An open source HTML5 game that aims to teach basic concepts in evolution
Gameplay video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npkGzhTnWNw
The game is really at its earliest stage, with just the basic mechanics working but you can get a sneak preview here: Pre-alpha
Evolb was designed and developed by Opher Vishnia and Adi Klagesbrun.
Evolution is a scary concept for those who don't know it very well. This is due to a plethora of reasons. Some of them being:
- Concepts in evolution may contradict cultural predispositions
- A complicated process, with many intricate parts
- Hard to grasp because of the long time scale (the famous "no witnesses" argument)
- Unlike dogma, science is based on doubt, discovery and readjustment. For some it's difficult to "believe" in something that's not absolute and prone to change.
Evolb doesn't attempt to teach everything related to evolution theory. Instead we try to incorporate these four pillars of evolution theory into its gameplay:
Variation: All life forms vary genetically within a population.
Inheritance: Genetic traits are inherited from parents and are passed on to offspring.
Selection: Organisms with traits that are favorable to their survival and reproduction are more likely to pass on their genes to the next generation.
Time: Evolutionary change can happen in a few generations, but major change, such as speciation, often takes many thousands of generations.
Our goal is for the player to exprience evolution firsthand by experiencing these topics. Understanding and internalizing them is a key requirment for success in the game.
Because we're big believers in sharing knowledge, especially so when it comes to sceince, the entire game and its assests are open source under GPLv2.
- A lot of the game mechanics up
- Traits: armor, offense spikes, cannibalism, heat endurance, cold endurance, poison endurance
- A playable concept level
- Beginning of a tutorial
- A level editor
- Many many many more fun traits!
- More levels!
- Better tutorial
- Performance imporvements
- Mobile version?
- Multiplayer support?
You're more then welcome to send us your ideas, suggestions, complaints, to submit your own code or to do whatever you want with it!