Sometimes during such a deep dive, the degree of deferment of gratification drives you nuts. In my mind's eye there has been something happening for months... but only in my mind. The critter bodies were evolving with their new genetically-grown trunk shape and tetrahelix limbs and the fittest movers were passing their genes on to future competitors. They were walking on the surface of the sphere, and maybe even swimming in the water.

Well after such a long time building and tuning the building blocks of the Darwin at Home game, today for the first time my eyes have actually seen it happen! Here's the first screen shot:

Above you see a critter, with its white "torso" grown by the branching symmetrical tetrahedron process, and its colorful tetrahelix limbs (stress is color). When the evolve key is pressed, the "Parallel Universe" evolution starts to happen slowly. Thirty mutants are pitted against each other to reach a goal, which is a direction I've given.

What you see here is the full rendering of all of the competitors after a number of generations, starting to distinguish themselves ever-so-slightly by hobbling slightly closer to their current goal. You have to keep in mind that these critters are all existing in the same space, but they do not experience each other in any way. Parallel universes.

To really get them hopping I have to turn off the visual so they can buzz at many times the speed, in "accelerated time". Wow, but it's nice to see this working, finally.

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