Observe and inspect
This page is derived from the canonical player-guide; its content has one source of truth.
Observe and inspect
Playback starts at Slow, targeting one generation per second so you can notice changes. The Speed selector offers Slow, Normal (the previous default pace), and Fast. Pause for close inspection, or use Step to advance one generation while paused. Speed changes playback timing, not ecological rules, decision checkpoints or recorded outcomes. Your selection stays in effect during the current visit, including restarts and follow-up trials; a fresh page starts at Slow.
The world is a 50×50 toroidal grid: movement across an edge wraps to the opposite edge. The canvas depicts organisms, species colors, and resource patches. Use Pause before close inspection: a paused run keeps the state stable while you select an organism. The watching view keeps generation, living population, species counts and camera actions near the habitat. The full eight-counter statistics strip is below the habitat; Measurements jumps directly to it without changing the world. On a narrow screen, scroll to reach detailed inspection and the observatory.
Beside each species count, a small arrow compares its population with a recorded observation up to six generations earlier: ↑ means a higher count, ↓ a lower count, and → the same count at the two endpoints. The interval is shown explicitly (for example, /6g means six generations); early in a run it can be shorter. The nearby activity summary also reports actual mean resources per cell, so resource changes can be read alongside population changes. These are measurements, not predictions, survival scores or explanations of cause. Equal endpoint counts do not mean nothing changed between them. A cue is omitted when matching recent measurements are unavailable.
Select a living organism to pause and inspect its current species, strategy, energy, age and family. Inspect living organism keeps a magnified, measured preview beside the habitat rather than scrolling away from it. Use Pin this family to follow its founder lineage, or More organism details to deliberately open the full Creature Inspector. While a cell is selected, World activity & species keeps the aggregate counts and current policy available in a disclosure. Resuming clears the cell inspection; the family pin remains. Selection is observation, not an intervention, and does not change the simulation.
Species focus de-emphasizes other species; selected organisms and pinned families remain bright even when they belong to a different species. The overview uses quiet resource and hazard shading, with exact-cell marks on empty cells at 2× zoom or closer. Cell inspection retains exact resource and hazard values at every zoom. White rays and a static dot mark births, gold circles mark feeding, gold diamonds distinguish recorded prey capture, and red crosses mark deaths. Marks show the recorded event location, not a reconstructed movement path or the identity of a later occupant of that cell. Transient pulses are a bounded visual sample, prioritizing observed organisms and recorded members of the pinned family, including recent deaths; feeding does not consume every priority slot. The recorded events and measured totals are unchanged. Reduced motion suppresses transient pulses. The shared organism artwork is illustrative role styling, not measured anatomy or additional mechanics. Producers use a six-lobed rosette, grazers a notched kidney-shaped body, scavengers a sloping segmented body, hunters a broad dart with a forked tail, and omnivores an asymmetric four-lobed body. Small cells emphasize body shape and species color; zoom reveals internal detail. The same artwork source supplies the habitat, role keys, inspector and final image.
The Creature Inspector sits directly below the board's species-focus controls. Its compact summary shows species, role, energy, age, and living founder-family count; Follow and Clear remain available without opening Detailed organism inspection. Detailed measurements start collapsed and can be expanded when useful. Species-focus controls stay next to the board even while details are expanded. Observed extinction milestones retains the first observed extinction generation of each configured species and of a family followed when its last member disappeared. Clearing inspection or stopping following does not remove recorded milestones; starting another run resets them. A family already absent when first followed has no observed extinction transition. These notices report what happened, not why.
The World Observatory summarizes population, prey/predator counts, births, deaths, kills, resources, species richness, lineages, and the recent ecological history. These are aggregate simulation counters, not estimates of real-world populations. The decision ledger records accepted evolution decisions and their evidence/source. A fallback entry is not Jev evidence.
Explore with the camera
Primary camera controls sit above the habitat. Close-up switches the current view to 2× without pausing or changing the simulation; Full world restores the complete habitat. Use +/− for individual zoom steps from 1× to 3×. To track a family, pause and inspect a creature, choose Pin this family, then Follow family; the nearby hint explains when a living family is available. Options opens advanced camera controls below the inspector, so species controls and extinction notes remain beside the board. Drag with a mouse while zoomed. On touch screens, enable Drag to pan before dragging the board; turn it off to scroll the page over the board. A tap without a drag still pauses and inspects the selected cell. With the board focused, +/− changes zoom, Shift+arrow keys pan, and 0 resets. Ordinary arrow-key inspection remains available.
Inspect a living organism and choose Follow organism to track its identity as it moves. Pin a founder lineage in the inspector, then choose Follow pinned family to track that family's oldest living member. When that member dies, family tracking moves to the oldest survivor; it does not claim to frame the entire family. Crossing a wrapping edge moves the camera to the opposite side. The view stays within world bounds, so organisms near an edge need not be centered. If the organism dies, the family becomes extinct, or its pin changes, the full world returns with an explanation. Stop camera follow or manual panning releases camera tracking without removing the lineage pin.
Camera panel actions return you to the board once and focus it for keyboard control. Later deliberate scrolling is preserved through playback, theme changes and target loss. A lost-target or changed-pin explanation also appears beside the board. Clearing or changing a family pin permanently releases its camera tracking; re-pinning only highlights the family until you explicitly choose camera following again.
Camera changes do not alter rules, organisms, random state or replay outcomes. Pause and theme changes preserve the view; restarting or replaying starts at full-world view. Exported result images continue to show the full world rather than the camera crop.
Read outcomes without overclaiming
A simulation can finish as extinct, surviving, or thriving. Extinction means the simulated population reached zero; thriving is an engine-defined end state, not a biological judgment. Ordinary trials stop at generation 180 at the latest; opted-in fixed habitats stop at their explicitly chosen observation limit. The world may end earlier if it becomes extinct. If you pinned a founder family, the ending retains its actual living-member count or recorded extinction generation; an unrecorded extinction time stays unknown.
Resources regenerate and can be depleted; organisms feed, move, reproduce, mutate, age, and die according to engine rules. Fitness weights influence bounded mechanics; they do not promise that the named priority wins. Mutation can be neutral or harmful. The engine does not rescue a population to make a better story.
If something looks wrong
- Choices differ from what I wrote: setup maps prose to finite values; inspect the normalized review rather than assuming every phrase has a direct mechanic.
- The world ends quickly: extinction is an allowed result. Try different resources, hazard, founder balance, or priorities, then start a new run.
- No live model interpretation: the game can use deterministic fallback. Check the displayed provenance; never label fallback as a model response.
- Replay rejected: check for truncation/tampering and supported engine version; replay validation intentionally rejects unsupported payloads.
- Controls or inspector are off-screen: pause, scroll, and use the vertically stacked mobile layout.