There's something I would love to implement, but a clear approach to doing it hasn't occurred to me yet. I want the fluidiom bodies to operate on the basis of reflexes, instead of on a global cycle like it works now.

Right now there's a "cycle" global to the body, which is like a clock with one arm, twirling around at a particular speed. Each muscle can see this clock, and has a given point on the clock where it is at its longest, and at the opposite clock position it is at its shortest. The muscles don't know about each other, and each muscle has its own high point and low point, so they resemble cams.

This whole thing works quite nicely, as people watching running fluidiom creatures can testify. There are limitations, but the selection mechanism works to coordinate the cams (effectively twisting a couple of individual cams during a mutation) and the results are cool. I suspect that the simplicity of this approach has made it easier for me to get things going, so I don't regret it at all.

Of course the whole thing is still a bit too machine-like. Much better would be to have some kind of sensory-motor system, where there are sensors which trigger muscle contractions.

I imagine a body twitching a little bit when picked up, but the moment that you put it down on the floor, a kind of oscillation takes place where sensors trigger muscles which trigger sensors, resulting in some kind of running movement similar to the way it looks now. A reflex-based body might even be able to react well to changing terrain!

If anybody has some good ideas about how to accomplish this, get into contact with me. geralddejong at gmail dot com.