Intelligent Design: An Evolutionary Sandbox cover
Intelligent Design: An Evolutionary Sandbox screenshot
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Genre: Simulator, Strategy, Indie

Intelligent Design: An Evolutionary Sandbox

The Code Has Been Broken
A few days ago I received an email from a player who successfully unlocked the final achievement. This triggered me to release the source code of the organism AI which you can find in this guide.

Now you have identified the corners of this puzzle it's time to piece together the core.

Patch Notes 01/07/2017

  • General performance improvements to AI
  • Turning off post processing no longer turns off fog (fog actually improves performance)
  • The population cap is more aggressive - remember you can turn this off in the system menu if you want to push your rig

When someone completes and explains the "Code Breaker" achievement I'll release the AI source code
As soon as one of you guys has unlocked the final achievement "Code Breaker" and can explain all the steps needed to solve it I will release the AI source code.

I've been inspired by watching you all set up experiments and test hypothesises to try and work out what each gene does. You have been doing all that by looking at the behaviours and appearances of the organisms. Having the source code will be like doing a dissection.

Even with the source code you'll still need to do some experiments and work things out. I wrote the code and I still don't know what the perfect creature is!

Those of you who don't want to see it won't have to but I know some of you would love the chance to really poke around.

...of course you'll still have to solve the puzzle and unlock that achievement first.

Once you think you've done it and can explain it send an email to sean [at] pillbug [dot] zone.

Patch Notes 25/06/2017

  • Added a population cap. It is enabled by default but can be disabled in the options menu. It isn't a hard cap but the success probability of seed/egg decreases as your population approaches a cap. This should help people on low end machines late game.
  • Reduced performance impact of fire effect
  • Fixed a bug when saving data with time acceleration

Now Available for MacOS
Intelligent Design: An Evolutionary Sandbox is now available on MacOS. Thanks to everyone who helped me test the Mac version.

If you have been on the fence about buying the game be sure to look at all the patch notes since launch, a number of requested features have been added to the game.

If you do decide to jump in join us on discord and help each other unravel the mysteries in the game...

Patch Notes 10/06/2017
Pushed out a small patch with a few requested features. Join the discussion on the game's official discord server here.

  • Graphs now only show the last week or so of data. This both solves the bug which occurred when the graph was trying to drawn thousands of data points and makes the graphs more useful. The full history from the dawn of time is still written into xml files, just click on the data folder button in the system menu to find those.
  • I have changed the genetic mutation operator.
  • CPU overhead of AI and some other systems has been reduced. Some of you should notice a performance improvement, let me know how this goes.
  • Added multiple save slots for each map.

Patch Notes 03/06/2017
A small yet significant patch today...

  • I have added a secret ability to the game which is permanently unlocked when you complete all the performance targets in one of your saves. This is something some of you are really going to love! If you already have a save game with all the performance targets completed just load it and it will unlock the abilities for all future new games. The ability really changes the pace of the game which is why I've hidden it under these objectives.
  • The speed of the drone can now be customised in the system menu
  • I have added an 'Effects' toggle in the system menu. This turns off the more performance intensive particle effects. These are also now dynamically turned on and off based on framerate. It should really help with large plant populations and lower end systems.
  • Improved the 'hit detection' on the genetic engineering sliders


Official Discord Server
Just a quick announcement to say I've set up a discord server to help you discuss the game, work together to solve some of the mysteries and do some SCIENCE.

Hope to see you there!

Patch Notes 29/05/2017

Save/Load Custom Creatures


You can now save and load custom organisms. These files can also be shared between players, just put them in the relevant folder before you launch the game.

Improvements



  • Added a button in the system menu which directs you to the save data location to easily find the xml data and custom organisms
  • Improved UI scaling to help those of you on lower resolutions


I have also uploaded a beta Mac OS version, if anyone is able to help me test that let me know and I'll send you a key.

Patch Notes 20/05/2017
I've pushed out a patch today with two new features and a tweak.


  1. I have added a gene inspector on the genetics panel. Now when you have the genetics panel open and point the cross hair at a creature you will see the value of that creature's gene. This means you can only see genes which you have unlocked.
  2. The game now auto-saves every in-game night at midnight unless you un-check the check box in the system menu
  3. I have tweaked the fire model to try and stop plants burning forever (I've seen it happen on a few streams)


Let me know what you think!
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