Darwinbots: An Evolution Sim/game An interesting scientific simulation of evolution

[rob86 2]

I just came across this game or simulation called DarwinBots available here. http://wiki.darwinbots.com/w/Main_Page

I'm still trying to figure it out, and from first glance it isn't your typical point and click game and it seems to take some thinking and knowledge of basic programming (there are some conditional statements from what i can see, you know, if (something < something) dothis ) and evolution to understand. I haven't really figured out what to do with it, I'm still browsing the manual to see if it I'll be able to grasp it (understanding genes and dna has never been something I've studied at all) but it looks like a some what rewarding little simulation for people interested in artificial intelligence.

I've always had an interest in Artificial Intelligence so I hope I can learn enough biology from wikipedia to understand this sim.

I think it'd be cool to exchange Bots with other Trappers or whatever it is you do with the sim, maybe discuss our creations (assuming I'll ever figure out how to create life!)

Check it out.. if you're having trouble getting it installed.. I can help _a little_ as it can be a bit confusing (You need to install the old version, 2.1 and then the new version on top of it -- confusing!) then the link to download robots (as per tutorial instructions) is dead..i think you have to register at the forum. I guess they assume that if you're coding artificial DNA you're intelligent enough to do all that lol. The instructions should help a bit and if you happen to be gifted in biology..well you can help me figure out what I'm supposed to be doing..

[akashi 0]

Aargh, they only support winblows.. There isn't any linux installer there. Could you post some picture or tell us more review?

[rob86 2]

It's kind of hard for me to review it at the moment as I'm barely understanding how to use it. Graphically, it's not overly impressive because it's not meant to be, in fact I often find myself disabling video output to speed up the game which is a button. The "robots" are basically circles of different colour moving around growing and shrinking depending on how much energy (food) they have.

From what i know, you can download or create text files with DNA information for your robots. It's a bit tricky to create this dna and I'm still learning, but an example is this:

' Simplebot 1' Gene1. Simple search pattern.cond  *.eye3 *.eye5 >start  -25 .aimdx storestop' Gene2. Simple search pattern part 2cond  *.eye7 *.eye5 >start  25 .aimdx storestop' Gene 3. Move forwardcondstart  5 .up storestop' Gene 4. Shoot the foodcond  *.eye5 40 >start  -1 .shoot storestop' Gene 5. Reproducecond  *.nrg 5000 >start  50 .repro storestop' Gene 6. Avoid conspecificscond*.refeye 6 =*.eye5 0 >start180 .aimdx storestopend

It looks kind of difficult, but it is understandable once you spend a half an hour reading the little tutorial on writing dna files and there seems to be a wiki page with details on all the "variables" and 'functions' you can use. It's like a mini programming language.

Other than that, I'm not sure how the game works. It seems to be more complicated than just species eating eachother as you can make viruses etc which I haven't really done much with. There's a lot of stuff I've never even tried and it definitely takes a bit of effort. Whether it's a rewarding experience to mess with this sim I'm not sure yet, as my only bot is "Simple Bot" but i'm going to keep playing with it.

[akashi 0]

As you said, it looks kind of difficult. It's like doing some programming there ;p I'll give a look when I use my XP, although I'm doubtly sure I'm going to like it since I'm not good at programming >_<

[rob86 2]

I've noticed that it seems to be rather buggy as well. On my computer it seems to crash once in a while and the number of "bots" can be very taxing on a computer. Even at a relatively small 200+ bots moving around on the screen makes it very sluggish, and when I left it on overnight there were at least 3000 the next day making the game slow to a crawl and I couldn't do much but exit out of it. There may be a way to limit the number of bots on the screen but I'm not sure yet. I registered on the darwinbots forum and might ask some questions there.

 

The programming doesn't seem to be much like regular programming. It uses something called reverse polish notation (whatever that is) that works like

cond

2 1 >

start

DoSomething

stop

 

which means "if 2 is greater than 1" in normal programming it'd be if (2 > 1)

 

so it seems to be simple and confusing at the same time. simple because it's only a few little words and confusing because it's not the common way to do things.

 

A quick look at their webpage and forum shows a somewhat incomplete and disorganized wiki page with some dead links (not a good impression) and a forum with less than 300 members. Doesn't seem like a very popular sim if the forum is so small unless it's a new forum. The function/variable reference seems to be complete though which a definition of what all the weird words do.

 

I haven't given up on it yet, it still looks interesting and it seems to have a few dedicated fans so I'll have to ask around on the forum to see if there's any way to make the game run less slowly. It's been around since 2003 so I'll give it the benefit of the doubt that it's a pretty decent sim. It also got a 5/5 review on some scienceboard website so somebody likes it.

 

There's some info and a screen shot of it on http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

 

 

 

If you find this simulation isn't your thing, there's another older evolution simulation called DarwinPond which is much much simpler and is graphically more interesting as the creatures ("swimmers") have limbs and use these limbs to swim through the environment and can mutate into something new and become the dominant species. You don't have to do much but start the sim and let evolution unfold before your eyes (or while you sleep). It's interesting to watch or leave it on over night but you can't really do too much but watch and "Zap" things to make them randomly grow a new leg or something.. kind of weird! I guess they call it a virtual petri dish. You almost feel bad when you see a little "swimmer' be born with a mutated limb and it can hardly move well enough to find food.. lol

Edited July 20, 2009 by rob86 (see edit history)