Thoughts about other a-life progs.

[Testlund]

I've been thinking about some other a-life programs out there that needs a lot of improvements. It seems to me that this a-life business goes damn slow and I get frustrated that it's so difficult to find any good ones. Has anybody here heard about El-Fish? It was allmost impossible to get it but after many hours of searching on the web I managed to find this link:

http://www.antiqueclockshop.com/virtual/elfish.htm

It's an abandonware and you can download it for free if you want to check it out.

There are 3 things that makes this the best aquarium simulation software out there.

1. You can evolve fishes with different kinds of shapes and colors.

2. You can create unique plants for your aquarium.

3. You can create your own tank with lots of different stuff to put in.

But otherwise the fishes are just animations that swim around in the same way and they don't need to eat or sleep, and they can't reproduce. Also there is a compatibility issue with todays computers with fast processors, wich limits the amount of fishes you can put in the aquarium. For instance I could only put 1 big fish and only 4 small fishes in my aquarium. Sucks! So it gets boring after a little while. The only fun part was to try and make a fish look like some real species. I managed to create this one. It looks like a swedish species called Abborre, wich I guess you call Bass in USA. I'm not sure. (See screenshot)

Well... The reason why I write about this is just to see if any of you talented folks here whould be interested in making something like this or improve the programs that exists.

There are a couple of other similar programs I've checked out. One is at this link:

http://www.fearby.com/products/3dfishtank/evaluation.shtml

I voluntered as a playtester for this program and the maker said he whould send me a copy to test but I haven't heard anything from him since last year. It seems like a dead program. It wont even run on my computer.

Another one I've been looking at is something called Aquazone. It's difficult to get information about how much a-life-like this is. I was thinking about maybe purchasing it, but I don't trust that it does what I want it to do.

So... I was just wondering if any of you whould be interested in something like this? Maybe after you've completed Darwinbots.  

[Numsgil]

The pics nice

Personally I don't know much about fish or acquariums.  I used to fish for bluegill (sunfish) but that's about as far as my fishery knowledge goes.

[Testlund]

How about you make the program, Nums, and I give you info about the fishes. Hehe.  

[PurpleYouko]

I thought about doing that a few times but never really got around to it.

I remember a cute little game that I used to play in which you control a little fish that has to go around eating smaller fish but avoiding bigger ones. The more you ate the bigger you got and the more the shark would appear and come chasing you.

It was really fun in a simplistic kind of way.

[Testlund]

Yeah, I've played something like that too, called Feeding Frenzy. It's just a simple game though to play around with to kill some time.

It whould be awesome if you whould try and make some a-life aquarium program. It could be something to produce for the market. It's not like there is any competition to talk about out there.

[Numsgil]

Well what exactly do you find fun about acquariums?  Personally I find fish something of a chore and less of a thrill, but maybe I'm just not understanding the allure.

[Testlund]

Personally I'm interested in the biology and to create a biotope to care for, with the right water conditions and food, and to watch the fishes. It can be difficult before you get the right balance, but after that there isn't much work to do, just regular water changes every couple of weeks. An aquarium adds a lot to a room.

[Numsgil]

Have you ever played SimEarth?  Is that sort of simulation tinkering what you find interesting?

[Testlund]

Yeah, I've tried that. There are a few similar programs on the internet. One is called AI Planet. I think that is the best one of them. It's freeware too.

[PurpleYouko]

I love aquariums.

I have always kept salt water reef fishes. Now that is a challenge.

[shvarz]

What about the game called "Creatures"?  There were original "Creatures" and then two sequels.  Here is info from wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creatures  

I tried the early version, but it was a hacked game from some web-site and I did not have a manual, so I could not figure out what the hell was going on, but from the description it looks like AL simulator.

[Numsgil]

Creatures is Neural Net ALife, which tends to be an entirely different beast from anything like Avida or Darwinbots.

[Welwordion]

Yeah and creatures was a hell lot time intensive, it was interestin as you could teach your "norns"(creatures)
stuff and see them teach each other etc but it was hard sometimes to make them do somehting necessary (like reproduction) and the evolution aspects was to slow for me as generations lived pretty long.

Have you tried: http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/Forum/3830/ it has a similar complexity like darwinbots but involves neural nets which was quite fun but pretty hard to managr.
Unfortunately I think they guy deserted they programm if you look at the dates of the last improvements.

In fact there ar really not many good alife games out there, well although I did nt try out much of the 3D stuff those framesticks creatures are hard for me to understand.(and my pc is to slow for it)
I tried to think out my own idea but its not that easy to thik of somethign that will cause emergence to arise.
See here of my newest idea --> http://kuro-tejina.shroom.net/Forums/phpBB...wtopic.php?t=86

I really would like an alife game where some kind of metabolism,chemistry arises something not predetermined. I thought this could be done with cellular automata but its a hell lt complicated to predict what kind of automata rules might be useful for that.

[Testlund]

Creatures could also be considered abandonware. I don't think you can buy it from anywhere, but there is a free version called Docking Station that you can download and the project seems to have been taken over by ordinary people doing a bunch of improvements for free. This is the official link:

http://www.gamewaredevelopment.co.uk/creatures_index.php

If you search around you can find links to stuff that people have made for the game. It's one of the best A-life programs out there.

[Numsgil]

I might cruise through e-den for interesting ideas we could "ahem" borrow