Sim Life Docs CONTENTS Introduction ............................................................ 1 What Is SimLife? ..................................................... 2 What Is Artificial Life? ............................................. 6 Getting Started ......................................................... 9 Installation ........................................................ 10 Starting The Program ................................................ 10 Tutorial ............................................................... 11 Before You Begin .................................................... 12 Take A Tour Of Your Computerized Ecosystem .......................... 23 Building An Experiment: Splatt ..................................... 53 Reference .............................................................. 79 Introduction/The Basics ............................................. 80 Menus ............................................................... 84 File Menu ........................................................ 84 Edit Menu ........................................................ 85 Simulation Menu .................................................. 85 Windows Menu ..................................................... 94 Disasters Menu ................................................... 96 Windows ............................................................. 98 Dashboard ........................................................ 98 New Game Window ................................................. 103 Edit Window ..................................................... 104 Map Window ...................................................... 117 Populate Window ................................................. 123 World Design Window ............................................. 125 Biology Lab ..................................................... 128 Climate Lab ..................................................... 151 Graphs Window ................................................... 152 Mortality Window .................:::::...........:::::.......... 156 Gene Pool Window .................:::...::::::::....:::.......... 158 Food Web Window ..................:::...:::...:::...:::.......... 165 Population Interactive Window ....:::...:::...:::...:::.......... 168 Population Window ................:::...:::::::.....:::.......... 170 Diversity Window .................:::...:::...:::...:::.......... 171 History Window ...................:::...:::...:::...:::.......... 174 Laws of Physics Window ...........:::...:::...:::...:::.......... 175 Variables Window .................:::::...........:::::.......... 182 Phenotype Window ................................................ 184 Speciate Window ................................................. 185 Evaluation Window ............................................... 187 Locate an Individual Window ..................................... 188 Run Control Window .............................................. 189 Sample Experiments ................................................. 190 Miscellaneous Sim Stuff ............................................ 194 Glossary .............................................................. 198 Bibliography .......................................................... 200 Index ................................................................. 202 Machine Specific Addendum & Quickstart Guide & Keyboard Chart ......... 204 [PAGE: 1] INTRODUCTION "Life! Don't talk to me about life." - Marvin The Paranoid Android from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams [PAGE: 2] INTRODUCTION SimLife is an Artificial Life Laboratory/Playground designed to simulate environments, biology, evolution, ecosystems, and life. WHAT IS SIMLIFE? SimLife is a game, a toy and an experimental tool to learn about life, real and artificial. As a game, SimLife challenges you to successfully solve the problems presented to you in each of six different scenarios. As an experimental tool, SimLife gives you the power to: * create and modify worlds; * create and modify plants and animals at the genetic level; * design environments and ecosystems; * simulate and control evolution; and even * change the physics of the universe. A major feature and purpose of SimLife is that it is an exploration of the emerging computer field of Artificial Life. YOUR REASONS TO (SIM)LIVE The goals in playing SimLife are many, and, as with most Maxis products, are entirely up to you. If you approach SimLife as a game, then your goals can be to win each of the scenarios. If you approach SimLife as a "laboratory in a computer," your goals are as limitless as your imagination. If you approach SimLife as a toy, you don't need goals; you can just play with plants, animals and ecosystems. If you are interested in monitoring your personal progress or understanding of the ecological systems in SimLife, you can keep an eye on the Ecology Score in the Graphs Window. It displays an ongoing score of the ecological soundness of your ecosystem, which you can view as a rating of how well you are doing as master of life on your world. There is also an evaluation window that graphically shows how complex your ecosystem is, as well as assigning a score to your performance. [PAGE: 3] THE ULTIMATE GOAL? Perhaps the greatest challenge of playing SimLife is to start from scratch and design and build a world with a sustainable ecosystem. It's not an easy task, and once tou do it you may realize just how fragile an ecosystem can be: how a small change in the environment or the extinction of a single species can cause a wave of destruction that destroys life up and down the food chain. What can be considered the ultimate goal of SimLife is to look beyond the game, to understand that the real world with its millions of species with their combined billions of genes are all interrelated and carefully balance in the food chain and the web of life, and that this balance can be upset. Once we realize this, maybe we'll treat our planet, our environment and life itself with the respect they deserve and need. OK. Enough heaviosity. Go play. LEVELS OF PLAY SimLife was designed to be played at different levels: * On the simple game level of trying to solve the scenarios; * On a simple experimental/play level of building your own worlds, animals, and ecosystems; and * On a complex experimental level where you control (or meddle with) the laws of physics and manipulate plants and animals at the genetic level. You can do these things in any of five difficulty levels, from beginner to expert. [PAGE: 4] SOFTWARE TOYS AND SYSTEM SIMULATIONS SimLife isn't exactly a game - it's what we call a Software Toy. Toys, by definition, are more flexible and open-ended than games. As an example, compare a game, tennis, with a toy, a ball. In every tennis game, there is one way to begin, one goal to pursue and one way to end. There are infinite variations in the middle, but they all start the same way, chase the same goal and end the same way. A ball is more flexible - there are more things you can do with it. With the ball, you can play tennis. You can play catch. You can throw it at someone. You can bounce it. You can make up a hundred different games using the ball. Besides games, there are other things you can do with a ball. You can paint it, use it to plug a leaky roof, or just contemplate its roundness. In SimLife, the "toy" is a biology laboratory in a computer. When you play with SimLife, or any of our other Software Toys(R), don't limit yourself to trying to "win." Play with it. Experiment. Try new things. Just have fun. There are many types of toys. SimLife, like SimCity(R), SimEarth(R), and SimAnt(R) before it, is a SYSTEM SIMULATION toy. In a system simulation, we provide you with a set of RULES and TOOLS that describe, create and control a system. In the case of SimLife, the system is an ecosystem. Part of the challenge of playing with a system simulation toy is to figure out how the system works and take control of it. As master of the system, you are free to use the Tools to create and control an unlimited number of systems (in this case, ecosystems) within the framework provided by the Rules. In SimLife, the Rules to learn are based on biology and behavior, including: Environment: All life is affected by its external environmental conditions, including the landscape, the climate, physical disasters and most importantly, other life-forms. [PAGE: 5] Genetics: Living beings are defined by the genes they carry and pass on to their offspring. Evolution: Life changes in response to its environtment; species adapt to their surroundings and evolve into new species. Behavior: To survive individually and as a species, life-forms must find food and water, defend themselves from predators and reproduce. The Food Chain: For an ecosystem to be stable, the food chain must be a complete circle; herbivores eat plants, carnivores eat herbivores, plants consume animal waste and rotted carcasses. The sun provides the energy to keep the cycle going. Ecosystems: In addition to the cycling of material in the food chain, a stable ecosystem has to efficiently cycle oxygen, carbon dioxide, water and other important gasses and minerals between life, the atmosphere and the land. The Tools provide you with the ability to design and build worlds and ecosystems: * Create landforms with lakes, mountains, rivers and impassable barriers. * Modify the climate: set temperature ranges, humidity, seasonal changes, and day-length variations with the Weather Lab. * Mix and match pre-defined plants and animals, modify them at the genetic level, or create your own life-forms in the Biology Lab. * Use mutagens to cause mutations and speed up evolution. * Change the laws of physics: set the lengths of days and years, change the energy it takes to walk, swim, or fly. * Track your data with graphs and charts that display population and genetic changes through time. [PAGE: 6] But the most important Tool of all is the simulator itself. Test your knowledge, plans, theories and ideas as you watch your creatures and ecosystems thrive or die. WHAT IS ARTIFICIAL LIFE? SimLife is an Artificial Life playshop/toolkit/workshop. Artificial Life (A-life) is an emerging new field in computer science that is giving us a whole new way to study biology, evolution and life itself. Our Software Toys make use of A-life technology to simulate living systems that change and grow depending on the choices you make. The idea behind A-life is to produce lifelike behavior on a computer (or other artificial media), where it can be studied in ways real living things cannot. A-life creates a laboratory in a computer, where the scientist can completely control all environmental factors - even time. One of the most important features of A-life is emergent behavior - when complex behavior emerges from the combination of many individuals following simple rules. Two examples of emergent behavior are ant colonies in the real world, and SimCity in the computer world. In fact, biologic "life as we know it" can be considered a form of emergent behavior. Another important aspect of A-life is evolution - artificial life-forms can react to their environment and grow, reproduce and evolve into more complex forms. The future of A-life holds much potential and promise. It may someday go beyond the experimental world into the practical realm of design. The tools and techniques being developed now will someday allow us to grow or evolve designs for complex systems ranging from software to airplanes to intelligence. In a sense, A-life has the same ultimate goal as Artificial Intelligence (AI), but uses opposite methods. AI uses a top-down approach to create a thinking [PAGE: 7] machine that emulates the human brain. A-life uses the bottomup approach - start with single cells and grow/evolve life with intelligence. ABOUT SIMLIFE DOCUMENTATION There are five parts to the docs for SimLife: the manual, the machine- specific addendum, the lab book, the registration card and the President's letter/support info card. The manual (that which you now hold in your hands) was typed by Rygar and has: * An introduction chapter that gives you a little background on the game and a brief explanation of Artificial Life; * A Getting Started chapter to get you up and running; * A three-part Tutorial that gives you some background info, leads you through many of the windows and functions of the program and shows you how to set up, conduct and evaluate an experiment; * A Reference section that gives more background information, complete descriptions of every menu, window, button and function, sample experiments to try and miscellaneous information on the simulation; and * A Glossary, a Bibliography and an Index. The machine-specific addendum gives you any special info you'll need for your particular computer, including loading, saving, printing, special menu items, and keyboard shortcuts. It also has any last-minute features that were too recent to make it into the manual. If you have any questions that aren't answered in the manual, check your machine-specific addendum. The lab book goes along with the experiment in the tutorial to give you an example of one way to write up SimLife experiments. The lab book also has data sheets containing printed blanks of most of the windows that you can copy, draw in the data, and include in your own lab reports. [PAGE: 8] Sending in the registration card entitles you to free technical support, an extended warranty on SimLife and a while bunch of other things. Read it, fill it out and send it in. You'll be glad you did. The President's letter invites you to contact Maxis about any problems or suggestions you may have with or for SimLife. The support info (on the back of the President's letter) tells you how to contact us for customer service and technical support. VARIOUS SIMLIFE VERSIONS AND MANUAL GRAPHICS SimLife is (or soon will be) available on a number of different computer systems. We try to keep all the versions as close to each other as possible, while staying true to the individual interface differences of each machine. The graphics for this manual are taken primarily from the Color Macintosh version of SimLife because it was ready first. On any other computer, there will be some slight differences in the look of the program. All the same features and functions will be there, but some things (like buttons) may be moved around a little. If you screen doesn't exactly match the graphics in the manual, check in the machine-specific addendum for a complete explanation of how SimLife has been customized for your computer [PAGE: 9] GETTING STARTED "All life is an experiment." - Oliver Wendell Holmes [PAGE: 10] INSTALLATION * R Y G A R * On most computers, SimLife must be installed to a hard disk before it can be run. See your computer-specific addendum for installation instructions on your computer STARTING THE PROGRAM Once again, see your computer-specific addendum for starting instructions. ABOUT THE TUTORIALS There is an on-screen tutorial built into SimLife. Once you start the program, you will see the New Game Window. Click on the button that says Tutorial, then click on Make It So. You will be taken on a quick tour through the basic features of SimLife. In addition, there is a fairly extensive tutorial in this manual, written in three parts. The first part gives some background information on SimLife, and on life itself. You may want to skim through this section before going on. Most of you will just jump right in and start messing around with the game. Enjoy yourself - the information will be here when you want it. The second part is a tour of the major features, functions and windows. We won't be chasing any particular goal here, just playing around and getting familiar with many of the things you can do with SimLife. The third part of the tutorial is the complete design, setup and execution of an experiment. We'll define the goals of the experiment, decide what kind of world and what kind of life would be best to reach the goals, and carry it out. Included in the SimLife package is a "lab book" that summarizes the steps in the experiment, and leaves room for recording data and conclusions [SORRY LAB BOOK NOT INCLUDED - JUST EMPTY PAGES ANYWAYS - [R] [PAGE: 11] TUTORIAL "My boy, you are descended from a long line of determined, resourceful, microscopic tadpoles - champions every one." - Kilgore Trout from Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut [PAGE: 12] TUTORIAL This tutorial covers a lot of material fairly quickly. If you're not already somewhat familiar with SimLife, you'll probably want to run through the on-screen tutorial first. It can be started from the New Game Window. Or you may want to give the Before You Being section below a quick onceover, then do the on-screen tutorial. The graphics in this tutorial are from the color Macintosh version. The screens on your computer may vary a little. See your machine-specific addendum for more details. BEFORE YOU BEGIN Before playing SimLife, there are a few things you'll want to know. WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE? I hope you have many heads, because while playing SimLife you'll be wearing many hats. Depending on the scenario you play or the experiment you design, you can think of yourself as: * a planetary game warden trying to protect and improve various ecosystems; * a behavioral ecologist exploring the different ways plants and animals interact in their ecosystems; * an evolutionary biologist trying to prove theories; * Charles Darwin (only in his dreams); * a being with amazing powers who creates worlds, populates them with plants and animals, and balances ecosystems for fun; * an Artificial Life experimenter; and * a normal human trying to play and win a pretty complex computer game. [PAGE: 13] What you are trying to do is: * win each of the scenarios; * stick your finger into an ecosystem, muck it up a bit and see what happens; * simulate current ecological situations (and disasters) and try to recover before it's too late; * build your own ecosystem from scratch; * design and carry out any number of experiments that deal with plants, animals, genetics, evolution and ecosystems; * casually observe the interactions between plants, animals and the environment over a long period of time; and * have fun. OF MICE AND KEYBOARDS SimLife is much easier and more fun to play if you have a mouse. This tutorial and the manual in general assume you have one. If you don't have a mouse, check in the computer-specific addendum for instructions on using menus and controlling windows, and for keyboard equivalents to terms like "clicking" and "dragging." SIMPLICITY AND RICHNESS SimLife deals with life and ecosystems in a very simplified way. Simplification serves a few purposes. If it were even 1/10th as complex as the world we live in, it would have taken us 100 years to make the program, it would cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars, and you'd need a computer the size of Baltimore to play it. Because it is simple, time can be sped up and experiments that would take hundreds of years in real time can be performed in hours or minutes. Because it is simple, many external influences can be removed for experimental controls that cannot be removed in "real world" experiments. [PAGE: 14] SimLife, even while extremely simple compared to life as we live it, is a fairly deep game/simulation/toy. It has many interrelated features and functions that make it quite powerful and take a bit of htinking to master. One of the most powerful features in SimLife is the ability to limit or ignore many of the features. Depending on the game or experiment you may require a large, rich, complex world with climatic changes, mountains and valleys, and a convoluted web of plants and animals preying on each other, or just a small spot of ground with no mountains, no weather changes and only one type of life. Both the tutorial below and some of the scenarios will deal with some small, simple setups so you can play and explore right away without learning everything first, and gradually deal with more complex worlds and experiments. BUTTONS AND MORE BUTTONS This game has more buttons than all the bellies in Chine. It can be a little confusing at first, but follow the tutorial and you'll meet most of them one at a time. Then you can read the reference section of this manual (just kidding - I know nobody reads reference sections of manuals) to find out exactly what each and every button does. If all else fails and you can't decide which button to press, try eeny-meeny-miney-moe. IT'S ABOUT TIME Time in SimLife consists of Ticks, Days and Years. Each year is divided up into four seasons of equal length: summer, fall, winter and spring. A tick is one simulation cycle. The actual length of a tick in real seconds depends on your computer's speed, the size of the world and the number of organisms in the world. The number of ticks per day and days per year varies with the different scenarios and can be customized for different experiments. By adjusting ticks and days, you adjust the rate at which time passes. When a scenario or experiment deals with the behavior of one animal or one generation, then you will want time to go slowly so the animal has time to exhibit its behavior. When a scenario or experiment deals with the genetic drift over many generations, then you will want time to pass quickly. [PAGE: 15] OTHER STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW (SIMLIFE CONVENTIONS AND TERMINOLOGY) Here are a few things to keep in mind while working your way through the tutorial: MENUS To play SimLife, you'll have to understand how to use menus. Many computers these days have menuing systems built into their operating systems, including Macintosh, Amiga and Windows-based computers. In these cases we follow all the standard menu-use conventions for your computer/operating system. Check your machine-specific addendum for special menu details (if any) and for keyboard shortcuts for opening menus and selecting menu items. DOWN-ARROW (TRIANGLE) BUTTONS Whenever you see a button with a down-arrow, or traingle pointing down, it means you can click and hold on this button to open a pop-up menu of choices. Clicking quickly on any down-arrow button wil automatically reselect the last selection without opening the submenu. SELECTED SPECIES Within most windows, only one species will be "active" at a time. And when playing SimLife, you usually play with one species at a time, checking it out in one window, spreading it in another, and modifying it in yet another. [PAGE: 16] Reselecting the species each time you jump to another window would be a hassle, so in most windows, when you select a species, it becomes the default or Selected Species for most other windows. The Selected Species stays selected until you pick another one. LOCAL SPECIES Selecting a species in some windows does not make that species the "official" Selected Species. The lucky plant or animal you choose in these windows becomes the center of attention for the current window only - they are local stars. Since we need to call the something, these are called the Local Species. Choosing or changing the Local Species in these windows does not change the Selected Species or Local Species in any other windows. WHAT IS: Warning: the following definitions are very short and simplified to give you just enough of a background to get started with SimLife. This is not a complete discussion of these topics, and they are dealt with primarily as they are used in SimLife, which is not a totally accurate representation of the real world. (In spite of this warning, I know I'll get some tersely reprimanding letters from biologists and other scientists for my casual treatment of these issues. I'm doing my best. So it's not perfect. So shoot me. I'll be taking notes for the upcoming manual for SimMartyr.) LIFE Defining life is not easy. (As if you'd believe me if I told you.) You'll get a different answer from everyone you ask and every book you read. But basically, life is a gene's way of making copies of itself. Some definitions of life include the requirement that organisms be composed of one or more cells. Is this chauvinism? If cells can be considered "building blocks," can we stretch the definition of cell to include building blocks made of computer code as well as protoplasm? Is this a subject that is likely to keep philosophers and science fiction afficionados occupied for years to come? [PAGE: 17] For the purposes of playing with SimLife, we'll define life as anything that exhibits lifelike behavior, including: adaptive behavior, self-replication and the ability to extract order from the environment. That's what life is. For answer to why it is or what it means, you'll have to look somewhere other than in a computer game. SPECIES A species is a group of related organisms or populations capable of interbreeding. ENVIRONMENT The environment, as used in SimLife, is the total external influence upon an organism. This includes the influences of climate, landscape, other life-forms and your computer. In fact, everything but the organism's genetic code. ECOLOGY Today, when most people hear the word ecology, they think of all the things that are going wrong, like pollution, endangered species and declining rainforests. But ecology, in our world as well as in SimLife, is also the "good stuff." Ecology is the study of the interrelationships of organisms and their environment. All the interrelationships, both good and bad. ECOSYSTEM An ecosystem is the combination of the environment and the life in it functioning together as an ecological unit in nature (or in computer). In SimLife, we will often refer to the world as an ecosystem, and use the words "world" and "ecosystem" interchangeably, since the SimLife world is such a small place compared to the world we live in. It is, however, possible to have two or more ecosystems running simultaneously in a SimLife world. [PAGE: 18] PLANTS AND ANIMALS In SimLife, there are two basic types of life-forms: plants and animals, which roughly correspond to plants and animals in our world, but are, of course, much simplified. All life wants to survive, individually and as a species. In order for an animal to survive as an individual, it must find food and eat without being eaten. To survive as a species, many of the individuals must also live long enough to find a mate and reproduce. The process of an animal finding food while simultaneously avoiding becoming food is called foraging. Foraging includes defense from predators, and is 90% of animal behavior. Finding a mate (in SimLife, at least) is almost a byproduct of foraging. Animals follow their foraging patterns looking for food and water and get distracted and sidetracked by the presence of the opposite sex. Plants, as well as animals, have behavior. They aren't as active or as noisy as animals, but they have to absorb nourishment, reproduce and spread their seeds. Plants don't have to forage for food; they get their nutrients from the soil, the atmosphere and the sun. In SimLife, areas with deeper soil have more nutrients for plants. Unlike animals, plants can't move around, but their seeds can. As plants and animals die, they decompose and enrich the soil (increase the soil depth). [PAGE: 19] FOOD, FOOD CHAINS AND FOOD WEBS FOOD Food is anything that can be consumed by the life in SimLife. All the food that plants need is found in sunlight, air and soil. Food for animals is more varied and includes plants and plant products, other animals, filter food and Ultra-Food. PLANTS When animals eat plants, they don't necessarily eat all the plant, or enough of the plant to kill it. They can nibble the leaves and the plant can grow new ones. Animals can also eat seeds. fruit and nectar from plants. FILTER FOOD Filter food is the microscopic and near-microscopic plants and animals in the water, air and soil that are eaten by filter food-eating animals. For example, some whales live on plankton, tiny plants and animals that live near the surface of the ocean. Filter food is alive and needs nourishment, and often sunlight, so it concentrates at the surface of the water, and near shorelines both in and out of the water. OTHER ANIMALS Animals can be predators and can eat other animals - if they can catch them. ULTRA-FOOD The closest thing to Ultra-Food that occurs in our world is the supermarket, where you can walk in and get any and all of the food you need. In SimLife, this food source looks like a shopping cart. It supplies an unlimited amount of whatever food an animal needs to any animal that approaches it. Ultra-Food is a useful tool for helping new ecosystems get started and for miraculously saving the lives of starving animals. [PAGE: 20] FOOD CHAINS A food chain is an arrangement of plants and animals in an ecosystem structured according to who eats whom. Usually with the eater shown above the eatee. Plants and filter food are usually considered the bottom of the chain, with herbivores (animals that eat plants) in the middle and predatory carnivores (animals that eat other animals) at the top. FOOD WEBS A food web is the combination of all the interactive food chains in an ecosystem. GENETICS AND GENES Genetics is the study of genes, the carriers of the genetic code that defines what we are and sets the limits of what we can become. The genetic code of plants and animals in SimLife is much shorter and simpler than for organisms in our world. Whereas our genes are encoded and stored in a complex molecule called DNA, SimLife genes are encoded and stored in something like a database file. While fewer and simpler, genes in SimLife are very powerful. One gene in a SimLife organism has the equivalent effect on that organism as hundreds or thousands of our genes have on us. CHROMOSOMES Chromosomes are long chains of genes. There can be many (thousands to millions) genes in a single chromosome. Different life-forms on earth have different amounts of chromosomes: Humans have 46, the fruit fly has 8, an onion has 16, a dog has 78, a goldfish has 94, and a rygarius has about 451. In SimLife, each chromosome consists of a single gene. [PAGE: 21] GENOMES, PROTOTYPES, POPULATIONS AND GENE POOLS GENOMES In SimLife, a genome is the set of all the genes in an individual organism. The genome will be different for each species and may vary from individual to individual within a species. PROTOTYPE GENOME Every species in SimLife has a "prototype" genome. This is the original or master set of genes - the genetic starting point when a species is created. Through evolution, individuals will vary from the prototype genome. Over time, individuals may vary so much from the prototype that they would no longer be able to successfully mate with it, and by definition become another species. POPULATION A population is a group of organisms from a single species. GENE POOLS A species' gene pool is the total of all the genes in a population. It represents all the genetic possibilities currently being explored by that population. A gene pool isn't an actual physical gathering of the genes - you don't take all the genes out of their organisms and mix'em up in a big vat or pool. It's just a way to think of the information contained in a while mess of genes at once, while they are spread out in their various organisms. EVOLUTION What most people think of as evolution - adaption of plants and animals to changes in their environment, physical changes in plants and animals, survival of the fittest, and new species evolving from older ones - are not evolution, they are the results of evolution. [PAGE: 22] Evolution, simply put, is the constantly ongoing process of changes in the gene pool over time. Nothing more, nothing less. It is the combination of many minute genetic changes over a long period of time that produces the noticeable results mentioned above. The mechanisms that bring about changes in the gene pool are natural selection, genetic drift, gene flow, mutation and recombination. In SimLife, evolution can occur by all of these naturally occurring mechanisms, plus one more. In SimLife, you can directly look at an organism's genes and physically change them. SPECIATION Speciation is the process of one species evolving into another (or group of other) species. It usually occurs when populations of the same species become physically separated and are subject to different environmental pressures. Over a long period of time, the gene pools in the two populations drift apart and eventually the two populations cannot interbreed (even if physically brought back together), and they become two different species. In SimLife, species will automatically change into new species as they diverge from the prototype (if you have AutoSpeciate turned on). These new species will retain the same icon and name - with the addition of the subname Version 2 - until you change them. You can also manually speciate - pick an individual and change it into another species. [PAGE: 23] TAKE A TOUR OF YOUR COMPUTERIZED ECOSYSTEM Make sure the game is installed properly, then start it up. See your machine- specific addendum for instructions. This tutorial assumes that you have amouse and know how to click, double-click and click-and-drag. If you don't have a mouse and/or don't know how to do these things, see the manual that came with your computer, and the SimLife machine-specific addendum. DECISIONS, DECISIONS Once the game has started, you will immediately be faced with the New Game Window and a decision: picking a scenario to play. Tutorial Meadows to Forests Predator & Prey The Longest Chain? The Roaches' Revenge Battle of The Sexes E Pluribus Unum Experimental Mode Each of the six scenarios present a different gaming and learning challenge. You can also play SimLife in Experimental Mode and set up your own scenarios and experiments. In addition, this window can launch you into the on-screen tutorial. (If you haven't already been through it, now would be a fine time for it.) [PAGE: 24] Click on (and highlight) the names of each of the scenarios - without clicking on the Play Scenario button. Read the descriptions of each scenario as they appear in the big box in the upper-right corner of the window. After you've looked them all over, click on Experimental Mode, then click on Play Scenario. We'll take a quick tour of the various menus and windows in SimLife, then build our own scenario. AND ON THE MENU TONIGHT... Take a moment and look at the Menu Bar. It will be at or near the top of the screen. As usual, these menus group similar types of commands together for easy access: all the file-related commands are in the File Menu and so on. Click and hold on each of the menus and take a quick look at the commands. Slide the pointer (while still holding down the mouse button) down to the differnt menu items. Notice that some items bring up submenus. Look these over, too. Check your machine-specific addendum for special menu details for your computer and keyboard shortcuts for opening menus and selecting menu items. HOW DASHING! The Dashboard is your control center. The Dashboard will differ more from computer to computer than anything else in SimLife. Depending on your computer, it may appear as either a separate moveable window at the bottom of the screen, or as a control bar at the top of the screen. It may or may not have the game clock included, and it may have some other slight variations. In addition, in some versions (including DOS and Windows), the Map and Edit Window Control Panels appear at the top of the screen along with the Dashboard. [PAGE: 25] MACINTOSH DASHBOARD DOS AND WINDOWS DASHBOARD, WITH EDIT WINDOW CONTROL PANEL DOS AND WINDOWS DASHBOARD, WITH MAP WINDOW CONTROL PANEL (skipped - later in the manual you will see what all the icons do! -RYGAR) [PAGE: 26] NOW YOU SEE IT... The left side of the Dashboard has lots of buttons and pictures. These are for controlling which plants and animals are visible in the Edit and Map Windows. A row of icons displays the differnt life-forms in SimLife, and how they will look in the Edit Window Click on the "A" button to display animals, and the "P" button to display plants. There are more plants and animals available than can be seen at one time. Click the right and left arrows to scroll through all of them. There is a little rectangle below each icon. Depending on your monitor, the rectangle will be a color, a shade or a symbol. This rectangle shows what the organism will look like in the Map Window. (Since the Map Window covers such a big area, the life-forms look so small that they can't be shown as icons or pictures, so they show up as small colored dots on color monitors and little symbols on black and white monitors.) What if two of the animals you want to use are the same color or symbol? You won't be able to tell them apart in the Map Window! Or what if you just don't like the color we chose for your favorite electronic pet? Your aesthetic sensibilities might be offended! Never fear: you have the power to change the color/shade/pattern of any organism. Click and hold on any rectangle to reveal a submenu of all the available colors/shades/patterns. (This is a super-secret hidden feature, [PAGE: 27] so don't tell anybody about it. This information isn't in anyone else's manual, just yours. We think you're special.) Below each rectangle is an On/Off button. Clicking these buttons toggles the display of each organism on and off in the Edit and Map Windows. Turning a plan or animal off in the Dashboard does not kill it or change it or remove it from the game or disk. It only turns the organism invisible. At the moment, other than the buttons changing from saying "on" to "off" and back again, nothing will happen since we haven't placed any of these life-forms in the world yet. Why not see everything all the time? It can be confusing to have hundreds or thousands of animals running around on your screen. Sometimes it's easiest to remove all the clutter and just look at one plant or animal (or a couple of each) at a time. A STAR IS BORN The middle section of the Dashboard displays and lets you choose the "Selected Species," which is, at least for a while, the star of the show. Often while playing with SimLife, you'll be concentrating on one species at a time, jumping from one window to another gathering information. If you select a species in one window, it is automatically selected for most of the other windows. This way you don't have to reselect the same organism every time you switch windows. The Selected Species can be chosen in most windows. To select it in the Dashboard, read on. GETTING DOWN Some buttons in SimLife open pop-up menus when you click and hold on them. These buttons are marked by a small down-arrow. The Dashboard has two of them, one near the middle, and one near the right side. [PAGE: 28] Depending on your computer, click or click and hold on the down-arrow button near the center of the Dashboard. You now see a menu of all the plants and animals in SimLife. To select an item, click on your choice or slide the cursor to it and let go. The name of the new Selected Species will appear in the middle of the Dashboard, and its icon will be highlighted in the Display section to the left. WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY BUTTONS As you may have noticed, many of the windows in SimLife have a lot of buttons, including the Dashboard. To help you remember what all the buttons do, we give you yet another button. Click and hold on the Help button. As long as you hold down the mouse button, you'll see a display of what every button in the Dashboard does. Most windows in SimLife have these Help buttons, and they all work the same way. Use them any time you want a reminder of what does what. Near the Help button are a couple of words. These words indicate the currently active tool in the Edit Window. We'll come back to this later. These Five buttons from Left to right means: Show Edit Window Show Map Show Biology Lab Show Climate Lab Scroll Species Left Census Window | Scroll Species Right PopUp Menu | | The currently selected Species | | | | Icon for a Species | | | | | Species Selection|PopUp Menu | | | | | | _|___|_________|_________________________|________|_______________|_________ |_V__ V_________V ________________________V________|__ ____________V_________| | | | | [~~] | | | | | | | | | V_ | | | | | | | | <-|-> | | [ ] | | | | | | | | | |__|| | | | | | _____| |___|___|__|__[__]__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|Animal |__|__|__|__|__| | | | | |__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|Sunfish | ________ |> || | | A | P | ^ | | | | | | | | | | |Ve^sion 1| |__HELP__| |_____| |___|___| | ON|ON|ON|ON|ON|ON|ON|ON|ON|ON|ON|__|______| Populate Tool____^___| | ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | ~~^~~~~~~~~~~~~ | ^ ^ | | | | | | | | On/Off Switch for Species | | Pause | | | Display in Map and Edit | | | | | Windows | | | | Color Pop-Up Menu for | | | | Displaying Species in | | | | Map Window | | | | | Currently Selected Edit | See Plant Species | Window Tool See Animal Species Name of the Selected Species [PAGE: 29] HOLD ON A MINUTE The button on the far right of the Dashboard pauses the simulation. It works just like a pause button on a tape player. Click it to stop time. Click it again to start time. When you're done playing with it, leave the Pause off. YOU CAN GET THERE FROM HERE To the left of the Pause button are five window-opening buttons (from Left to Right) Open Edit Window, Open Map Window, Open Biology Lab, Open Climate Lab, Open Census Window Pop-up menu Notice that the Census Windows button has the down-arrow - that famous down- arrow that means a pop-up menu is hidden under it. Click and hold on the Census Windows button and look at the pop-up menu of all the Census Windows. Take a minute or two and click on each of these buttons, open all the windows, including all the Census Windows, take a quick look at them and then close them. Except for the Edit Window, they can all be closed by clicking in the close box in the upper-left corner of the window. As the windows appear, you'll notice a couple of things: * The Dashboard always stays on top of any other window - even active ones. * Only one Census Window can be displayed at once. [PAGE: 30] SEE THE WORLD Once you've had a chance to glimpse each of the windows, take a closer look at the Map Window. You can open or activate it either by clicking on the Map Window button on the Dashboard or by selecting Map in the Windows menu. This window shows you the entier world. If you screen is big enough, you can move the window around by clicking and dragging the title bar. You can close the Map Window by clicking in the Close Box in the upper-left corner. The main portion of this window is the map of your world. Somewhere in the map is a rectangle - the Edit Rectangle. It outlines the part of the map that is visible in the Edit Window (a closeup view of parts of the world that we'll be looking at soon). [PAGE: 31] CONTROL THE WORLD Note: as shown in this manual, the Map Window Control Panel is found at the bottom of the Map Window. On some computers, it will appear at the top of the screen, as part of the Dashboard. Don't worry, it's there somewhere. See your machine-specific addendum for details. At the bottom of the window is the Map Window Control Panel. It controls what information is seen in the map. In just about the middle of the Map Window Control Panel is a Help button. Click and hold on it to see an explanation of what all the other buttons do. The five buttons on the left toggle on and off displays of multi-level data. Each of these displays a range of information, like Altitude low to high. Only one of these can be on at a time. Just to the right of these buttons is a color key to help interpret the multi-level information. Go ahead and click on them. When you're done, leave the Altitude display on. To the right of the Help button are seven buttons that toggle on and off displays of single-level information. Any or all or none of these can be on at the same time. At this point, since the world is still very empty, the only button that will change anything in the display is the Water button. But go ahead and click on all of them if it makes you happy. At the far right of the Map Window Control Panel are two buttons that open two more windows, one to build worlds and one to populate them. [PAGE: 32] WORLD BUILDING 101 We will now design a world and build it. For this tutorial, any world will do, so go ahead and be rash in your upcoming decisions. Click on the Build World button in the Map Window Control Panel to open the World Design Window. The World Design Window has a number of sliders and buttons. Three of the sliders control the world's climate, controlling the average weather variation average temperature and average moisture. (In SimLife, moisture includes both humidity and precipitation.) Set these anywhere you want by clicking and sliding the arrows on each slider. Next, set the sliders for the amount of rivers and lakes you want and for the number of mountains you want. Over on the right are sliders that control how many artifacts will be spread around the world. In SimLife, artifacts are anything that can appear in the world that is not plant, animal, land, or water. The four artifacts are: * Toxins - poisons that negatively affect the health of organisms; * Mutagens - substances that increase the odds of mutation; [PAGE: 33] * Food Sources - this refers to Ultra-Food sources that supply any and all food that animals require; and * Barriers - barricades that SimLife organisms cannot cross. Set these four sliders anwhere you want. Next we'll pick a size for the world. There are four choices, each of which is best for different experiments. Keep in mind while choosing a world size that the larger the world, the longer it takes the computer to build it, and the slower the simulation will run. Choose the world size you want (I recommend small, but it's your world.) Now you get to name the new world. Highlight the words below New World Name: and type in whatever you want. Now, click on the Make It So button, and the world will be built, layer by layer, before your very eyes. If a dialog box or requester asks if you want to save the current world, click No. LIVE AND LET SIMLIVE Now we have a world. A barren, desolate, lonely world. Nothing to do, no one to talk to. Time to get a life - or better yet, a whole lot of it. Click on the Populate... button in the Map Window. The Populate Window lets us add plants and animals to the world singly or in large groups. [PAGE: 34] Click or click and hold on the down-arrow button in the Species box. A submenu of all the available plants and animals - just like the one in the Dashboard - appears. Slide the cursor until the llama is highlighted, then either click or release the mouse button. Now click on the up-arrow in the Number box until you reach 10 or 20. Click on the Add a Group button. Click on the On the Land Button Now click on Make It So. Ten (or however many you wanted) llamas are now alive and kicking in the new world. Now we have ten lonely llamas. THE LIFE OF THE PARTY Let's get this party moving and really put some life into it. Again, open the Populate Window by clicking on the Populate... button in the Map Window. Click and hold in the Species box, then slide the cursor to All Plants. Set the Number box to 25. Click on Add Scattered. Click on On the Land, then click Make It So. Twenty-five of each plant species will be scattered all over the world. Repeat the above process, but for Species, select All Animals. The world is now filled with life of all sorts. You can see the animals scurrying around in the Map Window, but let's take a closer look. Find the Edit Rectangle in the map. Drag it to a part of the world you want to explore, then double-click in it. [PAGE: 35] LOOK CLOSELY You are now in the Edit Window, ready for a close-up tour of the world. You can move the Edit Window around the screen by clicking and dragging the Title Bar. You can resize the window by clicking and draging the Resize Box in the lower-right corner. You cannot close the Edit Window. The main section of the window is the Display Area, where you can see varios plants, animals and artifacts, as well as land and water. [PAGE: 36] THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS. SO DOES THE LAND. Since the world is too large to show in the Edit Window all at once, you can scroll the window to show different parts of the map. Depending on your computer, there are a few ways to scroll. Check with your machine-specific addendum for more information on scrolling with your computer. There is a "joystick" for scrolling. Click or click and hold on any of the arrows to scroll the window in the arrow's direction. Note: On computers with small monitors the joystick will not be visible. Sorry In addition, if your Edit Window has Scroll Bars and Arrows, you can use them. If not, you can move the mouse to any edge or corner of the screen to scroll. However you do it, scroll around and look the world over. THE DISTINGUISHED PANEL Note: as shown in this manual, the Edit Window Control Panel is found on the left side of the Edit Window. On some computers, it will appear at the top of the screen, as part of the Dashboard. See your machine-specific addendum for details. Along the left-side of the Edit Window is the Edit Window Control Panel, filled with buttons and tools. Notice our old friend, the Help button. Click and hold on it to see a display of what everything does. At the top of the panel is the clock. It graphically shows the passing of day, night and the seasons. It also gives the Tick, Day and Year. Ticks are the smallest unit of time in SimLife. A tick is the time it takes an animal to move one step and do one thing. The actual time a tick takes depends on your computer's speed, the size of the world and the number of plants and animals currently living. ____ / \ / \ / \ Z~g> 6w8BJS1%_/hAޓ=]Qn|Kh6|!H]Eӓg|,_6 n9_G uס+LCgjxyڶWS^ X X`P s7̌Xq#.Pط:Oh U 3+vF\BK~+j2^'. 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R'AЅ!)RJT%)RT*RTjRX%JRV% ZTIZV%jZV!JZJbV%IZVZjZP%ZT%jZV!IR1Lt R%j5c9p8@8TDDCC3hׁ'TYwJy̔r/aHwۘK|f 93!3'.ep׳Nl y^j+Kudsm:d?V:BR5$I*=.LYMY(/"Iq!ǪloxH⮌:4*nQΓEUdlQg ELZwoEwJl P-ha$LMQ\(s_ 8Qa\CW/IoM概t"~8dp\PrsA @+7Y [ZJ:icRСh6TwX$kmՅ&&kHKwwYx%դЈ1ު:>|u{4ubeLs]_͉VVS+e2\cAxGER%*.<fkTJ  +%dVI*`SR=߭=4v`ton to randomly populate the world with plants and animals. Build World Button Build World... opens the World Desing Window so you can create a new world. A complete explanation of the World Design Window can be found below. [PAGE: 123] POPULATE WINDOW The Populate Window lets you add or delete plants and animals to or from the world in large numbers, as opposed to the Edit Window, where you can only add or remove one organism at a time. The Populate Window can be reached through the Populate button in the Map Window Control Panel, and through the Goodies submenu in the Simulation Menu. The basic process of populating the world is to first select a species (or group of species), and pick a number of organisms to be added or deleted. Next, choose whether to add the species (either as a group or scattered all over the world) or delete the species. Then decide whether the organisms should be put on the land or in the water or both. And last, instruct the computer to "Make It So." SELECTED SPECIES The Selected Species is the type of plant or animal you want to add or remove. It will default to the Selected Species in the Dashboard. To change the Selected Species, click and hold on the arrow button to open a submenu of all available plants and animals, then slide the cursor to the one you want. In addition to individual species, you can also select either All Plants or All Animals. When you change the Selected Species in the Populate Window, it will also change in the Dashboard. NUMBER This is the number of organisms to be added or deleted. If you have chosen All Plants or All Animals as the Selected Species, then this number of each species will be added. To adjust the number, click or click and hold on the up or down arrows, or highlight the number and type in a new one. [PAGE: 124] ADD A GROUP Click on this button if you want the Selected Species to be added to the world in a group. ADD SCATTERED Click on this button if you want the Selected Species to be spread all over the world when it is added. KILL OFF Click on this button if you want the Selected Species to be removed from the world. ON THE LAND Click on this button if you want the Selected Species to be placed on dry land when it is added to the world. IN THE WATER Click on this button if you want the Selected Species to be placed in the water when it is added to the world. ANYWHERE Click on this button if you want the Selected Species to be placed randomly on both land and water when it is added to the world. NEVER MIND Click on this button if you wish to leave the Populate Window without adding or deleting any organisms. MAKE IT SO Click on this button when you are happy with all the settings above. The Selected Species will be added or deleted and the Populate Window will close. HELP Click and hold on the Help button to see on-screen help for this window. [PAGE: 125] WORLD DESIGN WINDOW The World Design Window lets you create new worlds to suit your whims or the needs of your experiments. It can be reached through the Build World button in the Map Window Control Panel, and through the Goodies submenu in the Simulation Menu. The basic process of world design is to first choose settings for climate, rivers and mountains, the decide which and how many artifacts you want in the world then pick a size for the world, name it and "Make It So." Most of the settings involve slider controls. To adjust them, click and drag the arrows. There are four possible world sizes. When choosing world sizes, keep in mind the speed of your computer (larger worlds run slower), the amount of RAM you have (larger worlds take more memory), and the particular experiment you are designing. Larger world sizes are not available on some computers while in black and white mode. REGIONAL WEATHER VARIATION This adjustment controls the variations in temperature and moisture in your ecosystem's climate. When set to high, the seasonal changes in both temperature and moisture will be high. When set to low, the ecosystem will have very little difference between seasons. WORLD AVERAGE TEMPERATURE This adjustment sets the average, or center point around which the seasonsal temperature variations vary. WORLD AVERAGE MOISTURE This adjustment sets the average, or center point around which the seasonal moisture variations vary. [PAGE: 126] RIVERS AND LAKES This adjustment sets the amount of the ecosystem that is covered by water. It ranges from none to many, which will cover the entire world except for the highest mountain peaks. If you set the Rivers and Lakes to many and mountains to none in the adjustment below, you can create an ocean-only ecosystem. MOUNTAINS This adjustment sets the amount of mountains that will be generated in the ecosystem. TOXINS This adjustment sets the amount of toxins that will appear scattered around the new world when it is generated. These can be set from none to many. MUTAGENS This adjustment sets the amount of mutagens that will appear scattered around the new world when it is generated. These can be set from none to many. FOOD SOURCES This adjustment sets the amount of Ultra-Food Food Sources that will appear scattered around the world when it is generated. These can be set from none to many. BARRIERS This adjustment sets the amount of Barriers that will appear scattered around the new world when it is generated. These can be set from none to many. NEW WORLD NAME This is where you enter the name for the new world. [PAGE: 127] TINY Click on this button to generate a tiny world, which will be 32 x 64 tiles. SMALL Click on this button to generater a small world, which will be 64 x 128 tiles. MEDIUM Click on this button to generate a medium-sized world, which will be 128 x 256 tiles. LARGE Click on this button to generate a large world, which will be 256 x 512 tiles. NEVER MIND Click here if you want to exit the World Design Window without building a new world. MAKE IT SO Click here when you are satisfied with all the settings and want to exit this window and proceed with building a new world. HELP Click and hold on the Help button to see on-screen help for this window. [PAGE: 128] BIOLOGY LAB The Biology Lab is a multi-level window for inspecting and modifying existing plant and animal species, and designing and creating new ones. It can be reached either through the Biology Lab item in the Windows Menu or through the Biology Lab icon in the Dashboard. You can also open the Biology Lab directly to the second (edit) level by double clicking on an organisms icon in the Dashboard. The Biology Lab can be moved around the screen by clicking and dragging the Title Bar. It will go away if you click in the Close Box. BIOLOGY LAB AT SELECT LEVEL The first level of the Biology Lab is for selecting an organism to work with. The second level is for editing, where you modify the organism and/or its icon. From the second level you can open the Genome Window and inspect or manipulate the organism's genetic code. [PAGE: 129] PROTOTYPES AND INDIVIDUALS In the Biology Lab, you can only edit the Prototype (the genetic starting point) of a species. To edit the genes of an individual organism, you will have to select the individual in the Edit Window with the Show Genes function of the Life Tool and do the editing in the Genome Window. SELECT LEVEL Here you select an existing species to edit, copy, delete or save. You can also create a new plant or animal species, or load in previously saved species, individually or in groups (zoos). Once you have gone from here to the Edit Level and modified a species, return here to save your changes. SELECTED SPECIES This is the species that is ready for editing, copying, etc. Icons of all possible species are displayed on the right side of the window. To select a new Seleted Species, click its icon. Changing the Selected Species here changes it in all windows. EDIT Click here to move to the Edit level of the Biology Lab so you can inspect or modify the Selected Species. COPY Click here to make a copy of the Selected Species that you can then edit and save. DELETE Click here to remove the Selected Species from the current world. Deleting a species will not remove it from the disk or prevent you from using it in another world. SAVE Click here to save you edited species to disk for later use. [PAGE: 130] Warning: If you edit any of the plants and animals that come with SimLife, you should save them under different names or in different folders or directories than the originals so you can go back to the originals at a later time. Whatever you do, don't save over the original plants and animals on the original disks. Protect your zoo! NEW PLANT Click here to go to the Edit Level of the Biology Lab to create a new plant. NEW ANIMAL Click here to go to the Edit Level of the Biology Lab to create a new animal. SAVE ALL PLANTS Click here to save all the currently defined plants to disk in a single file. These plants can all be loaded in at once by using the Load A Zoo button. SAVE ALL ANIMALS Click here to save all the currently defined animal species to disk in a single file. These animals can all be loaded in at once by using the Load A Zoo button. DELETE ALL PLANTS Click here to remove all plants from the world. This only removes them from the current world in the current experiment or scenario; it does not remove them from the disk or prevent them from being used in other worlds or scenarios. DELETE ALL ANIMALS Click here to remove all animals from the world. This only removes them from the current world in the current experiment or scenario; it does not remove them from the disk or prevent them from being used in other worlds or scenarios. [PAGE: 131] LOAD A SPECIES Click here to open a dialog box or requester to load in a previously saved plant or animal. LOAD A ZOO Click here to open a dialog box or requester to load in a previously saved Zoo file. A Zoo is a group of plants or animals saved together by using the Save All Plants or Save All Animals button. EDIT LEVEL The Edit Level of the Biology Lab lets you easily modify or design organisms, as well as draw or change icons for the organisms and make a few basic genetic manipulations. When you edit at the Edit Level, you can never edit one individual member of a species. You can only edit the prototype of the species. You can get to the Edit Level from the Select Level by selecting a species from the icons and then clicking on the Edit button, by double-clicking on a Selet Level plant or animal icon, or by clicking either the New Plant or New Animal buttons. You can also edit a species by double-clicking on the species' icon on the Dashboard. Whenever you start a new plant or animal, you will be editing the entire species. [PAGE: 132] The Edit Level of the Biology Lab is slightly different for animals and plants. NAME This is a display of the name of the Selected Species. RENAME Click here to open a dialog box or requester that allows you to rename the current species. FLASH CARDS The flash cards give you a simple way to modify or design an organism. These flash card pictures are not actually representative of how the organism looks. SimLife organisms are electronic and look like a matrix of ones and zeros manifested as energy levels in transistor switches in the memory of your computer. Since we humans can't see energy levels in transistors, we've put these flash cards into SimLife as a pictorial analogy: a way to think of these organisms in familiar terms, to relate them to combinations of plants and animals we are familiar with. The pictures of the flash cards were chosen and drawn to help you understand how the animal fits into the environment. Looking at these pictures, it is fairly easy to figure out the organism's food, brain size, method of movement, etc. [PAGE: 133] Each SimLife organism is represented by a combination of three pictures. Each of these pictures represents at least two genetic factors. To change the pictures, click on the up or down arrows above or to the left of the pictures. As you "flip" through the flash cards, a text description of the organism will appear below the pictures. Designing organisms through the flash cards is somewhat limited. These creatures will only have one food source, one type of seed, one method of motion, etc. To add abilities to your creature, you can enter the Genome Window and fine-tune its genetic code. Note: You can flip through the flash cards all you want without messing up your organism. The changes you make to the flash cards don't actually affect the organism until you click on the Change Prototype Genome to Match Picture button, as explained below. The flash cards for plants are arranged vertically. The top card has eight possible pictures, which represent two factors: the presence or absence of nectar and the four seed types (sticky, dropping, drifting or fruit). The middle card has 18 possible pictures, which represent three factors: deciduous or evergreen, evaporation rate (dry, normal or humid) and structure (grass, tree or shrub). The bottom card has eight possible pictures, which represent three factors, all of which deal with the plant's germination: floating or nonfloating seeds, sprouting temperature (high or low) and sprouting moisture (high or low). [PAGE: 134] The flash cards for animals are arranged horizontally. The left card, the front of the animal, has 18 possible pictures, which represent two factors: the food source (nectar, plants, animals, fruit, filter or seeds) and the intelligence (large, medium or small). The middle card has 20 possible pictures, which represent two factors: method of movement (walk, climb, swim or fly) and preferred environment (ocean, jungle, plains, mountain or desert). The right card, the rear of the animal, has six possible pictures, which represent two factors: gestation size and time (small, medium or large) and litter size (1-2 or 4-8). GENE POOL DIVERSITY This slider sets the genetic spread-the amount of variance in the genes-of a species when you add it to the world through the Populate Window or with the Populate function of the Life Tool in the Edit Window. From then on, genetic diversity is in the hands of natural selection and the species' genetic algorithm. MATING DIFFERENCE This slider control sets the limits on how different the genetic code of two individuals of two species can be, while still allowing them to mate. % GENES FROM FATHER This slider controls the amount of genes the offspring receives from the father. The rest of the genes come from the mother. This slider has no effect in asexual species. ICON SECTION Here you can change or edit the icons that represent the existing creatures, and choose or create new icons for new creatures. There are differences in the icon section for plants and animals. [PAGE: 135] Plant Icons Each plant needs four icons that represent the four stages of plant life: seed, with flowers, with leaves (but no flowers) and with no leaves. You can either choose from the included icons or draw on your own. You can also choose icons, then edit them yourself. To choose a set of plant icons, click and hold on the Icons button to open a submenu of 32 predrawn plants, then slide the cursor to the one you want and release the mouse button. The submenu only shows one of the icons-leaves, no flowers-but all four icons are there. The icon drawing process is simple: * Choose the icon you want to draw or change, then click on it. * Click on the color in the pallette you want to draw with. * Click or click and drag in the drawing area. R.Y.G.A.R.-(c) 1993 !!! If you make a mistake, you can undo your last drawing action by clicking on the Undo button, or selecting Undo in the Edit Menu. [PAGE: 136] Since different stages of the plant's life may look very similar, you can: * Draw one stage. * Select the Copy Icon item in the Edit Menu. * Click on another icon. * Select the Paste Icon item in the Edit Menu * Make any changes as necessary. There is also a Clear button. Use this to completely clear an icon if you want to start over. Animal Icons There are four icons for each animal, but only two that you can draw or change. There are two stages of life represented by animal icons: child and adult. Since animals move, you'll need two child and two adult icons facing in different directions. You can either choose from the included icons or draw your own. You can also choose icons, then edit them yourself. [PAGE: 137] To choose a set of animal icons, click and hold on the Icons button to open a submenu of 64 predraws animals, then slide the cursor to the one you want and release the mouse button. The submenu only shows the adult icons in one direction, but all four icons are there. The icon drawing process for animals is even simpler than for plants: you don't have to draw the "flipped" icons-they are automatically generated for you. * Choose either the left adult or the left child icon and click on it. * Click on the color in the pallette you want to draw with. * Click or click and drag in the drawing area. If you make a mistake, you can undo your last drawing action by clicking on the Undo button, or by selecting Undo in the Edit Menu. Since the two stages of the animal's life look very similar, you can: * Draw one stage. * Select the Copy Icon item in the Edit Menu. * Click on another icon. * Select the Paste Icon item in the Edit Menu. * Make any changes as necessary. There is also a Clear button. Use this to completely clear an icon if you want to start over. [PAGE: 138] BIOLOGY LAB BUTTONS At the lower-left corner of the Biology Lab are seven buttons. Many of these buttons are very powerful and can drastically alter the gene pool of an entire species, so a warning message will appear to give you a chance to back out. Return to Select Level Click here to return to the Select Level so you can save the current species and/or edit another. Change Picture to Match Prototype Genome Click here to update the picture to match any changes you have made to the species prototype in the Genome Window. Change Prototype Genome to Match Picture Click here to change the genetic code for the prototype species to match the flash card picture. You can flip through the flash cards all you want, and it won't affect the genetic code until you click on this button. Edit Species Genome Click this button to open the Genome Window for the Selected Species. Make Population Match Prototype Genome Click here to update the genetic code of the entire population of the Selected Species to match the genetic code of the currently selected species' Prototype. This is a deceptively powerful button that goes way beyond the capabilities of today's biological science. In the world we live in, you can make changes to an organism's genetic code, but the changes won't be noticeable until a future generation-the organism won't re-form itself to match the new code. [PAGE: 139] This tool in SimLife not only changes the genetic code of a whole population of organisms, it instantly updates the population physically, mentally or whateverly to match its new genetic code. If you add the ability to fly to the Prototype and push this button, the whole population of this species will instantly grow wings. Make Prototype Genome Match Population Click here to change the Prototype of the organism being edited to match the current population of that species. Help Click and hold on the Help button to see an on-screen reminder of what each button in the Biology Lab does. [PAGE: 140] GENOME WINDOWS There are actually two Genome Windows: one for animals and one for plants. These windows display the entire genetic code for any species or individual organism and allow you to change, modify, manipulate or redesign the organisms at the genetic level. The Genome Window can be opened from the Biology Lab by clicking on the Edit Species Genome button or from the Edit Window by using the Life Tool in Show Genes mode and clicking on an organism. When you enter the Genome Window through the Biology Lab you will be looking at the prototype genome for the whole species. When you enter from the Edit Window you will be looking at the genome for the individual that you clicked on. The Genome Window both consists of a number of slider controls, on/off switches and drop-down menu choices. Designing or modifying organisms at the genetic level is actually a lot easier than it looks-once you understand what each of the genes does. Perhaps the most important thing to keep in mind when designing an organism is this: There is no free lunch. Even in SimLife. The price you pay is in energy consumption. If you create an animal that can climb and swim and fly, and it's large and fast and strong and has sharp vision and powerful weapons, it will require so much energy to survive that it probably couldn't eat enough to stay alive even if it lived in a supermarket. As you design or modify an organism, keep an eye on the Energy Requirement Bar near the lower-right corner of the window. (It will be explained in detail below.) The genome only contains the potentials for the animal. There are a number of factors or variables for each individual animal that change with time. These variables include current health, weight, age, current food and water storage, etc., and can be found in the Variables Window as described below. [PAGE: 141] HELP At any time in this window you can click and hold on the name of any gene or group of genes for a pop-up explanation of what the gene does. TITLE SECTION This part of the Genome Window displays the name of the species or individual organism currently being edited. If it is an individual organism, it will have a number as part of its name. GENDER There are four possible settings for Gender: Female, Male, Asexual, and Sterile. Click and hold the down-arrow button to reveal the Gender submenu, then slide the cursor to the gender (or lack thereof) of your choice. MOVEMENT There are four ways animals can move. They can walk, climb, swim or fly. The different methods of movement require differing amounts of energy: swimming [PAGE: 142] takes the least, flying takes the most and walking and climbing are somewhere in the middle. Of course, you can go to the Laws of Physics Window (see below) and change the energy it takes to do these things. Clicking on the button to the left of each method of movement toggles it on and off for the animal being edited. Animals can be made capable of more than one type of movement, but the more skills and abilities an animal has, the more energy it requires. If all types of movement are turned off, the animal will just sit in one place-like an anemone. [PAGE: 143] FOOD SOURCES In addition to Ultra-Food, there are six food sources that animals can eat: nectar, plants, animals, fruit, filter food (plankton and near-microscopic plants and animals in the sea, soil and air) and seeds. Clicking on the button to the left of each food source toggles it on and off for the animal being edited. Animals can be made capable of eating more than one type of food, but more sources take more energy due to the more versatile digestive system required to absorb the different materials. BEHAVIOR There are four slider controls, two drop-down menus and a series of icons and buttons that define the animal's behavior. In SimLife, all behavior is geared to foraging for food, finding a mate and fleeing enemies. The Share Food slider deals with the social aspects of eating. If the slider is all the way to the left, then the animal will hunt and eat alone, like the tiger. If the slider is all the way to the right, then the animal has highly developed social graces when it comes to food. These species will hunt or gather together and share food with any member of their species. The Roaming slider adjusts how often the animal will move when it doesn't absolutely need to find food or water right away. The Turning slider adjusts the number and severity of directional changes the animal makes while moving. The Persist slider controls how long a creature will follow a trail before giving up and trying something else. Turn Type is a pull-down menu that lets you choose between three types of turning behaviors: zig-zag, looping and random. Turn Angle is a pull-down menu that lets you choose between four severities of turns that the animal can make: low, medium-low, medium-high and high. A high [PAGE: 144] turn angle helps an animal thorougly explore a small area, while a low turn angle allows an animal to hastily cover a larger territory. The Prefer/Avoid/Ignore controls set what types of plants or animals your current animal will be attracted to or repelled by. You can choose up to eight organisms and set whether they attract or repel your animal: * Click on any of the buttons below the icons to toggle between Prefer (+), Avoid (-) or Ignore (0). * Click and hold on the icon above to reveal a submenu of all life-forms * Slide the cursor to the plant or animal you want, then release the mouse button. Hint: it is a good idea not to have your animal be attracted to another animal that will eat it. Icons to the right take precedence in behavior conflicts, i.e., if an animal comes into contact with one thing that it is attracted to and another thing it is repelled by at the same time, it will react to the one whose icon is farthes to the right. LIFE This section of the genetic code consists of two sliders and one pull-down menu that deal with the animal's maturation rate and length of life. Life Span is a slider control for adjusting the maximum life span of the animal. This maximum life span is a percentage of the maximum life span in the Laws of Physics Window. Adult is the age, or point in the life span, where the animal reaches maturity. Animals grow in size until they reach adult age. Die-off is a pull-down menu with three choices for death age (die-off is superceded by death due to starvation, dehydration or predation): immortal, live to old age and live to medium age. Click and hold on the down-arrow button to see the menu, then slide the cursor to your choice. [PAGE: 145] When the setting is immortal, the animal will not die of natural causes. When the setting is old age, the animal will live out its maximum life span. When the setting is medium age, the animal will die somewhere between maturity and maximum life span. FEATURES This section of the Genome Window consists of four slider controls that deal with physical survival features, which require a lot of energy. The Size slider controls the maximum size of the animal. The Stealth slider controls the animal's ability to move silently and avoid predators. The Weapons slider controls the power of the animal's weapon (claws, teeth, poisons, etc.). The Vision slider controls the animal's visual acuity. GESTATION This section of the Genome Window consists of four sliders and one pull-down menu that deal with the animal's reproductive system. The Size slider controls the amount that the animal gains in size during gestation, which directly relates to how much food/energy the animal needs to reproduce. The Time slider controls the amount of time the animal takes to produce offspring. The %Female slider controls the percentage of offspring that are female. The Mutation slider controls the likelihood of the animal's offspring having a mutation. Number of Children is a pull-down menu that controls the number of offspring the animal has each litter. Click and hold on the down-arrow button to reveal [PAGE: 146] the menu, then slide the cursor to the number you want. The choices are 1, 2, 4 and 8 children per litter. FOOD This section of the Genome Window deals with the animal's food/energy stores. The current values for food for any individual animal can be seen in the Variables Window. The Max slider adjusts the maximum food the animal can store in its body. A high max setting allows stocking up of energy when it is plentiful, but increases the animal's weight and slows it down. The Action slider sets the food storage level that provokes the animal to start looking for food. The Danger slider sets the food storage level for when the animal does nothing else but look for food. WATER This section of the Genome Window deals with the animal's water stores. The current water values for any animal can be seen in the Variables Window. The Max slider adjusts the maximum water the animal can store in its body. A high max setting allows stocking up of water when it is plentiful, but increases the animal's weight and slows it down. The Action slider sets the water storage level that provokes the animal to start looking for water. The Danger slider sets the water storage level for when the animal does nothing else but look for water. HEALTH This section of the Genome Window deals with the animal's overall health. The current values for health for any animal can be seen in the Variables Window. [PAGE: 147] The Max slider adjusts the maximum health level the animal can reach. The Action slider sets the health level that causes the animal to start resting to replenish its health. The Danger slider sets the food storage level for when the animal does nothing but sit still and save energy. MAXIMUM SIZE BAR As you design or modify an animal in this window, the Maximum Size Bar will indicate how big your animal will have to be to hold all the features and capabilities you are programming into it. ENERGY REQUIREMENT BAR As you design or modify an animal in this window, the Energy Requirement Bar will indicate how much energy your animal will require to survive all the features and capabilities you are programming into it. The farther to the right this bar is, the more energy the animal needs to survive. Try to keep this bar at 3/4 or less. If this bar gets all the way to the right, the animal will need so much food to live it could starve in the middle of dinner. NEVER MIND Click this button to leave the Genome Window without changes taking place. MAKE IT SO Click this button when you are happy with all the settings. All your changes will be activated and the window will close. HELP At any time you can click and hold on the Help button or on any of the labels or gene names to see on-screen help. [PAGE: 148] THE PLANT GENOME TITLE SECTION This part of the Genome Window displays the name of the species or individual plant currently being edited. If it is an individual organism, it will have a number as part of its name. GENDER Gender is a pull-down menu with four choices for plants: Male, Female, Both and Asexual. Click and hold on the down-arrow button to open the menu, then slide the cursor to your choice and release the mouse button. STRUCTURE Structure is a pull-down menu with four choices for basic plant structure: Tree, Shrub, Grass and Floating. Click and hold on the down-arrow button to open the menu, then slide the cursor to your choice and release the mouse button. [PAGE: 149] SEEDS Seeds is a pull-down menu with four choices for types of seeds your plant can have: Sticky, Dropping, Drifting and Fruit. Click and hold on the down- arrow button to open the menu, then slide the cursor to your choice and release the mouse button. SEASONS Sprout Season is a pull-down menu with your choice of four seasons in which your plant can sprout: Spring, SUmmer, Fall and Winter. Click and hold on the down-arrow button to open the menu, then slide the cursor to your choice and release the mouse button. Flower Season will always be the season immediately following Sprout Season. Seed Season will always be the season immediately following Flower Season. SLIDERS There are nine slider controls for adjusting various genetic characteristics of your plant. All adjustments get higher as the slider moves from left to right. The Evaporation Rate slider controls the rate at which the plant loses water to the atmosphere. The higher the evaporation rate, the faster it loses water and the more water it needs to survive. Also, the higher the evaporation rate, the faster the plant will grow. The Sprout Moisture slider controls the amount of moisture required for the plant's seeds to sprout. The Sprout Temperature slider controls the temperature that must be reached in sprouting season before the seed will sprout. The Health slider sets the maximum health level for the plant. The higher the health, the more resistant it is to toxins and the better it can survive after being partially eaten by animals. [PAGE: 150] The Food slider sets the maximum amount of food the plant can store. The Water slider sets the maximum amount of water the plant can store. The Mutation Rate slider controls the odds on how often mutation will occur in new generations of this plant. The Maximum Size slider controls the size limitations of the plant. The Old Age slider controls how long the plant can live (barring accidents, predation or disaster) before it loses the ability to reproduce. BUTTONS The Nectar button is a yes/no toggle that controls whether or not the plant produces nectar. The Evergreen button is a yes/no toggle that control whether or not the plant is an evergreen. Click on Never Mind if you want to leave the Plant Genome Window without any changes taking place. Click on Make It So when you are happy with all your settings. All your changes will be activated and the window will close. HELP Click and hold on the Help button or on any slider or control names for on-screen help. [PAGE: 151] CLIMATE LAB The Climate Lab lets you make changes to the climate of the current world. It can be reached through the Climate Lab iten in the Windows Menu or through the Climate Lab button in the Dashboard. The Climate Lab can be moved around the screen by clicking and dragging the Title Bar. It'll go away if you click in the Close Box. Each of the three adjustable climatic aspects deal with variation throughout the year and have two controls: a slider to set the amount of variation and a drop-down menu to set the season where the variation reaches its peak. Adjust the sliders by clicking and dragging the pointer. The variation increases from left to right. To set the Peak Season, click and hold on the down-arrow buttons to open a pull-down menu of the seasons, then slide the cursor to the season of your choice and release the mouse button. The right side of the window has a graph to visually depict the seasonal variations for each setting. DAY LENGTH VARIATION This setting controls how much the amount of daylight per day changes throughout the year. This affects the amount of sunlight plants get. RAINFALL VARIATION This setting controls the seasonal changes in rainfall (which is included under the Humidity heading in the graphis and in most other windows). TEMPERATURE VARIATION This setting controls the seasonal changes in temperature. HELP You can get on-screen help by clicking and holding on the control names. [PAGE: 152] GRAPHS WINDOW The Graphs Window is a very versatile tool for extracting information from the simulation. It can display 720 graphs in either of two time scales. Four graphs can be displayed at a time. The Graphs Window can be opened from the Windows Menu (it's in the Census submenu) or through the Census button on the Dashboard. The Graphs Window can be moved around the screen by clicking and dragging the Title Bar. It will go away if you click in the Close Box. Just below the Close Box is a "punch card" that marks the Graphs Window as a Census Window. Near the upper-right corner of the window are up and down arrow buttons. You can click on these arrows to cycle forwards and backwards through all the Census Windows. To the left of the up and down arrows is the Help button. Click and hold on this button to see a brief explanation of what this window does and how it works. [PAGE: 153] TIME SCALE There are two available time scales in which the graphs can be displayed, 50 years or 50 days. Click on the Days or Years buttons to change time scales. GRAPH SELECTORS There are four graph selectors, each of which can be used to choose any graph - or no graph - to display. Each selector is assigned a color or shade. The words in the selector and the corresponding graph will appear in this color or shade. Selecting a graph to display is a two-step process: first select a species, then select the information. THE LOCAL SPECIES The Local Species of the graph is the plant or animal whose information is graphed. The Local Species can be any plant or animal, or all plants or all animals at once. When this species is selected, it is active in the Graphs Window only - it does not become the Selected Species in the Dashboard. To select a Local Species, click and hold on the upper down-arrow button to reveal a submenu of all possible choices, then slide the cursor to your choice and release the mouse button. An icon representing your choice will appear below the arrow. If you hold down the Option key (or the Control key if your keyboard has no Option key) while selecting a Local Species, that species will be the subject for all four selectors. [PAGE: 154] THE INFORMATION The information is the data to be graphed about the above subject. To select the information to be displayed, click and hold on the lower down-arrow button to reveal a submenu of all possible choices, then slide the cursor to your choice and release the mouse button. If you hold down the Option key (or the Control key if your keyboard has no Option key) while selecting the information, that information will be selected for all four selectors. (The last sentence was a selected selection for our select audience.) The possible choices of information to display are: No Graph - displays nothing for this Graph Selector. Population - displays the changes in the subject's population. Births - displays the changes in the subject's births. Deaths - displays the changes in the subject's deaths. Age (% of Max) - displays the changes in how long the subject lives as a percentage of its maximum possible age. Size (% of Max) - displays the changes in the subject's size as a percentage of its maximum possible size. Females (%) - displays the changes in the percentage of the subjects that are female. Radiation (%) - displays the cumulative radiation dose the subject has received as a percentage of the maximum dose. Food (%) - displays the changes in the percentage of maximum food the subject has stored. Water (%) - displays the changes in the percentage of maximum water the subject has stored. Health (%) - displays the changes in the subject's health rating, as a percentage of maximum health. % of Biomass - displays the amount of the biomass that is represented by the subject. If the subject is an animal species, the graph will show its percentage of the total animal biomass. If the subject is a plant species, the graph will show its percentage of the total plant biomass. If the subject is All Plants or All Animals, the graph will show its percentage of combined plant and animal biomass. Ecology Score - displays an ongoing score of the ecological soundness of the current world. This score is actually a rating of how well you are doing as master of this ecosystem. It is easy to get high ecology scores for short periods of time - the challenge is to keep a constant high score. [PAGE: 155] Note: If you have deselected Record All Statistics in the Technical submenu of the Simulation Menu, the percentage-based graphs and the ecology score will not be available. DISPLAY AREA The bottom section of the Graphs Window is where the graphs are displayed. When relevant, numbers will appear along the right side and/or percentages will appear along the left side to provide a scale for interpreting the graphs. [PAGE: 156] MORTALITY WINDOW The Mortality Window is a graphic display of the causes of death in the ecosystem. It also displays the predators (if any) that are responsible for the deaths. It can be opened from the Windows Menu (it's in the Census submenu) or through the Census button on the Dashboard. The Mortality Window can be moved around the screen by clicking and dragging the Title Bar. It will go away if you click in the Close Box. Just below the Close Box is a "punch card" that marks the Mortality Window as a Census Window. Near the upper-right corner of the window are up and down arrow buttons. You can click on these arrows to cycle forward and backward through all the Census Windows. Below the up and down arrows is the Help button. Click and hold on this button to see a brief explanation of what this window does and how it works. [PAGE: 157] LOCAL SPECIES Mortality information can be shown for any individual species, or for All Plants or All Animals as a group. To select the Local Species whose mortality graph you want to see, click and hold on the down-arrow button to open the submenu of choices, slide the cursor to the species of your mortal desire and release the mouse button. The species selected here does not affect the Selected Species in the Dashboard or any of the other windows. ALL DEATHS The default display is a graph of all causes of death for the previous five years. The agents of death are listed along the left side of the display from top to bottom. The number of deaths in the current year from each cause is displayed below the name of each agent. The percentages are represented as bars that increase from left to right. WHO'S EATING ME? If you click on the Who's Eating Me? button, you will see a display of all the predators with bar graphs showing how many of the Local Species they have eaten. Click on the All Deaths button to return to the default display. CAUSES OF DEATH For the most part, the causes of death are self-explanatory: Eaten, Old Age, Disease, No Water and No Food are easy to figure out. The only ambiguous one is Accident, which covers everything that doesn't fit into any of the above categories. Deaths listed as Accidents include human-caused death by: Smiting, Plant and Animal Limits in the Laws of Physics Window, and Populating land plants or animals in the water. It also covers real accidents like water animals stranded on land during a drought. Also, when animals have children, their litters spread out in all directions. If a litter occurs near water, some infants can drown. [PAGE: 158] GENE POOL WINDOW The Gene Pool Window is a graphic display of evolution in action. It shows the frequency and spread of genes for any single species at a time, or All Plants or All Animals at once. It can be opened from the Windows Menu (it's in the Census submenu) or through the Census button on the Dashboard. The Gene Pool Window can be moved around the screen by clicking and dragging the Title Bar. It will go away if you click in the Close Box. Just below the Close Box is a "punch card" that marks the Gene Pool Window as a Census Window. Near the upper-right corner of the window are up and down arrow buttons. You can click on these arrows to cycle forward and backward through all the Census Windows. Next to the up and down arrows is the Help button. Click and hold on this button to see a brief explanation of what this window does and how it works. [PAGE: 159] TYPES OF GENES To understand this window, keep in mind that creatures in SimLife have two types of genes: discrete and continuous. Discrete genes are like yes/no or multiple-choice genes. They have one value. For instance, as far as animal movement genes go, either the individual animal walks or it doesn't; it flies or it doesn't. Yes or no. Relating to gender, either an animal is male, female, asexual or sterile. Pick one and only one: multiple choice. Discrete genes are shown and adjusted in the Genome Window as on/off buttons. Continuous genes are those that can have a wide range of values, for example, the life span or the mutation probability genes. Each of these genes is a number somewhere on a continuum from 0 to 256. They are shown and adjusted in the Genome Window as slider controls. In a sense, you can think of the discrete genes as digital-yes or no, on or off-and the continuous genes as analog with a continuous range of possible values. (Technically, in SimLife, the continuous genes are stored and computed digitally and actually have a number of discrete values, but there are enough available values in the continuum for them to appear analog for all practical and experimental purposes.) POPULATION This section of the Gene Pool Window displays the total population of the Local Species, whether the Local Species is a plant, an animal, or All Plants or All Animals. This window always displays information on a species population-all the members of that species that are currently alive in the world. The only way you can see the gene pool information for one organism is if there is only one alive, or if you put one organism into its own species with the Speciate function. Of course, one organism is not a very good gene pool. [PAGE: 160] LOCAL SPECIES This section of the Gene Pool Window both displays and allows you to select the Local Species. Click and hold on the down-arrow button to reveal the submenu of all possible choices, then slide the cursor to your choice and release the mouse button. Both the name of the Local Species and its icon will be displayed. The species selected here does not affect the Selected Species in the Dashboard or any of the other windows. USE COLORS BUTTON This button toggles between displaying the continuous gene section of this window using colors to represent percentages or using small bar graphs to represent percentages. This will be explained below. This button may not appear on computers with monochrome monitors. DISCRETE GENES This section of the Gene Pool Window displays all the information on the discrete genes of the Local Species. The genes are arranged into groups of related genes. The group name is displayed at the top of this section, and the individual genes are listed below with a bar chart showing what percentage of the population has this gene. The bar charts range from 0% on the left to 100% on the right. Since individual organisms can have more than one food source or method of movement, the bar charts add up to more than 100% GROUP SELECTION One group of genes can be selected at a time. Click and hold on the down-arrow button to reveal a submenu of the choices, slide the cursor to your choice and release the mouse button. GROUPS AND INDIVIDUAL GENES Since the genes in plants and animals are different, so are the groups as displayed in this section of this window. [PAGE: 161] Plant Gene Groups Gender: Asexual, Male, Female, Both Structure: Floating, Grass, Shrub, Tree Seeds: Sticky, Dropping, Drifting, Fruit Sprout Season: Summer, Fall, Winter, Spring Nectar: Yes, No Evergreen: Yes, No Animal Gene Groups Gender: Male, Female, Asexual, Sterile Movement: Walk, Climb, Swim, Fly Food Sources: Nectar, Fruit, Filter, Plants, Animals, Seeds Die-Off: Immortal, Old Age, Middle Age # Children: 1, 2, 4, 8 Attracted to : There are no "set" choice displays for Attracted to... Icons representing the six most common attractants for the Local Species will be displayed to the right of its bar charts. Tries to Avoid: There are no "set" choice displays for Tries to Avoid... Icons representing the six most common repellants for the Local Species will be displayed to the right of its bar charts. Turn Angle: Low, Med-Low, Med-High, High Turn Type: Looping, Random, Zig-Zag CONTINUOUS GENES This section of the Gene Pool Window displays all the information on the continuous genes of the Local Species. There are 23 different continuous genes that can be displayed for animals and nine for plants. [PAGE: 162] GENE SELECTION Along the left side of this section is a list of the continuous genes being displayed. Nine genes can be displayed at once, so all plant genes can be viewed simultaneously. To view all the animal genes or change the order of display for plants, click and hold on the down-arrow to the right of the gene name to open a submenu of all available choices, slide the cursor to your choice, then release the mouse button. WARNING: TRICKY GRAPHS The Contiuous Gene display is a little tricky, but understanding it is very important to interpreting changes in the Gene Pool, which is needed in many scenarios and experiments. To make it easier to understand, there are two different ways to look at the information: using colors and using bar graphs. The two types of displays are chosen by clicking on the Use Colors? button. A color or monochrome key will appear to help you interpret the data in this section of the window. On some computers with monochrome-only screens, the Use Colors? button and/or the color key and/or color display may not be available. CONTINUOUS GENE DISPLAY - MONOCHROME When the Use Colors? button is set to "No," the continuous genes will be displayed using small black bar graphs. The key at the top will help you understand the display. Each of these partitioned rectangles represents one continuous gene. The left end of this rectangle corresponds with the lowest value for that gene and the right side corresponds with the highest value. The bars appear at different locations-different values-and show what percentage of the population has that value for the particular gene. The higher the bar, the higher the percentage of the population with that value. [PAGE: 163] Each of these lines matches a slider in the Genome Window. For example, the life span gene. Above is shown the Gene Pool Window life span gene display for one animal, and that animal's life span gene from the Genome Window. Notice how the bar's and arrow's locations match. To be really useful, the gene pool must show the combined genes for a whole population, not just one organism. Each animal in the population will have a value for life span, but not all of them will have the exact same value. When there is a spread of values for a gene, this is shown using multiple black bars at different locations. The higher the bar, the more of the population has that value for the gene. In addition, if the Local Species is a single species (not All Plants or All Animals), there will be a thin pink or black line somewhere in the display. This line marks the value of this gene for the Prototype of the species. You can look at the prototype value as the "starting position" for each gene. When the black bars drift away from the Prototype, they represent the change in the gene pool-the evolution of the genes through natural selection and mutation. If All Plants or All Animals is selected there will be no Prototype lines. [PAGE: 164] CONTINUOUS GENE DISPLAY - COLOR When the Use Colors? button is set to "Yes," the continuous genes will be displayed using a special color display. The key at the top will help you understand the display. Each of these black rectangles represents one continuous gene. The left side of the rectangle corresponds with the lowest value for that gene and the right side corresponds with the highest value. The colored bars appear at different locations-different values-and show what percentage of the population has that value for this gene. Instead of using the height of the bar to represent the percentage, in this display we use color. The key above will show you what colors represent what percentages. The gene pool is the combined genes for a whole population. Each organism in the population will have a value for each gene, but not all of them will have the exact same value. Each rectangle displays all the values of all the organisms for one gene. When there is a spread of values for a gene, this is shown using multiple colored bars at different locations. Part of the reason for using this type of display is because it looks very much like the Gel Electrophoresis analysis of actual DNA in a biology laboratory. In addition, if the Local Species is a single species (not All Plants or All Animals), there will be a thin pink or black line somewhere in the display. This line marks the value of this gene for the Prototype of the species. You can look at the prototype value as the "starting position" for each gene. When the colored bars drift away from the Prototype, they represent the change in the gene pool-the evolution of the genes through natural selection and mutation. If All Plants or All Animals is selected there will be no Prototype lines. [PAGE: 165] FOOD WEB WINDOW This window shows the predator/prey relationships between different organisms in the ecosystem. The Food Web Window can be opened from the Windows Menu (in the Census submenu) or through the Census button on the Dashboard. The Food Web Window can be moved around the screen by clicking and dragging the Title Bar and it will go away if you click in the Close Box. Just below the Close Box is a "punch card" which marks the Food Web Window as a Census Window. Near the upper-right corner of the window are up and down arrow buttons. You can click on these arrows to cycle forward and backward through all the Census Windows. Next to the up and down arrows is the Help button. Click and hold on this button to see a brief explanation of what this window does and how it works. [PAGE: 166] Note: Plants can be eaten but not necessarily killed, which can techincally be called parasitism as opposed to predation, but they're shown here as prey. SPECIES This is the display of the Local Species: the species whose food web information is shown below. To change the Local Species, click and hold on the down-arrow to reveal a submenu of all available choices, then slide the cursor to your choice and release the mouse button. In this window you can only select a single species at a time; you cannot choose All Plants or All Animals. Changing this species does not affect the Selected Species in the Dashboard. MAIN LINKS The Main Links display is the default setting for this window, and is shown above. Press this button to display the main links in the food web for the current ecosystem. It will show up to eight predator species on the left and their associated eight favorite prey species on the right. These are the top eight energy transactions in the food web. To the left of the predator icons is a bar graph showing the relative activity of the predators. If you click on any of shown predators or preys, they'll pop to the center and become the Local Species and this window will enter One Species mode (see below). [PAGE: 167] ONE SPECIES Press this button to display the food web centered around the Local Species. The Local Species will appear in the middle. Any and all predators will be listed along the left. These are the animals (if any) that eat the Local Species. The eight most common food sources, including prey (those who are eaten by the Local Species) will appear along the right (if any-plants have no prey). To the right of the prey icons is a bar graph showing how many of each prey were caught and eaten by the Local Species. If the Local Species is a plant, no prey will be displayed because plants don't go around hunting and eating things they catch. (Well, other than the big plant in my office that likes to munch on editors that take liberties with my writing, if you can take a hint.) If you click on either a predator or prey, it will become the Subject Species. Its icon will move to the middle of the display and its predators and prey will be shown on the left and right respectively. In this way you can move up and down the food chain and get a complete overview. [PAGE: 168] POPULATION INTERACTION WINDOW The Population Interaction Window displays a special type of graph of the predator/prey relationships between different organisms in the ecosystem. Unlike the graphs in the Graphs Window, which map a single population against time, this graph maps the ratios of two populations (predator and prey) against eachother over time. To open the Population Interaction Window, first open the Food Web Window in Main Links mode, then hold down the Option key (or Control key if your keyboard has no Option key) and click on one of the predator icons. Note: This graph only shows the relationship between plant and animal predation, and will not work when the prey is filter food. This window can be moved around the screen by clicking and dragging the Title Bar and it will go away if you click in the Close Box. Just below the Close Box is a punch card within a punch card that marks the Population Interaction Window as a descendant of a Census Window. Over on the right side of the window is the Help button. Click and hold on this button to see a brief explanation of what this window does and how it works. [PAGE: 169] TIME SCALE Click on the Days or Years buttons to choose between displaying data for the last 50 days or the last 50 years. DISPLAY AREA This part of the window is a grid where the graph is displayed. The predator is shown along the left (Y axis) the prey along the bottom (X axis). The lower-left corner is zero population for both species. The number of living predators is shown on the upper-left side of the grid, the number of living prey is shown at the lower-right. Above the display area is a color key that lets you know which of the data points are older, and which are newer. CHANGING SPECIES Once this window is open, you can change the two species being graphed to any two species currently loaded into the simulation. Click and hold on the down arrow button next to either species' icon, then select the new species of your choice. INTERPRETING THE GRAPH If all the data points are clustered together in a small bunch, then both the predator and prey populations are stable. If the line is circular, then you have a predator/prey "cycle," where the two populations directly affect each other. If the line travels horizontally from right to left, the predator is killing off the prey faster than they can reproduce. In a long-lasting ecosystem, this graph will show various repeating, ever- changing shapes and patterns that point out the chaotic nature of ecosystems. BACK TO FOOD WEB Clicking on this button returns you to the Food Web Window. [PAGE: 170] POPULATION WINDOW The Poulatioon Window is a graphic display of the relative populations of all organisms in the ecosystem. It can be opened from the Windows Menu (in the Census submenu) or through the Dashboard Census button. The Population Window can be moved around the screen by clicking and dragging the Title Bar. It will go away if you lcick in the Close Box. Just below the Close Box is a "punch card" that marks the Population Window as a Census Window. Near the upper-right corner of the window are up and down arrow buttons. You can click on these arrows to cycle forward and backward through all the Census Windows. Below the arrows is the Help button. Click and hold on this button to see a brief explanation of what this window does and how it works. ALL PLANTS Click on All Plants to see the population display of the plants. The total plant population is displayed to the right of the All Animals button, and icons representing all the plants are displayed below. Bars will appear above the icons representing the relative populations of each plant. The higher the bar, the greater the population. If there is no bar, then there are no representatives of that species in the ecosystem at the current time. ALL ANIMALS Click on All Animals to see the population display of the animals. The total animal population is displayed to the right of the All Animals button and icons representing all the naimals are displayed below. Bars will appear above the icons representing the relative populations of each animal. The higher the bar, the greater the population. If there is no bar, then there are no representatives of that species in the ecosystem at the current time. [PAGE: 171] DIVERSITY WINDOW The Diversity Window is a graphic display of which ecological niches are being exploited by the current population of plants and animals. The Diversity Window can be opened from the Windows Menu (it's in the Census submenu) or through the Census button on the Dashboard. It can be moved around the screen by clicking and dragging the Title Bar. It will go away if you click in the Close Box. Just below the Close Box is a "punch card" which marks the Diversity Window as a Census Window. Near the upper-right corner of the window are up and down arrow buttons. You can click on these arrows to cycle forward and backward through all the Census Windows. Below the arrows is the Help button. Click and hold on this button to see a brief explanation of what this window does and how it works. [PAGE: 172] MAKING A LIVING To survive in an ecosystem, plants and animals must "exploit a niche," or make a living. Ecologically speaking, making a living is finding a way to survive - finding food, avoiding becoming food and reproducing. For animals, the most important parts of making a living are their type(s) of movement and kind(s) of food they can eat. Plants don't move, so their strategies are a little different. Different sizes and structures of plants (trees, shrubs, water plants, etc.) are better adapted to different environments. Different ways of spreading seeds (fruit, dropping, sticky, etc.) and energy-saving strategies (evergreen vs. deciduous) work better (or don't) depending on the climate and surrounding animal life. If a lot of different organisms eat the same kind of food, live in the same places, and generally live the same lifestyle, there will be a lot of competition for resources. If different plants and animals each live a little differently - eat different foods, move differently, spread seeds in different ways - they are not in direct competition with each other, and more can survive. Beyond non-competition, a lot of different types of plants and animals living together, each in a different niche, become more than the sum of the individual organisms. They become an interrelated food web, a community, an ecosystem. A healthy long-lasting ecosystem will have plants and animals in many diverse niches. ALL ANIMALS Click on All Animals to see the diversity display of the animals. The display is a gridlike graph with food sources on the left (the Y axis) and types of movement on the bottom (X axis). There is a box at each grid intersection point of the X and Y axes. The number of animals at each intersection (Z axis) is shown by the size and shade of the box. A key to interpreting the boxes and the numbers they represent is provided on the right side of the window. [PAGE: 173] ALL PLANTS Click on All Plants to see the diversity display of the plants. The display is a gridlike graph with types of trees on the left (the Y axis) and seed and nectar information on the bottom (X axis). There is a box at each grid intersection point of the X and Y axes. The number of plants at each intersection (Z axis) is shown by the size and shade of the box. A key to interpreting the boxes and the numbers they represent is provided on the right side of the window. [PAGE: 174] HISTORY WINDOW This window tracks and lists the important historical events that have happened in the ecosystem during the present game or experiment. The History Window can be opened from the Windows Menu (in the Census submenu) or through the Census button on the Dashboard. The History Window can be moved around the screen by clicking and dragging the Title Bar and it will go away if you click in the Close Box. Just below the Close Box is a "punch card" that marks the History Window as a Census Window. Near the upper-right corner of the window are up and down arrow buttons. You can click on these arrows to cycle forward and backward through all the Census Windows. Below the arrows is the Help button. Click and hold on this button to see a brief explanation of what this window does and how it works. If you click on any of the events, the icon that represents the organisms in the event will appear next to the punch card. The main area of the window displays the year and day of each event along with text messages describing them. The events that are listed here include mutations, extinctions, species danger (hunger, thirst, no males left, no females left), new species creations, etc. To scroll through the list of historical events, click on the Older or Newer buttons. To view the latest occurrences, click on Latest. [PAGE: 175] LAWS OF PHYSICS The Laws of Physics Window gives you the power to change the physical laws and properties that deal with time and energy in your world. It can be opened with the Change Physics... item in the Technical submenu of the Simulation Menu. Besides feeding one's ego by supplying such awesome power, this window actually has very practical experimental uses. For example, changing the amount of energy it takes to move, such as a setting of very little energy to fly and a lot to walk, could simulate a low-gravity world. Raising the energy it takes to swim could simulate a world with a very viscous ocean. Depending on your experiment, changing the physics of time can help your efficiency. If you are interested in the behavior of one generation, make the days and years as long as possible and increase the life span of organisms. If you are interested in the genetic drift over many generations, shortening the length of days and years could save you hours or days of computer time. Many of the settings below have a range of possible values that goes from Tiny to Low to Medium to High to Huge. Each value is twice the previous value, i.e., Low is twice as high as Tiny, Medium is twice as high as Low, etc. [PAGE: 176] HELP At any time in this window you can click and hold on the Help button or on the name of any control for a pop-up explanation of what it does. MOVEMENT COSTS This is where you can adjust the amount of energy it takes for an animal to move in any of the four ways: Swimming, Walking, Climbing and Flying. Since plants in SimLife don't move, this won't affect them. There are five values for each movement type: Tiny, Low, Medium, High and Huge. To change the movement cost, click and hold on the down-arrow button to open a submenu of all available choices, slide the cursor to your choice, then release the mouse button. As mentioned above, changing movement costs can simulate different gravitities and ocean viscosties. If you use your imagination with these settings you can come up with some interesting worlds. FOOD VALUE By adjusting the amount of food value - energy - supplied by each type of food, you directly control how much food animals need and indirectly affect their behavior by controlling how much time they must spend looking for food and how much time they have for other pastimes, such as looking for a mate. There are six food sources: Animals, Plants, Filter Food, Fruit, Nectar and Seeds. Each of these foods can be assigned a value: Tiny, Low, Medium, High, or Huge. To change the food value cost, click and hold on the down-arrow button to open a submenu of all available choices, slide the cursor to your choice, then release the mouse button. [PAGE: 177] Changes in Food Values do not directly affect plants, but indirectly they will affect how many of them will be eaten - more if their food value is low, less if their food value is high. These settings do not affect the Ultra-Food food sources. METABOLISM COSTS This section adjusts how much energy is required for metabolic processes: Gestation, Growth and Healing. Each of these processes can be assigned a value: Tiny, Low, Medium, High or Huge. To change the metabolism cost, click and hold on the down-arrow button to open a submenu of all available choices, slide the cursor to your choice, then release the mouse button. Gestation controls how much energy it takes to produce offspring. With a high energy cost for gestation, only a very well-fed organism can "afford" to reproduce. Growth controls how much energy it takes to recover from injury, plagues and toxins. HEALTH COSTS This section adjusts how much energy is lost by health-related processes and issues. These issues are: Toxins, Plague, Old Age, Crowding and Battle. Each of these items can be assigned a value: Tiny, Low, Medium, High or Huge. To change the health cost, click and hold on the down-arrow button to open a submenu of all available choices, slide the cursor to your choice, then release the mouse button. [PAGE: 178] PLANT COSTS This section controls how much energy is required by plants to "make their living." Plants need energy for getting food and water, growing and making nectar, fruit, and seeds. The energy cost for food and water can be set to a value: Tiny, Low, High, or Huge. To change the plant costs, click and hold on the down-arrow button to open a submenu of all available choices, slide the cursor to your choice, then release the mouse button. SIMULATION STUFF This section controls seven simulation factors including time. Six factors are adjusted with a pop-up menu, the seventh with a slider bar. LIFE SPAN This setting adjusts the average life span for organisms in the world. This setting is a "master control" for individual species' life spans as set in their genetic code. This setting sets a general life span length. The species' genes set the percentage of this general life span they are capable of living. The five possible life span settings are: Brief, Short, Medium, Long and Methuselan. To change the life span, click and hold on the down-arrow button to open a submenu of all available choice, slide the cursor to your choice, then release the mouse button. DAY LENGTH This control sets how many Ticks (simulation cycles) constitute one day. The possible day lengths are 8, 16, 32, 64, 128 and 256 Ticks. To change the Ticks per day, click and hold on the down-arrow button to open a submenu of all available choices, slide the cursor to your choice, then release the mouse button. You will want long days for behavioral experiments and short days for long- term, many-generation experiments. [PAGE: 179] YEAR LENGTH This control sets how many days constitute one year. The possible year lengths are 16, 32, 64, 128 and 256 days. To change the days per year, click and hold on the down-arrow button to open a submenu of all available choices, slide the cursor to your choice, then release the mouse button. PLANT LIMIT This control lets you put limits on the number of plants that can exist in the world at any one time. Since the simulation runs slower with more organisms, you can limit the number of plants to: Unlimited, 1/2 maximum, 1/4 maximum, 1/8 maximum, 1/16 maximum, 1/32 maximum, 1/64 maximum and 1/128 maximum. The maximum is the total number of cells in the world, and depends on world size. To change the Plant Limit, click and hold on the down-arrow button to open a submenu of all available choices, slide the cursor to your choice, then release the mouse button. MUTATION RATE This adjustment controls the overall Mutation Rate in the world, over- riding an individual species' mutation rate as set in its genetic code. This setting sets a general rate, and the species' genes set an individual rate as a percentage of this general rate. To change the Mutation Rate, click and hold on the down-arrow button to open a submenu of all available choices, slide the cursor to your choice, then release the mouse button. ANIMAL LIMITS This adjustment sets the maximum number of animals that can occupy the world at any one time. The setting is for all living species combined. The more animals there are, the slower the simulation runs. Setting a limit keeps animals from running amok and taking over all your computer's processing time. [PAGE: 180] The maximum available animals that you can set are: Unlimited, 50, 100, 200, 400, 800 and 1600. To change the maximum animals per species, click and hold on the down-arrow button to open a submenu of all available choices, slide the cursor to your choice, then release the mouse button. SOIL AND CLIMATE CHANGE This adjustment controls how much the soil and climate will change over time. If you want a very stable climate with little or no erosion for your experiments, set this slider low. If you want your ecosystem to be subjected to wide swings in climatic conditions with erosion, set it high. BUTTONS At the bottom of the window are three buttons. Click Set Defaults if you want to make the current settings in this window the default conditions henceforth and forevermore (well, at least until you make changes and set new defaults). Click Never Mind if you want to make this window go away without making any changes. Click Make It So if you are happy with the current settings and want them to be activated. The new settings will immediately take control of the world, but the default settings will not be changed. [PAGE: 181] WORLD BUILDING OPTIONS The World Building Options Window lets you set options that the simulation uses when creating a new world. It also lets you rebuild one aspect, or data layer, of a world without changing anything else. It can be opened with the World Building Options... item in the Technical submenu of the Simulation Menu. Show Steps toggles on and off the display of each data layer as the world is built. When the steps are shown, it takes a little longer to build the world, but it looks so cool that it seems to go faster. Lake Size lets you choose to have large or small lakes in the world. If you aren't interested in water-dwelling creatures, making small lakes leaves you more room for your landlubbers. Temperature Zones, when selected, causes only the temperature zones to be rebuilt the next time you build a world. This is especially useful when you have changed a world's altitude in the Edit Window and want to update the temperature data to the new landform. Moisture Zones, when selected, causes only the moisture zones to be rebuilt the next time you build a world. This is especially useful when you have changed a world's altitude in the Edit Window and want to update the moisture data to the new landform. Rivers and Lakes, when selected, causes only the rivers and lakes to be rebuilt the next time you build a world. Artifacts, when selected, causes only the artifact placement to be rebuilt the next time you build a world. Everything, when selected, causes every aspect of a world to be rebuilt next time you build a world. This is the default setting. Never Mind makes this window go away without making any changes. Make It So activates the current settings and closes the window. [PAGE: 182] VARIABLE WINDOW The Variables Window shows and lets you change the current status of any individual organism. The information in this window is not contained in the genetic code; it is a display of the results of the genes and environment. This window shows the things that change during an organism's life, like health, age, height, weight, etc., that are constantly variable. (Constantly variable is the SimLife oxymoron of the week.) When you make changes in this window, the changes in the organism take place immediately. The Variables Window can be opened in two ways. From the Windows Menu - if and only if there is currently an organism highlighted in the Edit Window - or directly from the Edit Window by using the Life Tool in Show Variables mode and clicking on an organism. The Variables Window treats plants and animals differently - not because of prejudice, but because it recognizes the true differences between the two types of organisms and appreciates them both for what they are. The Title Bar contains the name of the individual, which consists of the species name and the individual's number. The window can be moved around the screen by clicking and dragging the Title Bar. The window will go away if you click in the Close Box. The window will also go away if the organism whose variables you are inspeciting dies, so it is a good idea to pause the simulation while inspecting variables. PLANT VARIABLES There are two sections to this window. The top section displays the individual plant's current status for Health, Food supply, Water and Radiation exposure. Each display is a bar graph, with low on the left, high on the right. You can change (manipulate, heal, feed, starve, etc.) the plant by dragging the black arrows under each of the bars. [PAGE: 183] The bottom section displays the Height, Weight, and Age of the plant, both numerically and with a bar. You can change the Height and Age by dragging the black arrows under their bars, but Weight changes autmatically in relation to Height and other variables. Note: If you age a seed, it will not instantly turn into a full grown tree, or even sprout - it will become a very old seed. Old seeds die. ANIMAL VARIABLES The Animal Variables Window has three sections. The top section is very similar to the top plant section. It shows the current status for Health, Food, Water and Radiation. In addition, it has marker arrows over Health, Food and Water to show where on the bar the animal takes action (the arrow on the right), or is in danger (the arrow on the left). The action and danger levels are set in the animal's genome. The middle section gives numerical and graphic representation of the animal's Height, Weight and Age. The Age bar has arrows to make the action level (arrow on the left) and danger level (arrow on the right). This section also contains a display for Forage Count and Gestation. Forage Count increases as an animal looks for food, and resets when food is found. If the count reaches a certain number (depending on the Persistence gene), the animal will try another foraging strategy. For males, Gestation is blanked out. For females, Gestation gives the current pregnancy status. If she is not pregnant, Gestation will be all the way to the left. When the arrow reaches the right side of the slider, birth occurs. Dragging the arrow all the way to the right causes the birth to occur instantly: the SimCesarean. The bottom section of this window is the Brain Box. Whatever the animal is currently thinking will appear here. [PAGE: 184] PHENOTYPE WINDOW The Phenotype Window displays any organism's "flash card" image, as seen in the Biology Lab. The Phenotype Window can be opened in two ways: from the Windows Menu if and only if there is currently an organism highlighted in the Edit Window, or directly from the Edit Window by using the Life Tool in Show Phenotype mode and clicking on an organism. The image in this window does not represent the actual appearance of the organism: Its purpose is to give you some insight into the organism's size, structure, eating habits, etc. We constructed these images of SimLife organisms out of parts of familiar earth animals that should have some meaning for most of us. For instance, looking at a phenotype of any animal, you can easily see what it eats, how it moves and how many children it has per litter. And as mammals, we like to think that if the picture of the head looks like a mammal it has a larger brain than something with an isect's head. (Chauvinism? Maybe - but if any insects out there fell slighted you can program your own darn game.) [PAGE: 185] SPECIATE WINDOW The Speciate Window lets you change a chosen individual organism into another species in a few different ways. The Speciate Window can only be opened from the Edit Window by setting the Life Tool to Speciate and clicking on any organism. SPECIES NAME This is the display of the current individual organism (the Subject) that is being speciated. Since it is an individual, it will have a number after the species name. MAKE ME PROTOTYPE OF SPECIES Clicking this button will change the genotypes of all the organisms in the Subject's species to exactly match the Subject. You might want to use this button if you have located one individual in a species that has developed an advantageous genetic trait that you want to share with the whole family. MAKE ME INTO A NEW SPECIES Click this button if you want to use the Subject as the starting point for beginning a new species. After you click on this button, the Biology Lab will open set to the Subject's genotype. You can rename it and save it as a new species. Before saving, you can modify the icon and the genome (either with the flash cards or in the Genome Window). CHANGE ME TO SPECIES SHOWN BELOW Click this button to transform the Subject into another species. You can choose the new species in the New Species box below. If you try to turn a plant into an animal or an animal into a plant you'll receive a caustic message proving that programmers can be just as big of smart alecs as manual writers. [PAGE: 186] NEW SPECIES This is a display of the species the Subject will be changed into if you click on the Change Me To Species Shown Below button above. To change this species, click and hold on the down-arrow to reveal a submenu of all available choices, slide the cursor to your choice and release the mouse button. NEVER MIND Click this button to close the Speciate Window without doing anything you might regret later. [PAGE: 187] EVALUATION WINDOW The Evaluation Window gives you feedback on how well you are doing as an ecological experimenter. It visually shows the diversity of life in your ecosystem and gives you a numerical score, a personal rating and a status report. The Evaluation Window can be reached through the Evaluation item in the Windows Menu. It can be moved around the screen by clicking and dragging the Title Bar. It will go away if you click in the Close Box. THE MAIN DISPLAY The main area of this window is a scenic view of a potential ecosystem. There will be pictures of plants and/or animals that represent different ecological niches that are currently filled. The more life-forms you have, the more diversity you have, and the better your ecosystem's chances of survival. Click on any displayed pictures of plants or animals for more information on the types and numbers of organisms they represent. SCORE This gives you numerical feedback on your skills and progress. The score is based on the ecology score (which is a factor of a whole bunch of things going on in the ecosystem), with diversity of species, the number of years the game has been in progress and the difficulty level factored in. It's easy to get a high score for a short time, but keeping a high score for a long time is very hard. RATING Rating gives you a title that describes your skill. There are 21 ratings ranging from Parking Lot Builder to... you'll have to find out for yourself. STATUS Status is a one-line description of the current ecosystem. It might point out a problem or need, mention something nice, give you useful information or even compliment you. [PAGE: 188] The Locate an Individual Window lets you find any currently living individual organism. It can be opened from the Technical submenu in the Simulation Menu. SELECTED SPECIES Click and hold on the down-arrow button to see a submenu of all available species. While holding the mouse button down, slide the cursor to the species you want, and release. NUMBER Highlight and type in the number of the individual you want to locate. NEVER MIND Click this button to close the Locate An Individual Window without locating anything. MAKE IT SO Click on this button when you have chosen the species and number above. The individual, if living, will be located, highlighted and visible in the Edit Window. If it isn't living, you will be returned to the Locate An Individual Window for another try. [PAGE: 189] RUN CONTROL WINDOW The Run Control Window lets you tell the simulation to pause and wait for you after a certain amount of time. It can be opened from the Technical submenu of the Simulation Menu. Use this window when you want to check data at certain times without sitting at the computer, waiting and watching, ready to dive for the pause button. You can set it to pause after any amount of days or years, depending on your experiment, but the most useful is 50 years. All the graphing, history and census data is only kept in memory for 50 years: if you stop the simulation every 50 years and save it to disk (each time under a different name), you can get continuous data and graphs for the whole experiment. Note: Run Control will stay active until you disable it. NUMBER Use the up- and down-arrows or type in the number of days or years you want the simulation to run before pausing. DISABLE Click this button to disable Run Control. DAYS Click this button to activate Run Control and make it pause after a number of days. YEARS Click this button to activate Run Control and make it pause after a number of years. NEVER MIND Click this button to close the Run Control Window without activating it. MAKE IT SO Click on this button when you have set the amount of time you want the simulation to run before pausing. [PAGE: 190] SAMPLE EXPERIMENTS There are an unlimited number of experiments you can design and run with SimEarth. Here are just a few ideas to work with. SEED-EATERS AND PLANTS Design an experiment to see if, on the whole, seed-eaters do more damage or good to plant populations. Keep in mind: * Many seeds don't sprout if they don't have the right genes for sprouting temperature and moisture. * Seeds that don't sprout take up room that could otherwise be exploited by seeds that can sprout. * Seeds that are eaten never sprout. THE BATTLE OF THE SEXLESS Design an experiment that shows whether or not sexual reproduction (as opposed to asexual reproduction) provided an advantage to a species. Keep in mind: * The vast majority of species on earth use sex during reproduction to expand their gene pool. * Sexual reproduction requires the large energy expense of finding and courting a mate that could otherwise be used to find food or directly increase the population. * What is there in the real world that's missing from SimLife that might make your experimental outcome different? OTHER WORLDS A Food Web that is successful in earthlike surroundings might not do so well if transplanted to another planet with different gravity, different ocean viscosity, and/or different energy returns from food sources. [PAGE: 191] Design an experiment (or 10) that simulate(s) other worlds, set loose some life, and see what happens. Then determine the genetic changes that would allow the life to better survive in the new surroundings. Keep in mind: * Different types of worlds can be designed in the Laws of Physics Window. * It will be easier to start with Food Webs that have been proven survivors in an earthlike setting. GALAPAGOS The Galapagos Islands contain the best known examples of divergent evolution because of isolation. Design an experiment where two populations (one on the mainland, one on an island) are isolated from each other, and see if and how the paths that evolution takes in the two populations differ. Keep in mind: * To get the full effect, and to have different evolutionare pressures, make the maindland large, and the island small. You'll have better luck with this one if you use a fairly large world. * Barriers over land or water will block walkers, but not flyers. To keep flying creatures from crossing the ocean, spreading their genes and messing up the experiment, have the island as far from the mainland as possible, and set the energy requirement for flying so high that an animal will starve to death before it can cross the ocean. PIG OUT Sometimes colonists bring animals from their old homes to new lands. Unfortunately, these animals always escape, and often don't have any natural enemies to keep their population down. A classic case is the pig in Hawaii. It not only has no natural enemies, but also eats many of the native plants down to the roots, killing them. [PAGE: 192] Design an experiment to simulate the destruction done by pigs in Hawaii, and try to come up with a solution for the problem. Keep in mind: * Setting the food value of plants to low in the Laws of Physics Window will cause herbivores to eat the entire plant and not just graze on the leaves. * Sometimes solutions to problems cause their own, worse problems. CRY WOLF Fans of the Farley Mowat book Never Cry Wolf (or the Disney movie based on the book) know of the importance of the balance between the populations of wolves and caribou. Design an experiment with a stable cyclic balance between wolves (carnivores) and caribou (herbivores), then go hunting and drastically reduce the wolf population. See if reducing the predators is better or worse for the prey. Keep in mind: * Watch the Population Interaction Window first for establishing the stable wolf/caribou relationship, then to see the results when the wolf population drops. * If you haven't read the book or seen the move, I recommend both. INBREEDING What happens when there is not enough genetic diversity within a species' gene pool? An April 1992 National Geographic article told of the modern-day woes of lions living in the Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania with just this problem. Design an experiment where the species with very little genetic diversity faces a new environmental pressure such as dwindling food source, climate change, or new predator. [PAGE: 193] THE CALIFORNIA WATER RUSH For the past five years, California has been suffering from a drought. Yet farmers still grow crops that require huge amounts of water and homeowners want large green (thirsty) lawns. Design an experiment where you have many water-hungry plants flourishing in a wet environment, then slowly start to dry things up. See if you can develop new strains of the old plants that require less water, or come up with new plants that will meet the same needs without needing the same water. [PAGE: 194] MISCELLANEOUS SIM-STUFF CONSERVING MEMORY SimLife can be a memory hog. If you have limited memory, you may want to do the following: * Use the smaller-sized worlds: the smaller the world, the less memory the simulation needs. * Use the Plant and Animal Limits in the Laws of Physics Window. * Turn off Record All Statistics in the Technical submenu of the Simulation Menu. MAKING THE SIMULATION RUN FASTER Aside from setting the actual simulation speed in the Speed submenu of the Simulation Menu, there are two basic ways to make the simulation run faster: limiting memory use and limiting screen redraws. The more information in memory, the more data the simulation has to check and recalculate every cycle. Ways to limit memory usage are: * Use the smaller-sized worlds: the smaller the world, the less memory the simulation needs. * Use the Plant and Animal Limits in the Laws of Physics Window. * Turn off Record All Statistics in the Technical submenu of the Simulation Menu. Dealing with graphics and redrawing the screen is very processor-intensive. Ways to limit redraws are: * Limit the number of windows you have open at a time. * Keep the Edit Window small. * Turn off Auto Tracking in the Goodies submenu of the Simulation Menu. When on, Auto Tracking can cause frequen screen redraws, which slow things down. * Turn off Update All Windows in the Goodies submenu of the Simulation Menu. [PAGE: 195] In addition, turning off sounds and music in the Goodies submenu of the Simulation Menu will free up the processor a little, and will increase speed just a little. You can also change the day and year length in the Laws of Physics Window, but this only changes the rate time passes, and doesn't actually make the simulation run any faster. THE WORLD BUILDING PROCESS When building a new world, the simulation follows these steps: 1. Draw fractal lines to make the upper ridges and peaks of mountain ranges. 2. Use Cellular Automaton techniques to gradually and randomly bring the peaks of the mountains down to the plains. 3. Pick points at mountain peaks and start rivers flowing down. 4. Let rivers wind downhill until they hit the plains. 5. Once on the plains, flood the rivers out into lakes. 6. Create the moistures zones: starting along the left edge of the screen, the wind blows the moisture from west to east. Air picks up moisture as it goes over lakes, loses it over plains, drops moisture on west side of mountains and is drier on the east side. Since air loses moisture going across plains, a long plain will turn into a desert without nearby water. 7. Create the temperature zones: start on left. Begin with a random but smooth distribution of temperatures, and sweep to the right. As you go over water, temperature becomes more moderate. As you go up in altitude, it gets colder. On flat ground, it gets hotter (desert effect). If you have few mountains and lakes you get a desert. 8. Build the soil layer. The best soil is under water and in moist zones. The soil gets worse as you go up in altitude. If you add water, it will not make the soil better. If you expose previously underwater soil, it will be good, but will start to erode immediately. [PAGE: 196] 9. Add the filter food. Filter food follows the moisture: moist areas and lakes have the most. Filter food changes with the seasons: more when it's warm with long days; wetness helps, too. DATA FILE TYPES SimLife uses a number of different types of data files to save plants, animals, and games. Here is a listing and explanation of each of the types. If there are variations for your particular computer, they will be covered in the machine-specific addendum. GAME DATA FILE Depending on world size and population, the Game file can range from 50KB to 500KB. The Game file does not save any of the census information. Included information: * The map * All species prototypes * All organisms and their locations on the map * The state of all windows and menu settings. INDIVIDUAL ANIMAL DATA FILE This file holds the species prototype for a plant, and is approximately 1KB in size. It is created from the Select Level of the Biology Lab when you click on the Save button. PLANT ZOO FILE This file holds the species prototypes for a group of plants. It is created from the Biology Lab using the Save All Plants button. Its size is approximately 1KB per plant. [PAGE: 197] ANIMAL ZOO FILE This file holds the species prototypes for a group of animals. It is created from the Biology Lab using the Save All Animals button. ITs size is approximately 1KB per animal. DATA LOG FILE Data Log files are created when you activate the Data Logging option in the Technical submenu of the Simulation Menu. When active, once a day all the simulation memory that is viewable in the Graph Census Window is dumped to disk. It is in a standard ASCII tab-delimited file format and cen be loaded into most spreadsheets and databases for charting, graphing and statistical analysis. The size of this file depends on the number of species and length of the game, and is approximately 1KB per day. This file is appendable: you can log data during a game or experiment, stop for a while, and come back to the game at a later time and continue logging to the same Data Log file. The Data Log file also contain genetic descriptions of each animal that lives during a game, plus enough genealogy info the eventually recreate the family trees of animals in your experiments. For more information and for the file format, see your machine-specific addendum. [PAGE: 198] GLOSSARY The SimLife manual provides many game-specific definitions for terms that are working definitions relevant to gameplay. Many of the following glossary definitions are more broad, formal denotations of terms. Adaptive Behavior - Responses - often genetically controlled - of an individual, group or species to the environment that aid survival and reproduction. Artificial Life - The study of and attempt to simulate life and lifelike processes in artificial media, including software (computer simulations), hardware (robotics), and wetware (organic material). Asexual - Involving or reproducing by reproductive processes (as cell division, spore formation, fissions, or budding) that do not involve the union of individuals or germ cells: lacking sex or functional sex organs. Carnivore - An organism that feeds on animals; a flesh-eating animal. Census - A usually complete enumeration of a population; specifically, a periodic governmental population count. Chromosome - A filamentous, threadlike structure in the cell nucleus (in eukaryotic cells), along which the genes are located. Deciduous - Falling off or shed seasonally or at a certain stage of development in the life cycle; shedding leaves each year. Diversity - Represented by a broad band of distinct elements or qualities; characterized by variety, difference and deep range. DNA - Any of various nucleic acids that are localized especially in cell nuclei that are the molecular basis of heredity in many organisms, and are constructed of a double helix held together by hydrogen bonds between purine and pyrimidine bases, which project inward from two chains containing alternate links of deoxyribose and phosphate. Ecology - A branch of science concerned with the interrelationship of organisms and their environments. Ecosystem - The sum total of physical features and organisms occuring in a given area. Environment- The sum total of physical, chemical and biotic factors (as climate, soil, and living things) that act upon on organism or an ecological community and ultimately determine its form and survival. Evergreen - Having foilage that remains green and functional through more than one growing season. Evolution - Change in the genetic makeup of a population with time; a theory that the various types of animals and plants have their origin in other preexisting types and that the distinguishable differences are due to modifications in successive generations. [PAGE: 199] Extinct - No longer active or existing. Filter Food - Organic matter or minute organisms often found in water currents that provide a source of nutrition for certain animals. Food Chain - the sequence of organisms, including producers, consumers, and decomposers, through which energy and materials are made and consumed in a community; an order of predation in which organisms use the next usually lower member as a food source. Foraging - A browsing, grazing or wandering search for food or provisions. Gene - A sequence of DNA nucleotides that codes for a particular polypeptide or an RNA molecule. Genes provide information for structure and function in organisms and are passed on in reproduction. Genealogy - An account of the descent of a person, family, or group from an ancestry or from older forms. Genetic Drift - Change in the gene pool purely as a result of chance, and not a result of selection, mutation, or migration. Genetics - A branch of biology that deals with the heridity and variation of organisms; the genetic makeup and phenomena of an organism, type, group, or condition. Genome - The total genetic information in an organism's nucleus. Germination - Sprouting or developing; coming into being or beginning to grow. Gestation - The carrying of young in the uterus and the concomitant developmental stages. Herbivore - An animal that eats plants. Humidity - Degree of wetness, especially atmospheric moisture. Intelligence - Ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations; the ability to apply knowledge to manipulate one's environment. Mutation - Any relatively stable heritable change in the genetic material. Natural Selection - Differential reproduction in nature, leading to an increase in the frequency of some genes or gene combinations and to a decrease in the frequency of others. Nectar - A sweet liquid that is secreted by the nectaries of a plant, sometimes a nutritional source for animals. Niche - The functional role and position of an organism in the ecosystem. Phenotype - The physical manifestation of a genetic trait; the features of form, function, and behavior of an organism; an expression of interaction between genotype and environment. [PAGE: 200] Precipitation - A deposit on the earth of hail, mist, rain, sleet, or snow; the quantity of water deposited. Predator - One that preys, destroys or devours; often a consumer of living tissue. Prey - An animal taken by a predator as food. Prototype - An individual that exhibits the essential features of a later type; an original model on which something is patterned. Recombination - The formation by the processes of crossing-over and independent assortment of new combinations of genes in progeny that did not occur in the parents. Speciation - The process of the formation of new species. Species - A category of biological classification ranking immediately below the genus or subgenus, comprising related organisms or populations potentially capable of interbreeding. Toxin - A poisonous substance that is a specific product of the metabolic activities of a living organism and is usually very unstable, notably toxic when introduced into the tissues, and typically capable of inducing antibody formation. SIMLIFE BIBLIOGRAPHY Adams, Douglas - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Harmony Book, 1979. Allen, John - Biosphere 2: The Human Experiment. Penguin Books USA, 1991. Ashby, W. Ross - Design for a Brain. Chapman & Hall, 1960. Bell, William J. - Searching Behavior: The Behavioral Ecology of Finding Resources. Chapman and Hall, 1991. Bradbury, Ian - The Biosphere. Belhaven Press, 1991. Dawkins, Richard - The Blind Watchmaker. W.W. Norton & Company, 1986, 1987. Dawkins, Richard - The Selfish Gene. New Edition. Oxford University Press, 1976, 1989. Eldredge, Niles - Macro-Evolutionary Dynamics: Species, Niches & Adaptive Peaks. McGraw-Hill, 1989. Goldberg, David E. - Genetic Algorithms in Search, Optimization & Machine Learning. Addison Wesley, 1989. Gonick, Larry and Mark Wheelis - The Cartoon Guide to Genetics. Updated Edition. Harper Perennial, 1983, 1991. [PAGE: 201] Gould, James L. and Carol Gould - Sexual Selection, Scientific American Library. 1989. Imes, Rick - The Practical Botanist: An Essential Field Guide to Studying, Classifying, and Collecting Plants. Simon and Schuster, Fireside, 1990. Keeton, William T. - Elements of Biological Science. W.W. Norton & Company, 1973. Langton, Christopher G., ed. - Artificial Life II: A Proceedings Volume in the Santa Fe Institute Studies in the Sciences of Complexity, Volume X. Addison Wesley, 1992. Langton, Christopher G., ed. - Artificial Life: A Proceedings Volume in the Santa Fe Institute Studies in the Sciences of Complexity, Volume VI. Addison Wesley, 1989. Lem, Stanislaw - The Cyberiad: Fables for the Cybernetic Age. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974. Meyer, Jean-Arcady, ed. - From Animals to Animats: Proceedings from the First International Conference on Simulation of Adaptive Behavior. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1991. Minsky, Marvin - The Society of Mind. Simon & Schuster, 1985, 1986. Packer, Craig - "Captives in the Wild." National Geographic, Vol. 181, No. 4 (1992): 122-136. Pianka, Eric R. - Evolutionary Ecology - Fourth Edition. Harper & Row, 1988. Terborgh, John - Diversity and the Tropical Rain FOrest. Scientific American Library, 1992. Vonnegut, Kurt - Galapagos. Delacorte Press, 1985. Wilson, E. O., ed, et al - Biodiversity. National Academy Press, 1986. Wilson, E. O. - Life on Earth. Sinauer Associates, Inc., 1978. Young, Paul - The Botany Coloring Book. Harper & Row, 1982. [PAGE: 202] INDEX A - C A Button 26, 99 About SimLife... 84 Accidents 157 Action 146, 147 Add a Group 124 Adult 144 Advanced 89 Age (% of Max) Graph 154 All Deaths 157 Altitude 120 Altitude Button 37 Altitude Tool 109 Analysis 77 Animal Food Sources 143 Animal Gene Groups 161 Animal Genome 141-147 Animal Icons 136 Animal Limits 179 Animal Variables 183 Animal Zoo File 197 Animals 18 Anywhere 124 Artifacts 38, 105, 181 Artificial Life 6 Auto Scroll 87 Auto Tracking 39, 87 Auto-Disasters 97 AutoSpeciate 92 Average 89 Avoid 144 Barrier Tool 114 Barriers 33, 121, 126 Beginner 89 Behavior 143 Biology Lab 43-45, 48, 55, 58-59, 94, 128-139 Biology Lab, Edit Lab 131-139 Biology Lab, Select Level 129-131 Biology Lab Buttons 43, 138 T Births Graph 154 Y Bowser 42, 93 P Brain Box 183 E Build World... 88 D Build World... Button 32, 61, 122 Build-A-Bug 54 B Carrot 40, 112 Y Causes of Death 157 Census Button 42, 43 R Census Submenu 95 Y Census Windows 69, 70, 152-174 G Census Windows Button 29 A Change Physics... 65, 90 R Change Picture to Match Prototype Genome 138 Change Prototype Genome to Match Picture 138 Chromosomes 20 Civilization 97 Clear Icon 85 Climate Lab 64, 94, 151 Climate Lab Button 64 Clone 39, 111 Close 84 Cold Wave 96 Comet 97 Conserving Memory 194 Continous Gene Display - Color 164 Continous Gene Display - Monochrome 162 Continous Genes 72, 159, 161 Control 60-61 Control Key 39, 80, 100 Copy Button 60, 129 Copy Icon 50, 85 D - F Danger 146, 147 Dashboard 24-29, 59-61, 94, 98-102 Data File Types 196-197 Data Log File 197 Data Logging... 92 Day Length 178 Day Length Variation 151 Days 14 Deaths Graph 154 Delete All Animals 130 Delete All Plants 130 Delete Button 129 Die-off 144 Difficulty Submenu 89 Disasters Menu 96 Discrete Genes 72, 159-160 Display Controls 99 Display Messages 87 Diversity 95 Diversity Window 171-173 DOS/Windows Dashboard 25, 98 Down-arrow Buttons 15, 27, 80 Drawing Order 105 Drought 97 Ecology 17 Ecology Score Graph 154 Ecosystem 17 Edit 94 Edit Button 129 Edit Level 44 Edit Menu 85 Edit Rectangle 30, 35, 118 Edit Species Genome 138 Edit Window 35, 63, 104-116 Edit Window Control Panel 36, 104, 106-116 Edit Window Display Area 105 Edit Window Tool Indicator 101 Edit Rectangle 30 Energy Requirement Bar 147 Environment 17 Evaluation 94 Evaluation Window 51, 187 Evaporation Rate 149 Evergreen Button 150 Everything 181 Evolution 21 Expert 89 Features 145 Females (%) Graph 154 File Menu 84 Filter Feeder Food 119 Filter Food 19, 119 Fire 97 Flash Cards 45, 48, 82, 132-134 Flood 96 Flower Season 149 Food 19, 146 Food (%) Graph 154 Food Chains 20 Food Slider 150 Food Sources 33, 121, 126 Food Tool 114 Food Value 176 Food Web 95 [PAGE: 203] Food Web Window 165-167 Food Webs 20 Forage Count 183 G - L Game Data File 196 Gender 46, 141, 148 Gene Pool 21, 95 Gene Pool Diversity 48, 134 Gene Pool Window 71, 158-164 Gene Poole 42 Gene Selection 162 Genes 20 Genetics 20 Genome Window 40, 46-47, 56-57, 140-150 Genomes 21 Gestation 145 Gestation Size 145 Gestation Time 145 Goals of SimLife 2 Goodies Submenu 87 Graph Display Area 155 Graph Information 154 Graph Selectors 153 Graph Time Scale 153 Graphs 95 Graphs Window 70, 152-155 Group Selection 160 Health 146, 149 Health (%) Graph 154 Health Costs 177 Heat Wave 96 Help Button 28, 31, 101, 116, 122, 124, 127, 139, 147, 150, 152, 156, 158, 176 Hide All Animals 88 Hide All Layers 88 Hide All Plants 88 Highlight 39, 112 History 95 History Window 42, 174 Home Gene Splicer-Dicer 47 Icon Section 134 Icons 49-50, 58 Ignore 144 In the Water 124 Individual Animal Data File 196 Individual Organism Naming System 81 Individual Plant Data File 196 Installation 10 Joystick 35-36, 105, 116 Kill Off 124 Lab Book 53, 70-71, 74 Lake Size 181 Large 127 Laws of Physics Window 65, 175-180 Layers Submenu 88 Life 16, 121, 144 Life Button 38 Life Span 144, 178 Life Tool 110-113 Llama 34, 39, 188 Load a Species 131 Load a Zoo 131 Local Species 16, 81, 153, 157, 160, 166 Locate an Individual Window 188 Locate an Individual... 91 M - P Macintosh Dashboard 25, 98 Main Links 166 Make Population Match Prototype Genome 138 Make Prototype Genome Match Population 139 Making a Living 172 Making the Simulation Run Faster 194 Map 94 Map Window 30, 117-122 Map Window Button 30 Map Window Control Panel 31, 118-122 Map Window Display Area 118 Mating Difference 48, 56, 134 Max 146, 147 Maximum Size Bar 147 Maximum Size Slider 150 Medium 127 Menu Bar 24 Menus 15, 24, 84-97 Metabolism Costs 177 Mice 13 Modified 89 Moisture 120 Moisture Tool 108 Moisture Zones 181 Mortality 95 Mortality Window 43, 156-157 Mountains 126 Move 39, 111 Movement 141 Movement Costs 176 Mutagen Tool 116 Mutagens 32, 121, 126 Mutation 145 Mutation Rate Slider 150 Nectar 46 Nectar Button 150 New Animal Button 130 New Game 84 New Game Window 23, 103 New Plant Button 130 New World Name 126 No Auto-Disasters 97 No Graph 154 Novice 89 Number of Children 145 Old Age Slider 150 On the Land 124 On-screen Tutorial 10 One Species 167 Open Game 84 Option Key 39, 80, 100 Organism Display Controls 99 P Button 26, 99 Palette 49 Paste Icon 85 Pause Button 29, 69, 101 % Female 145 % Genes from Father 48, 134 % of Biomass Graph 154 Persist 143 Phenotype 94 Phenotype Window 41, 184 Philosophy of Life 83 Plague 96 Plant Costs 178 Plant Gene Groups 161 Plant Genome 148-150 Plant Icons 135 Plant Limit 179 Plant Variables 182 Plant Zoo File 196 Plants 18 [PAGE: 204] Play Animal Sounds 87 Play Music 87 Play Other Sounds 87 Play Scenario Button 103 Populate 39, 111 Populate Window 33-34, 67-68, 123-124 Populate... 88 Populate... Button 33, 67-68, 122 Population 95, 159 Population Graph 154 Population Interaction Window 168, 169 Population Window 170 Prefer/Avoid/Ignore 144 Prototype 129 Prototype Genome 21, 82 Q - S Quit 84 Radiation (%) Graph 154 Rainfall Variation 151 Rating 187 Reconverge Species 92 Record All Statistics 91, 155 Recording Data 70 Recruit 112 Reference 79-197 Regional Weather Variation 125 Rename Button 60 Return to Select Level 60, 138 Rivers and Lakes 126, 181 Roamin' Noses 55 roaming 143 Run Control Window 189 Run Control... 91 Sacredness of All Life 54 Sample Experiments 190-193 Save 84 Save All Animals 130 Save All Plants 130 Save As... 84 Save Button 51, 129 Scenarios 23, 103 Score 187 Scrolling 36 Seasons 149 Seed Season 149 Seeds 149 Select Level 129 Selected Species 15, 27, 81, 99, 100, 123, 129 Selected Species Section 100 Set Defaults 180 Set Random Seed... 90 Set Time To 0 91 Share Food 143 Show All Animals 88 Show All Layers 88 Show All Plants 88 Show Clipboard 85 Show Genes 40, 113 Show Phenotype 41, 113 Show Plague Pink 89 Show Steps 181 Show Variables 40, 113 SimAnt(R) 4 SimCity(R) 4 SimEarth(R) 4 Simulation Menu 85 Simulation Stuff 178-197 Size 145 Size (% of Max) Graph 154 Small 127 Smite 39, 111 Software Toys(R) 4 Soil and Climate Change 180 Soil Depth 119 Speciate 41, 113 Speciate Window 41, 185-186 Speciation 22 Species 17 Species Naming System 80 Speed Submenu 85, 86 Splatt 53-78 Sprout Moisture 149 Sprout Season 149 Sprout Temperature 149 Starting Data 73 Status 187 STD 96 Stealth 145 Structure 148 System Simulation 4 T - Z Taking Data 76 Technical Submenu 65, 90 Teleport 97 Temperature 120 Temperature Button 37 Temperature Tool 107 Temperature Variation 151 Temperature Zones 181 Ticks 14, 36 Time Display 107 Time in SimLife 14 Tiny 127 Title Section 141 Toxin Tool 115 Toxins 32, 121, 126 Trails 122 Triangle Buttons 15, 80 Tricky Graphs 162 Turn Angle 143 Turn Type 143 Turning 143 Tutorials 10-78 Types of Genes 159 Ultra-Food 19, 33, 114, 121, 126 Undo 85 Update All Windows 88 Use Colors Button 160 Variables 94 Variables Window 40, 182-183 Vision 145 Water 121, 146 Water (%) Graph 154 Water Button 38 Water Slider 150 Water Tool 114 Weapons 145 Who's Eating Me? 157 Window-opening Buttons 29 Windows 98-197 Windows Menu 94 World Average Moisture 125 World Average Temperature 125 World Building Options Window 181 World Building Options... 91 World Buliding Process 195 World Design Window 32, 62, 125-127 World Design Window 32, 62, 125-127 Year Length 179 Years 14 SIM LIFE ADDENDUM & QUICKSTART GUIDE & KEYBOARD CHART AMIGA VERSION Typed by Rygar! Supplied by JBM SYSTEM INFORMATION HARDWARE REQUIRED AGA VERSION: A1200, A4000 using Workbench 3.0 with 2 MB of RAM. A hard drive is recommended. STANDARD VERSION: A500, A500+, A600, A1200, A1500, A2000, A3000, A4000 using Workbench version 1.3 or higher with a minimum 1 MB of RAM although 2 MB is recommended. A hard drive is also recommended. GENERAL INFORMATION This Addendum / Quick Start Guide contains all the Amiga - specific information to play SimLife. There are two versions of SimLife for the Amiga: AGA which fully supports A1200 and A4000 machines utilising the AGA graphics chipset and STANDARD which supports all non AGA Amiga machines. The disks supplied have been compressed and will require decompressions before use. If you intend to play SimLife from floppies, please ensure that you have 3 formatted blank disks for the game to install onto. See Installation instructions below. NO COPY PROTECTION SimLife is not copy protected. This is an experiment and a big leap of faith for us. We are trusting you not to give away copies of this game. Copy protection is a pain - for all of us - and we'd like to stop using it forever, but if SimLife falls victim to piracy, then we will revert to using protection on future products. HIGH RESOLUTION MODE If you are using the AGA version of SimLife you have the capabilities of operating in high resolution mode if you have a multisync monitor attached. The standard version may also be operated in high resolution if you have a flicker fixer and 2MB or more with a multisync monitor. QUICK-START GUIDE INSTALLATION Both AGA and STANDARD versions of the SimLife program have identical installation programs. To install SimLife: 1. Insert the SimLife Disk 1 into your internal disk drive. 2. Reset you Amiga. 3. Follow the on screen instructions choosing graphical requirements and install destination (either floppy or hard disk), swapping disks when necessary. STARTING THE PROGRAM FROM HARD DISK After installation (see above), using Workbench open the folder that the game has been installed to and double-click on the SimLife icon to play. FROM FLOPPY DRIVE Insert the disk labelled `SIMLIFE1' into your internal drive and reset your machine. The game will load automatically. THE ON-SCREEN TUTORIAL After starting SimLife, you will see the New Game Window. Click on the Tutorial (?%.RlTBZ47-ڇԵҜ&dZsZI{,@-tFݥk`*|Aˇ.dbNj_5KP Ec)7}6uRr747$׍D=Px(̝$soɚ)GIR=lAS[ڂ/E= Ԇnv7 Ҋkt;FB.4 M5lb=')Wg4Zs]Y 9K>0[$oDj<kK^iؐ~rp&IY?4< s@NuSE4aRB-̦XdA|q %. 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Type Year.Day.Tic SpeciesID Message DELE 0000.000.000 1.00.01.030 `SpeciesName' has been deleted. Each time a species is deleted, the event is reported. Type Year.Day.Tic SpeciesID Message CREA 0000.000.000 1.00.01.030 `SpeciesName' has been created. Each time a species is created, the event is reported. Type SpeciesID Species Name LEGN 0.00.01.000 "Elephant" At the beginning of each data log is a legend or listing of each species identifier and species name. This can be used as a key to look up the name of a species from its identifier number. Type Year.Day.Tic OrgotID MothersID Genetic Data GENE 0000.000.000 1.00.01.001 1.00.01.000 See below Each time a plant or animal is populated or born, the genetic information for that individual is reported. Since animals have more genetic data than plants, animals have several additional fields in addition to the basic fields. DATA and YEAR Fields All of the following fields are recorded for DATA (daily census statistics) and YEAR (yearly census summaries) for each active species. Simulation time; Species ID: Total species population, including seeds for plants; for plant species, the number of seeds, if any; Species population, not including unsprouted seeds; Number of births or sprouts in this species; Number of deaths in this species; Water level for this species; Health level for this species; Number of females in the species population; Average age of the species population; Average size of the species population; Total biomass of this species. GENE Fields for Plants These are the fields recorded for each individual plant: Simulation time; OrgotID: OrgotID of this orgot's mother; Food Store gene; Water Store gene; Health Store gene; Height gene; Mutation gene; Life span gene; Stealth gene; Birth/Death gene; Movement/food source gene; Reserved gene (not used for genetics). GENE Fields for Animals These are the fields recorded for each individual animal. They are the same as the plant genes above, plus the following additional fields: Behaviour gene; Vision gene; Food Action gene; Water Action gene; Health Action gene; Food Danger gene; Water Danger gene; Health Danger gene; Gestation Time gene; Gestation Size gene; Metabolism/Gender/Share Food gene; Adult age gene; Weapons gene; Turn Style gene; Persistence gene; Species0 attract/repel gene; Species1 attract/repel gene; Species2 attract/repel gene; Species3 attract/repel gene; Species4 attract/repel gene; Species5 attract/ repel gene; Species6 attract/repel gene; Species7 attract/repel gene. KEYBOARD CHART File Commands ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Right Amiga Key + N = New Game... Right Amiga Key + O = Open Game... Right Amiga Key + W = Close Game... Right Amiga Key + S = Save Right Amiga Key + Q = Quit Speed Commands ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Right Amiga Key + P = Pause Right Amiga Key + - = Slow Right Amiga Key + = = Medium Right Amiga Key + F = Fast Right Amiga Key + U = Ultra Opening Windows ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Right Amiga Key + E = Edit Right Amiga Key + M = Map Right Amiga Key + T = Climate Lab Right Amiga Key + B = Biology Lab Right Amiga Key + O = Dashboard Right Amiga Key + 1 = Variables Right Amiga Key + 2 = Phenotype Right Amiga Key + 3 = Evaluation Right Amiga Key + 4 = Diversity Right Amiga Key + 5 = Food Web Right Amiga Key + 6 = Gene Pool Right Amiga Key + 7 = Graphs Right Amiga Key + H = History Right Amiga Key + 8 = Mortality Right Amiga Key + 9 = Population Technical Commands ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Right Amiga Key + Y = Change Physics Right Amiga Key + L = Locate an Individual Right Amiga Key + D = Data Logging Goodies and Options ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Right Amiga Key + J = Music on/off Right Amiga Key + K = Sound on/off Right Amiga Key + A = Auto Tracking on/off Other Keys ~~~~~~~~~~ Tab = Toggles between Plant and Animal in the Dashboard Escape = Cancels operations, deselects selections, and sets Life Tool to No Tool Left Alt Key = In the Edit Window: Hold down Left Alt Key while cloning to cause mutation Hold down while raising or lowering Temperature or Moisture to limit effect to one tile. Hold down while using Carrot to call only Highlighted animal. Left Alt Key = In the Dashboard: Hold down while clicking an On/Off button to turn all plants or animals on or off. Hold down while selecting a colour/symbol to set all plants or animals to that colour/symbol. Hold down while clicking on the Pause button to single-step the simulation one Tick. Left Alt Key = In the Graphs Window: Hold down while selecting the Local Species or Information to set all four Selectors at once. Left Alt Key = In the Map Window: Hold down while clicking the Populate... button to randomly populate the world. Left Alt Key = In the Food Web Window: Hold down while clicking on a predator to open the Population Interaction Window. Left Alt Key = In Data Logging Dialogue Box: Hold down while toggling any checkbox on or off to turn them all on or off.