Mouse controls
Click and right-click anywhere on the simulation canvas to interact with the living world directly.
| Input | Action | Detail |
|---|
| Left-click | Drop food cluster | Spawns 8 food pellets within a ~30px radius at the cursor position |
| Right-click | Spawn organism group | Spawns 5 organisms of a random species near the cursor |
| Hover | Inspect organism | Displays a tooltip for the nearest organism showing species, stats, and genes |
Keyboard shortcuts
Keyboard shortcuts work whenever focus is not inside a text input, select, or textarea field.
| Key | Action |
|---|
Space | Pause / Resume simulation |
1 | Set speed to 0.5x |
2 | Set speed to 1.0x (default) |
3 | Set speed to 2.0x |
4 | Set speed to 5.0x |
S | Toggle ambient sound on/off |
L | Toggle AI Lab Partner panel open/closed |
The hint card (splash screen) that appears when you first load the simulation dismisses automatically on your first interaction — any click, right-click, key press, or button touch counts. It fades out over 1.2 seconds and is removed from the DOM after the transition.
Time display
A small pill at the top center of the screen shows elapsed simulation time in MM:SS format. This reflects simulated time, which runs faster than real time when speed is set above 1.0x and slower at 0.5x.
Hovering over any organism opens a fixed tooltip near the cursor. The tooltip updates every 3 frames and shows:
| Field | Description |
|---|
| Species name + index | Species color name (e.g. Red, Orange, Gold) and the organism’s internal array index |
| Size | Current rendered size, derived from energy as sqrt(energy) × 1.5 |
| Energy | Current energy level; organism dies when this reaches 0 |
| Age | Time alive in simulation seconds |
| Kills | Number of organisms this individual has eaten |
| Spd | Speed gene as a percentage (0–100%) |
| Agg | Aggression gene as a percentage (0–100%) |
| Eff | Efficiency gene as a percentage (0–100%) |
| Per | Perception gene as a percentage (0–100%) |
Left panel — simulation controls
The left panel contains five tabs. It can be collapsed by clicking the ✕ button in the panel header, and reopened with the hamburger toggle (☰) that appears in the top-left corner.
World tab
The default tab. Contains top-level world parameters and live population data.
- Pause / Play, Reset World, Sound On/Off, Record, Fullscreen — action buttons
- Scenario Presets — dropdown to select and apply one of six tuned presets (Stable Eden, Arms Race, Battle Royale, Superorganism, Food Chain Cycle, Extinction Event) plus a Custom entry
- Share Link / Export / Import — copy a shareable URL encoding current settings, download a
.primordial settings file, or load one
- Organisms slider — starting organism count (500–50,000; default 5,000)
- Food Pellets slider — starting food count (100–10,000; default 2,000)
- Food Spawn Rate slider — pellets spawned per second (1–80; default 15/s)
- Simulation Speed slider — continuous speed multiplier (0.1–5.0; default 1.00)
- Population Over Time — a 200-sample rolling graph showing per-species population history, color-coded by species
- Species Census — colored dot chips showing live organism counts per species
Species tab
Controls organism biology and lifecycle parameters.
- Number of Species — how many distinct species exist (2–12; default 5)
- Starting Size — initial size of newly spawned organisms (1.0–8.0; default 3.0)
- Max Size — maximum organism size cap (8–40; default 18)
- Organism Speed — base movement speed multiplier (0.3–4.0; default 1.2)
- Lifespan — maximum age before organisms die of old age (10–120s; default 30s)
- Reproduce at Size — size threshold that triggers reproduction (5–30; default 12)
- Offspring Count — number of offspring per reproduction event (1–5; default 2)
- Food Oases — number of concentrated food zones on the map (0–8; default 4); oases bias 60% of food spawns toward these regions
Rules tab
Governs predation logic and the five behavioral drives.
Predation
- Same Species Protected — checkbox; when enabled, organisms cannot eat members of their own species (default: on)
- Food Chain (Rock-Paper-Scissors) — checkbox; each species only hunts the next species in sequence, wrapping around, producing circular predation and Lotka-Volterra oscillations (default: off)
- Size Advantage to Eat — how much larger a predator must be relative to prey to eat it (1.05–2.0x; default 1.3x)
- Energy from Eating — fraction of prey size gained as energy on a kill (0.1–1.0; default 0.50)
Behavior drive sliders
| Slider | Range | Default | Effect |
|---|
| Hunt Drive | 0–3 | 0.8 | Intensity of attraction toward edible prey |
| Flee Drive | 0–4 | 1.5 | Intensity of repulsion from larger predators |
| Flock Cohesion | 0–2 | 0.4 | Pull toward same-species center of mass |
| Food Attraction | 0–3 | 1.2 | Pull toward nearest food pellet |
| Separation Force | 0–2 | 0.6 | Push away from overlapping neighbors |
Evolve tab
Controls the genetic mutation system.
- Enable Mutation — master toggle for all genetic drift (default: on)
- Mutation Rate — probability per gene per reproduction event that a mutation occurs (0–0.5; default 0.15)
- Mutation Strength — magnitude of each mutation as a random offset (0.01–0.5; default 0.20)
Traits that evolve — individual toggles for each heritable gene:
| Toggle | Gene | Effect when evolved |
|---|
| Speed Gene | Movement multiplier | Lineages diverge toward fast or slow movers |
| Aggression Gene | Hunt drive intensity | Predatory vs. passive behavioral splits |
| Efficiency Gene | Metabolic cost reduction | Survival advantage under food scarcity |
| Perception Gene | Sight range for food and threats | Wide-ranging foragers vs. short-sighted organisms |
Visual tab
Renders and visual effects toggles.
- Additive Glow — enable WebGL additive blending for a glowing bloom effect on organisms (default: on)
- Death Particles — enable colored particle bursts when organisms are eaten or die of starvation (default: on)
- Show Food Oases — overlay semi-transparent teal circles indicating food oasis zones (default: on)
- Food Glow slider — intensity of the pulsing glow on food pellets (0.2–2.0; default 1.0)
- Trail Length slider — persistence of the previous frame, creating motion trails (0 = off; up to 0.95 for long trails; displayed as Off / Short / Medium / Long)
Stats bar
A fixed row at the bottom of the left panel shows four live metrics updated every frame:
| Chip | Value |
|---|
| FPS | Rendered frames per second |
| Alive | Current number of living organisms |
| Food | Current number of active food pellets |
| Gen | Total reproduction events since world reset (generation counter) |
Right panel — AI Lab Partner
Press L or click the star icon (⚛) in the top-right corner to open the AI Lab Partner panel. Close it with the ✕ button or by pressing L again.
AI provider settings
A collapsible section at the top of the panel. Click the AI Provider Settings header to expand or collapse it.
| Field | Description |
|---|
| Provider | Select OpenAI (GPT), Anthropic (Claude), xAI (Grok), or Custom/Local |
| API Key | Your provider API key — stored in localStorage only, never sent anywhere except your chosen provider |
| Model | Model name to use (e.g. gpt-4o, claude-sonnet-4-20250514, grok-3-mini) |
| Endpoint URL | Shown only for Custom/Local — accepts any OpenAI-compatible URL (LM Studio, Ollama, vLLM, etc.) |
Chat
A scrollable conversation history where the AI Lab Partner responds as a research scientist. Every message includes a live snapshot of the full simulation state as context — species populations, gene averages, food supply, extinction events, top predator stats, and current parameter settings.
Type a question in the input field and press Enter or click Send. The AI maintains the last 10 messages of conversation history for continuity.
Quick actions
Five one-click buttons above the input field:
| Button | What the AI does |
|---|
| Analyze Now | Reports which species are thriving or struggling, current evolutionary trends, and predictions |
| Design Experiment | Proposes a hypothesis with specific slider changes and a duration, then auto-executes the experiment |
| Compare Species | Ranks all species by fitness based on population trends and gene profiles |
| Predict Outcomes | Forecasts population dynamics, gene drift, and potential extinctions over the next ~60 seconds |
| Full Report | Writes a structured research report covering population dynamics, evolution, resource distribution, and predator-prey relationships |
Experiment status
When the AI designs and runs an experiment, a pulsing indicator appears between the chat and the quick-action buttons showing Running experiment… with a countdown in simulation seconds. The system automatically captures a before-snapshot at experiment start and an after-snapshot at completion, then sends both to the AI to generate a structured lab report.