly evolving to their highest potential for survival. We know this because of genetic variation. All life forms pass down their DNA to offspring with some variations which can alter a single living thing's chances of then passing down its own genes.
@@Joshua-nn9leEarth is, in fact, covered by them XD, you know what a fossil is? Well, that's what you're looking for.
Evolution has a lot of proves, it has so much proves, that evolution is already a *fact*
10:37 “sometimes they’d succeed in catching the AI off-guard” I too would be caught of guard if you chucked a box half my size at my head😂
I can tell this took a lot of time
I just love your videos, I started watching you recently but I already really like your videos. I used to love speculative biology, but your channel has become a real Klondike for me, my ideas and dreams. By the way, I am Russian and I watch your videos with subtitles, it’s a pity that there are almost no well-known Russian TH-camrs who talk about speculative biology in such detail and interestingly.
Glad you devoted an entire chapter to my favorite game, Spore.
I'm trying to simulate a really basic ecosystem with types of boids and evolution rn and I really love how from a few simple rules such beautiful behavior can emerge. Great video and I hope it gets more people into this mind-blowing topic
As you mentioned at the end, there is also species. This game is very brutal, literally seeing creatures turning to piles of meat infrint of your eyes. The game doesn't really have many limits, allowing for really weird things.
I really wish you've mentioned Cell Lab. It's kinda Life Engine and has more of the "lifely" feel, since creatures are made of cells
10:16 Gen 80 is vibin
One of your best vidéos.
It brought nostalgia, curiosity, awe, and dépression at the end X)
Good job love your channel, kiss
I can't wait to try these, always loved spore but was certainly eager for a bit more depth and realism 😆
I'm so glad i watched this video, thank you for introducing me to The Sapling
i love this channel, it feeds my curious brain
Glad this video is here. I’ve been searching and have found many of these games over the last two years so it’s great to see a lot more and other people interested in these games.
Another one like adapt and spore is called Elysian Eclipse. I think you should feature that one too.
This video was amazing thank you for teaching me about this genre
Evolutionary advancement does not involve "countless generations of failure." It actually involves only countless generations of success
Two "dies irae" in the first minutes, That man know how to manage music in a video!
Every time I see a video like this, it makes me want to play Spore again. Even though I love that game with all my heart, it always did feel like something was missing. Guess I'll have to spend some time in Adapt and The Sapling now lol
I hope Thrive is still being worked on and doesn't end up in game development limbo. It sounds like my (and many others) dream game
Hey, I'm loving all of your videos. I recently discovered the channel and I've been watching them all. I specially like the way you go through Biology in games. This got me thinking on other games you could go through maybe in the future, like the Wasteland of Fallout for example with its wacky biology after a nuclear holocaust.
Oh wow--LOVE this!
A human puts in an algorithm with his presuppositions, and desired outcomes that creates a program to simulate the human desired outcome.
Best demonstration i have ever heard. 👍
18:53 "If one day we are able to truly render a universe in a box, flled with virtual creatures indistinguishable from biological life, wonder if we'll have to start having more serious conversations about what we do with that power?"
We're not even doing that now while factory farming actual animals
that lil yellow running crab guy at the start made me chuckle :]
This reminded me of the The TechnocCore from sci-fi series "The Hyperion Cantos". It's a sentient AI kind that that exists on its own realm and wich evolved from an evolution simulator just like the first ones you showed us.
AMAZING video. Really extensive, exploring and showing different simulations with the why and how. Games linked in the description, awesome. Just a really complete video.
18:30 Me walking through the Walmart pots and pans isle after I just swallowed a big magnet.
I feel like usually the most basic ones are actually the most realistic ones and the ones that are closest to real life animals because they were never made to become lifeforms, they just did based off of the rules, which is exactly how it hapened in real life. Meanwhile other evolution games are coded to have life. Also you mentioned all the cool details in the sapling, but completely forgot to mention how you can just leave your creatures to evolve without any interference.
I’ve been following the Bibbits
I was trying to track down videos to make a playlist, and not having much luck. This is great, and exactly what I had in mind, thank you.
10:38 me when the existential crisis hits
I remember around 2006 or so I used to poke around at another evo sim called Darwin Pond that would simulate generational adaption and mutation, at a rate that you could play with. I certainly think my interest in these were directly tied to my hype for Spore ahaha
9:00 i love little wiggling squares
I am so happy to have found this channel! Thank you for exploring and summarizing and sharing! References are great!
This reminds of this computer that just started making digital lifeforms without warning one day. It has done all sorts of things like change the "biome" and altered the physics, and the lifeforms have to adapt or go extinct. This is something that should be looked into more.
any source on this?
Sounds like bs.
Yeah nah.
digging this new editing style!
On one hand, I am so sad that this video hasn't introduced me to any new games. on the other, I am so happy that so many games I have interest in are getting attention
Wow, I'm surprised just how many of these I have never heard of given how much I like the idea of these sorts of games.
I find that most of them tend to suffer from a lack of niches. Stuff becomes samey. There isn't much in terms of infinite compound complexity. You eventually hit a complexity ceiling. (Of course some of them don't even attempt to capture that sort of complexity in the first place)
Either way, all of these are cool as heck!
I really liked this video. Thanks for your work. Made me think of xenobots, a bunch of cells reprogrammed into a lifeform but in real life. Or like these artificial cells they made recently.
Great that you're also looking at life simulators!!!
"Are you saying we descended from a videogame?" - Kent Hovind.
The is also one game called "Cell lab" by Petter Säterskog. You make an cel and give her genetic code and just see how it does, basically.
Also Im big Thrive fan. Epic vid
I remember seeing the first spore prototype back in the mid to late 2000s. Seeing it and comparing it to the game we got, I feel that it looked better then the final release. Still enjoyed it but I would love to play that prototype. Adapt looks like the Spore game that we should have gotten.
The quality of this video is extraordinary
Another game that is building on the outline of Spore is Elysian Eclipse. There are some videos showing off the upgraded customization options, and they are planning cell, aquatic, creature, tribal, medieval, industrial, and space stages.
But it doesn't have natural selection, does it? Also, like Elysian Eclipse, there's a game called Thrive based off of Spore, but it's 10x more realistic and has actual evolution
@@tristanmisja Elysian esclypse is still going to be great. It will be spore, but better. Also, unlike Thrive it will be completed in the next decade.
I'm so glad you talk about The Sapling, it deserves much more attention !
I would honestly watch a full length documentary about this.
This is super cool!
14:40 you can hear the excitement in his voice😀
This is an awesome way to show what it would be like for evolution to exist. Videogame tech ftw!
10:40 "While sometimes they'd succeed in catching the AI off guard"
Bruh you'd fall too if a boulder twice your size was yeeted at you
Would definitely recommend The Bibites TH-cam channel and game.
About the games inspired by Spore. I personally LOVE this trend of people who grew up playing imperfect games by big companies and go on to develop high quality indie titles that end up surpassing or building on those games, you see a lot of those coming from fans of Maxis (now EA) games like Spore itself, Sims and Sim City. In a way I guess that's a kind of evolution too.
Big corporations tend to "play it safe" and try to appeal to a wide audience, plus a bigger team can lead to a "too many cooks" situation. Since the biggest motivator is profit, big studios will try to cut costs more often.
Meanwhile smaller studios and devs are usually more passion driven (there are definitely exceptions to this, plenty of people are out to make a quick buck). People working on passion projects have the goal of making the best possible version of the idea inside their heads. This shift in goal from profit to product can have drastic affects on the final product's quality. However,successful profit-driven studios tend to amass more resources since they are larger, so its not always easy to make direct comparisons.
7:39 my first thought seeing these creatures is “they can move but they look like they’re in pain”. The way some of these creatures move do not look at all comfortable and efficient. I can imagine it hurts pretty bad. Despite being a computer programme, it’s pretty tragic
i remember one of my childhood dreams was to create artificial life from nothing;
it was surprisingly, almost disappointingly, easy
Hey, kinda surprised to not see Ecosystem mentioned, as it's a pretty good underwater Evo sim, and it's even published by the people who also publish Adapt
These things are technically Digimon. How cool.
I can hear his excitement over these games.
10:30 my fatass walking through the pots and pans aisle after eating a bunch of magnets:
this is something i’ve wanted to make for quite a while, as part of a larger game with a focus on realism and making the player do actual science. though i want to simulate life at the planetary level, so it wouldn’t be simulating individual organisms unless you’re nearby. but it’s too ambitious for just me and where i’m at in life, so it’s been on pause for a couple years i think. also on my list of stuff i want to do for it is simulating plate tectonics and a coarse version of the evolution sim to create a fossil record so it’s up to the player to figure out how the life came to be.
7:34 Just imagine this running at you though
Incredible video! So many things out there to play with
You could make a documentary-style video about the "Zone"'s biology from STALKER (Anomaly, but the others could do as well, they are all quite similar). From what I understand, the games do have an ecosystem of sorts that is not centered around the player.
im unfamiliar with stalker's technique, but theres an enormous difference between presenting it that way using gamedev facade techniques, versus actually simulating the interactions
Life always reminds me of skin peeling after a bad sunburn.