The Idea of Evolution in Creatures
I still firmly believe that the Creatures series is the most realistic artificial life simulation out there, although I’m fully aware that I’m biased in its favor! No other game has really hit upon this genre so well, while allowing players to enjoy the game in countless ways. Yet the one aspect that is missing is the idea of evolution. Genetics and genetic mutations play a central role in Creatures, yet differences between generations are merely based upon chance. Indeed, mutations which make sense are fully celebrated! Or maybe I celebrate far too much… In any event, what would it take to have evolution occur in artificial life?
True evolution, at least in the sense I imagine, would take place in response to environmental factors. A population of Norns located in a region with a limited food supply might adapt to gain more nutrition from a single piece of food, or require less energy to survive. Alternatively, imagine a group of Grendels living near water where additional food sources existed. They might become amphibious over the generations, and perhaps even to the point where the water became their home! There are many, many different scenarios in Creatures where evolution could play a crucial role in shaping future generations.
Alas, this idea is beyond the scope of the current Creatures titles. I was excited when Spore was first announced, simply because the idea of evolution seemed so paramount. Could this game contain some elements that Creatures originally lacked? Sadly, I was sorely disappointed when I found out that a single generation could undergo massive changes. Evolution is a very subtle process, and should take many generations to achieve.
Fortunately, Creatures delivers a sort of pseudo-evolution. Take a look at populations of Norns, Grendels, and Ettins that have been around for multiple generations: Chances are, there are some unique aspects to them that first generation Creatures do not possess. Granted, some of us take the time to nudge along natural selection. Yet there is a great deal of unpredictability when it comes to mutations. And in the end, evolution itself is an unpredictable matter entirely! True evolution might someday be possible in an artificial life game, yet Creatures still sits on a level far above any other. In a way, perhaps we as players have evolved while enjoying Creatures.
Actually, evolution isn’t entirely unpredictable. It’s just that there are so many variables it’s incredibly difficult to predict. Experiements where scientists have taken fast breeding spcies (fruit flies, bacteria, etc) and put them into specific, controlled environments have evolved in largely predictable ways.
Certainly Norns can evolve, but they’re somewhat handicapped by the hardcoded aspects of the game. A Norn can never evolve into a different species for example. A Norn will always, no matter how many changes have been made, be able to breed with another Norn (excluding infertility obviously). This makes it impossible for them to branch out into different species.
(If someone could come up with a new gene that got around this…boy that would be cool. Hmmm…more ideas….)
The thing missing in Creatures isn’t so much the mutations aspect of evolution, it’s the natural selection part. There just aren’t any good natural selectors in any of the games. And anything that could be used as a selection process, the Norns tend to be too simple to work out how to avoid. They don’t seem to have any understanding of “I’m out of air, get out of the water”, for example. They can be taught to run away from savage Grendels, but they don’t tend to run very far, or they end up wall bonking in an attempt to get away, rather than jumping in a lift. Their brains only allow them to think in terms of “If A, then B”, rather than, “If A, then B, then C”. I’m not even sure they can think in terms of “If A, then B or C”.
The other two major problems with evolution in Creatures is the amount of time to have meaningful mutations, and the way in which genes can mutate. In reality no animal is ever going to evolve the ability to turn air into glucose for example. Even if it were possible, there’s no way it would happen within a generation.
So yes, unfortunately true evolution is quite limited in the Creatures series, although it’s still not bad pseudo-evolution.
The new critters Steve Grand is developing are going to be vastly superior in terms of intelligence. Hopefully that will mean we can introduce some real threats into the world to enhance the natural selection process, giving us something closer to true evolution.
Evolution, though, isn’t intelligent – the chance mutations *might* confer an advantage, or they *might* confer a disadvantage, or they *might* not do anything at all – the environment would provide the pressure that would theoretically select for favourable traits over time. Superbreeding or getting stuck in a young age stage is a good example of mutations that confer an advantage on the individual creature, as they allow more children, or extend one’s life indefinitely.
There are very real limits to how much evolution you can see in Creatures, and Creatures as a whole is a model, a simulation based on technology that’s decades old now, but it does allow you to see the principles in action, and it got a lot of kids interested in the natural sciences. :) Here’s hoping Grandroids manages the same! :)
I love Creatures discussions! Especially because it seems like everyone has a qualified perspective with great explanations!
ArchDragon: You’re definitely right about the natural selection process being flawed in Creatures! There is a C2 cob for speciation, which breaks the population into sub-species that are only supposed to breed within their groups. I’ve never tried it out, but you can find it Here along with a few other interesting Creatures ideas. Simplicity and the way mutations happen certainly create limitations, but as you said, the pseudo-evolution we get to experience in our Norns, Grendels, and Ettins is by no means a disaster! Perhaps Grandroids (and even Creatures 4) will give us more dangerous worlds to aid with natural selection and evolution.
Malkin: That’s very true about evolution not being intelligent. Putting together your ideas with ArchDragon’s, it’s more like the natural selection process would be the bigger determinant of actual evolution, rather than genetic differences. Creatures definitely got me more interested in the natural sciences, and I believe that’s true for many! Although there are definite bounds to the Creatures model, it still is a vastly complex game. I agree with you about Grandroids: I hope it creates the same fascination with an even better model!
And now this makes me wonder if it would be possible to help natural selection along with COBs/agents that create dangers to try to test the strongest… More ideas, just like ArchDragon said!
Lol I read the title of this post and was like “Wut? isn’t there already evolution in creatures?” Cobs testing creatures would be pretty cruel wouldn’t it?
I imagine it as less cruel than practical: Some Creatures are able to pass along their genes, even if they have mutations that are undesirable. The agents/COBs I had in mind for helping along natural selection would be predators (not Grendels) and perhaps other environmental factors. I don’t know if it’s actually possible, though! Natural selection itself is a bit of a cruel process, although ideally its presence in Creatures wouldn’t lead to too many deaths. Perhaps most weak Creatures could even be exported, rather than be killed.
I’m probably one of the last people to promote natural selection, though… I absolutely have to jump in to care for my weaker C1 Norns! Ha ha! I just think it might be nice to have a little more realism when it comes to evolution and natural selection. As it is, Creatures is amazing on so many other levels!
The thing that will be frustrating about Grandroids, from a CC perspective, is that evolution won’t be the focus ( http://stevegrand.wordpress.com/2011/03/02/grandroids-faq/ ) – still, the more realistic organism simulation will be great, and may encourage the vets and doctors of the future. :)
The thing is developing a *fair* test, or at least a test that is *fair-ish*, and will let some survive to breed.
Thanks for the link Jessica. I’ve never seen that page before, or even heard of the COB. Took a quick read now and I’m already excited. Will take a full look at the website tomorrow and see if I can find some inspiration.
Malkin is quite right about both Grandroids and Creatures not being focused on evolution. It just takes too darn long for it to realistically be the ‘point’ of the game (although there are a few real world exceptions).
That said, natural selection and selective breeding can be a focus, so hopefully this will come into play at some point.
What you’re talking about wanting is Lamarckian evolution, which was discredited back in the 1800s. Real evolution is a lot more like Creatures – random mutations happen all the time, most are either harmful or have no effect, and a very small proportion happen to be beneficial. You’re not any more likely to get mutations making a child taller if their parents are struggling to reach high branches, because evolution isn’t intelligent. Instead, you get the height mutations either way, but the reproductive success of certain heights depends on the environment. The ones who are too short starve more readily, and therefore the next generation is made up of the offspring of the taller ones. But the incidence of the random mutations stays the same.
About the biggest criticism I have of creatures is that the game imposes limits on the creatures’ evolution that aren’t present in real life. For example, you can only get appearances for each appearance slot, and not randomly altered appearances such as a Bengal norn randomly having spots instead of stripes. Plus, it also fails to impose limits that exist in real life, such as the rules that you can’t get energy out of nowhere and that everything breaks down sometime. (There are no real life immortal creatures, and all real life creatures must eat in some way or another, both things which are not true of some norns.)
From what I understand, Grandroids will be a lot closer to reality in that way. (Steve Grand has already managed to get a realistic-looking tonic-clonic seizure by flooding the motor system with random input, which suggests that gait mutations will be more realistic as well.) But in some sense artificial life can *never* be exactly like real life, because the medium is so different.
But anyway, the changes you suggest would make it *less* realistic, not more. Evolution is not intelligent, that’s why it takes billions of years. It does go faster the more quickly generations pass, but for you to have any meaningful interaction with norns, their generations have to be slow enough that evolution is hard to see. (My generation 30 wolfling run norns are substantially different from the starting Chichis they descended from, but at 5 or 10 generations there were only one or two noticeable mutations.) An added problem is that very small populations don’t evolve well – it’s too easy for random chance to get a mutation to be extremely common, even when it bestows no advantage or is actually harmful. Even in C3/DS where you can adjust population limits, pretty much the only way to get a large population is by a global wolfling run type setup (unless you have a truly incredible computer). If you want to actually get to know all the norns, you’re pretty much guaranteed a small population. (Norns handle small populations better because they’re haploid, but recessive genes aren’t the only problem with inbreeding; a far worse problem is the lack of diversity.)
Malkin: Grandroids still seems like it will be leaps and bounds above any other life simulation. Steve’s explanation of evolution was perfect, and I have a feeling this won’t be a deal breaker! Seems like realism will be achieved in many other ways, not to mention how ground breaking the whole concept is.
ArchDragon: Your comments have helped me realize that it’s more of a lack of natural selection than evolution I was initially concerned about. In a way, there’s almost the challenge of getting into the higher generations without having too many bad mutations! Hopefully you enjoy the speciation COB! I keep meaning to try it out, and since I’ve been wanting to start up C2 again, this might be my opportunity!
Ettina: As I’ve mentioned in my previous comments, it’s really the natural selection process that I meant to talk about… Evolution just came to mind at first! You’re very right about mutations being random, and then becoming more prominent only in those who can withstand the environmental factors.
You’re right about the limitations on evolution that aren’t very realistic. There are some ways around this, like not allowing certain genes to be mutated, but other mutations that would realistically be possible aren’t. That’s not to say that I want to complain about Creatures, though! I like these types of discussions, because they sometimes stir up some ideas for ways that the current model can be improved (not necessarily perfected).
I now see that my original ideas are flawed, mainly because they co-mingle evolution and natural selection. Your explanation pretty much touches on every possible aspect of the subject, with lots of great information! I still enjoy the one-on-one time that Creatures offers: I vastly prefer this to sitting back and watching generations zip by in an effort to allow evolution and natural selection to occur. Seems like there are a couple of ideas that could help find a medium between the two extremes! Thanks for your explanations!
Actually Jessica you’re not quite as confused as you might think you are! The theory of evolution encapsulates pretty much all of what we’ve talked about here. Evolution includes both random mutations AND natural selection. And about 10,000 other things, like speciation, ring species, genetic drift, etc. etc. etc.
Grandroids will be a massive step forward, but I’ve no doubt it’ll be a long time before we can squeeze everything necessary for accurate evolution into a game.
Oh, and on a random note, mostly directed at Ettina. There are actually examples of ‘immortal’ creatures that have evolved. I can’t remember the species, but there is a sea creature that can revert back to a child state before re-aging to adult again. In theory it can repeat this process indefinitely. Nothing like a Norn who starts making glucose out of nothing, but still quite amazing.