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ProtoCanopy
A rainforest that evolves its own animals
Every creature here is a Protobyte, a small animal built from 20 genes. They feed, mate and die on their own. Their young inherit a mix of their parents’ genes, with small mutations.
Nobody designs them. Each body part costs energy and pays off only where its food is: leaves for eating light in the sunny canopy, feather fans for catching spores in the misty middle, long legs and a rasping mouth for leaf litter on the floor, spade claws for grazing fungus in the soil, webs and sticky arms for catching insects.
So the population splits by height, from the soil to the open air. The founders started as one kind (sometimes two), arriving from outside the forest; each new world gets different founders. The species list shows who lives where now, and the gauge at the left edge shows how high or deep you're looking.
The layers feed each other. Leaves that rot on the floor feed fungus in the soil. The fungus feeds the trees and fruits as mushrooms after rain; gnats hatch from it, and midges rise from the creek at dusk. On sunny afternoons warm air rises over the gaps and carries spores and insects above the canopy. Rain washes the spores back down, soaks into the soil and raises the groundwater, and the trees drink it and breathe it back out as the mist.
A day lasts 4 minutes. At night they flash colored lights to find mates. Mates must match colors, which can split a species even on the same branch.
Try: tap a creature to inspect it · Bring rain · Fell a tree · 64× to watch evolution fast · and listen: pairings, births and deaths are notes (each creature’s signal color is one, so partners sound as a chord), with insects, water, wind and rain (sound starts with your first tap; turn it off at top right)