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Artificial Life app for iPhone and iPad


4.6 ( 3936 ratings )
Games Education Educational Simulation
Developer: Stormy Productions
0.99 USD
Current version: 2.6, last update: 7 years ago
First release : 26 Mar 2009
App size: 20.55 Mb

Watch life evolve in the palm of your hand! Oddly hypnotic and relaxing, Artificial Life is a simulation of the growth and evolution of microorganisms - basically artificial life forms. Initially, each organism is given a random set of rules governing its behavior. If the rules end up being useful for survival, the organism may live long enough to mate with another organism and pass its genetic code on to some offspring.

Over time, the organisms with the most useful behaviors will pass on their genetic code, leading to interesting patterns of behavior unfolding before your eyes - flocking behaviors, solitary predatory tactics, scavenging, and hiding are some examples - and all this behavior is evolving from total randomness.

Two modes of play!

* Sandbox Simulation

* Survival.

In Sandbox Mode, you can adjust environmental factors as well as the chromosomes defining the behavior of individual protozoa. There is no overall goal in Sandbox mode, other than to enjoy watching life evolve over time.

In Survival mode, you get to test your own custom protozoa against a random population. See if you can do better than natural selection. The goal is to have your protozoa survive as long as possible. The simulation ends when your custom protozoa dies.

Controls:

* Double-tap the screen to select an individual protozoa.

* Pan and zoom using using touch and pinch gestures to explore this virtual world.

And, if you dont like how some of the organisms are behaving, you can always resort to the finger of death and destroy that which displeases you.

Queue up some music and then launch this app for some relaxing times in the microscopic world of Artificial Life.

You can read more about the app and view a video demonstration at:
www.stormyprods.com/alife

Thank you all for the feedback! It is appreciated. As time and practicality permits, more suggestions will be incorporated into newer updates. Youve all suggested lots of great ideas!

** The Science Behind the Simulation **
This app was inspired by the computer science technique known as Genetic Algorithms. The idea behind genetic algorithms is to apply evolutionary techniques such as inheritance, mutation, and selection to computing problems. I thought, why not go full circle and apply these techniques to a basic biology simulation? This app reflects one such attempt. I hope you enjoy it!

Pros and cons of Artificial Life app for iPhone and iPad

Artificial Life app good for

What would you expect, if you buy yourself an App which is called Artificial Life? Of course a life sim... And you get one for only 0,79€  Of course this is NOT a game, but I can spend hours and hours watching virtual life evolve before my very eyes! I expect some critic voices around here, soon  But I simply love this App  Thank you very, very much for it 
Its like Darwin Bots but simpler. I really like it. Maybe it is possible to implement and/ or commands to give the game more complexity.
Absolutely amazing app. Its fascinating to see natural selection in action. Keep up great work!
There seems to be a glitch after you change all the protazoids chromosomes and start to run the game the protazoid you just worked on disapears. any one else notice that?
However, sometimes the Protozoa disappears, not by being eaten and other times, the camera flies to oblivion and you cant go back. One other problem is that, the map is beyond the iPod screen, if you could make a petri dish mode where theres a small dish with the protozoans in it and no sun.
I really enjoy watching thoses little life form! It a very good idea!! I would like to see a couple of features in the next version (if there will be any) 1. A little protozoid editor in which we can edit the size, style (e.g. way of moving, color) and behavior. Then the ability to spawn one or a group of protozoid into their world. 2. The ability to follow automaticaly the Moves on a single protozoid. Like a "click and follow" so we can follow the oldest protozoid or any clicked protozoid. And also maybe info about that selected protozoid (e.g. Health status, age) 3. Visuals/animation of the protozoid while its attacking another protozoid. (e.g. Blinking or vibrating protozoid) Its hard to see which one is attacking the other. Same thing with the reproduction. 4. Maybe change the black font with something like water... I dont know lol! Very good job on that one! I really like to have this on my iphone!!! Thanks!! ----------------------------------- Update 1.5 Thanks for the new features such As the editor! The only two things i would apreciate a lot would be: 1. An option to save a protozoid behavior profile in the editor... Its just not cool when you take 10 minutes to edit a protozoid when he get killed 2 seconds later! And also an option to spawn any number of protozoid of a given profiles. 2. When you lock a protozoid, i would like to see the camera folowing his move. Thanks for your great work! -------------- Update 2.0.1 Very nice update! You gave me all i asked! Im a happy customer!

Some bad moments

Seems buggy. My guy keeps getting killed by the sun when hes nowhere near the sun.
It was mildly interesting for the first five minutes. Now its boring and deleted. I could have given 99c to charity.
I wish I would not have spent 99cents on this game. I love evolution and have enjoyed past "life" type games but this one doesnt make a lot of sense. The variables lack and the Protozoa do not show any noticeable change when changing variables. I do not recommend this game.
While many of upgrades to statistics are great, the overall gameplay has suffered. Protozoa behave oddly, an often contrary to how they are programmed. For example, stated action is something like "go to nearest relative" yet the Protozoa hugs the wall when a relative is only a short distance away. I am also not a fan of the 50% life cost for mating. It was fine how it was in my opinion. What used to be my favorite game is now virtually unplayable. Would love to change this rating... Please fix!
Great potential but half the time in survival my chromosome just sits there literally not doing anything
No matter what I change my chromosomes to, they always avoid nearest organism, and then die.