Quirkies Evolution vs Evolution

This game teaches how evolution works: quirkies evolve through natural selection, reproduction, recombination and mutation of genes. The basics: by selecting mates who get to reproduce, you and other players simulate the environment in which the best quirkies survive. You can choose a trait that you would like the population to have (do this on the settings screen). As you play the game, try to select quirkies with that trait. In each generation, the offspring inherit the genes from the parents. The trait that you picked will become common throughout the population. Your fitness score at the top of the main screen will improve, and you win the game with high enough fitness over generations. But quirkies might also be rejected by mates, experience harmful mutations, and risk extinction. As you play, quirkies will entertain you with funny comments (even with speech), quiz your understanding of evolution, and make suggestions from an amazing range of educational videos and podcasts. Earn badges through these activities! Your quirkies will evolve new traits such as colors, nose, mouth, limbs, hair, and more by regulatory gene adaptations. Explore it all through the family tree (showing how genes are inherited) and population view. You can also earn survival points with mini-games: help your offspring feed, fight challengers, and find their parents. And don't tell anyone, but if you get to the biolab, you can manipulate your quirkie's genes! Evolved a really cute quirkie? You can give it a name (it will also get a scientific species name), save it for later, and share it with your friends! (Parents, no worries --- your kid cannot post on social media without your permission.) You can get news updates, when one of your quirkies has new siblings or offspring. And then you can explore the families of your quirkies: their parents, siblings, mates, and offspring. Iris Menczer (4th grade) and her dad created this game for kids to have fun learning about evolution. Evolutionary biologists have helped make it more educational. Hope you enjoy both the fun and the learning!

Use joints, bones and muscles to build creatures that are only limited by your imagination. Watch how the combination of neural networks and an evolutionary algorithm can enable your creatures to learn and improve at their given tasks all on their own. The tasks include running, jumping, climbing and flying. Can you design the ultimate creature that is good at all of the tasks? The latest update allows you to easily share your simulation saves and creature designs with your friends. Note that this is more of a simulation than a game. There are no real objectives. But there is a lot to learn if you are interested in the basics of machine learning and neural networks. You can even look at the source code if you want. There is also a Mac & PC version available for download and a browser version for you to try out on the main project website (keiwando.com/evolution).