Creating An Ecosystem Simulation Game In 6 Months

Creating An Ecosystem Simulation Game In 6 Months
In this video, I detail my process of prototyping an Ecosystem Simulation Game by showing a broader step-by-step process of how I create it. Then I run a couple simulations and watch the creatures go through the process of evolution and share a few of my personal thoughts and mental struggles that accompanied me on this journey.
Follow me on twitter: funmastered
Join my discord to get updates on the game: discord.gg/dbt9m4vvwx
GAME IS OUT (IN DEMO)! Play below:
Game Page (Demo): fun-master-ed.itch.io/ecozone
Further Reading - BEST books on Ecosystems and Agent-based Modeling:
Darwin's On the Origin of Species - amzn.to/49GCTSv (If you're interested in evolution, this is a must read.)
Growing Artifical Societies - amzn.to/3OI2AKo (First complex artificial life CA simulation - Sugarscape. Also a must-read for simulation, agent-based modeling enthusiasts.)
Selfish Gene: amzn.to/49isEny
Basics of Programming: amzn.to/42HDOzC
Chapters:
0:00 Intro/Exposition
2:14 Beginning the project
2:55 Designing the creature
5:36 An Important lesson from Coevolution
7:47 Designing the plants
9:20 Procedurally generated terrain
10:17 How it works
11:46 Simulations
Additional Information/Disclaimer:
Currently, the phenotypes of the creatures aren't procedural enough as there are only 5 possible torsos, with varying degrees of Storage. This may skew the weight, which impacts the speed. I'll fix this if I ever do a part two.
Anyways, I hope you enjoy the video!

[@eddie.z]

Hi all thanks for watching! I want to address some things that could clarify some stuff. I received a bit of constructive criticism with the video - Overly pretentious Agree, I will tone it down next video - Video footage seems off That's my bad, it was a period of about 6 months and I forgot about alot of the footage/they were lost. If this ever happens again I will use relevant footage - Redundant Agree, I'll tackle a unique angle of this niche if I ever am to do another video on this topic. I also received some questions - Will the game be a full release? nope, it's just a small interactive simulator you and your friends will be able to use - Source Code? yeah... I don't know when this will happen, but i'll make sure to do it - Long term project? I plan on providing support for bugs, but no more updates for now. People have done insanely good things with ecosystem simulators already So yeah thanks for the support too, hope this clarifies some things up, if you have any extra comments/concerns add I'll add it to this list.

[@UnderfundedScientist]

Big hype

[@Eddie-hk5es]

nice

[@username2748]

@@Eddie-hk5es nah bro commented on his alt thats crazy

[@jeffreychandler8418]

I personally would love a part 2

[@williamtresise4721]

this is rlly good

[@skylinedev2]

I love the ending so much. - "Through out this project, I was constantly wondering whether it is all worth it. My community was desperate waiting for new video for over 6 months, friends are wondering whether I am making something, and most importantly there were tons of other games and simulations that are much better. So, why should I even try? But at the very end, after all the trials and tribulations, seen all the progress and beautiful thing I accomplished. Most importantly, creating something I am proud of i can share with the world. I realized that even that was not the best, the experience, the knowledge, and the memories would be all well worth it. " 😀

[@pigsterthepig448]

For some reason, the video just ends at 16:27 for me. Is this happening to anyone else?

[@av3nt4dor8]

@@pigsterthepig448 because it’s that long

[@skylinedev2]

​@@pigsterthepig448 I guess, this video has been updated. At its launch version, it had this this beautiful ending part. It resonated with me so much, then I decided to type them out and share with all of us.

[@healingpower1042]

hay man I hope he stays his work

[@BruhFruhRuh]

@@av3nt4dor8 no its 16:28

[@brainbroad2091]

After watching the whole video, I might be able to explain why it is difficult for more cycles to persist. It is the size of the map. The map is too small to support a complex community that you are looking for. The more space you have, the more land to forage, hunt and recover. With such limited space, your populations are naturally become unstable due to the limited resources. The larger the map, the easier a plant can recover from overharvesting as the herbivores take over and will succumb to the predators. There is an interesting thing to note that drives this point home is the shrinking of your herbivores. This is a classic example of insular dwarfism. Probaby since your bodysize stat accounts for food storage, it was beneficial for the ai to shrink. Insular dwarfism occurs as an organism will shrink compared to their relatives to adapt to limited resources. Great living examples are Key Deer, a subspecies of White Tailed Deer found in the Fla Keys and will rarely get as tall as your waist, however most examples are no longer with us due to humans

[@benrudolph5582]

US, California, "Catalina Island Fox" also evolved dwarfism, becoming roughly the size of a house cat.

[@cxwhitt3097]

We have dwarf white tails in the San Juan's as well. Same reasoning as the Keys, smaller food stores and easier to swim from island to island.

[@Penndemonium]

12:10 these creatures were like "ha! food too far away? simple. just teleport." and i admire them for that 12:46 OMG THEY DID IT AGAIN. legendary.

[@UsmanDev]

Amazing video! Felt like a proper documentary that showcased your simulation. Great work

[@eddie.z]

thanks Usman!

[@ilaik]

If you keep going you chanel is going to blow up. Please keep doing this series.

[@eddie.z]

Will do

[@amit6875]

​​​@@eddie.z damb, that was a long time ago😢

[@rystal]

this is an absolute piece of art, the editing is SO FREAKING GOOD WHAAAAAAT

[@eddie.z]

Thanks Rystal!

[@seek.....]

Add a reply...

[@lucasinatur2925]

You could add something like biomes or different properties for different areas like "humid" or "desert".

[@eddie.z]

On my list. I'd also have to add a bunch of accompanying features to go with that but its going to happen

[@zwenkwiel816]

ah yes good idea, more variation would likely lead to more stability

[@vaule2930]

Mind-blowing

[@eggela]

Mind-blowing

[@BadAnimations-se8le]

Mind-blowing

[@Something_Simple]

Mind-blowing

[@fahimmiah9280]

Exactly what JFK said 🤯

[@brainbroad2091]

I love the inclusion of plant evolution to adapt to herbivores. One my favorite examples is the (now extinct) moa and lancewood trees. You see, Moa were the apex plant eater in NZ acting as elephant and deer, with a wide ranging diet and long reach for leaves. Their voracious appetite lead to one of the very few examples in ontogenic dimorphism in plant morphology. This means the body and parts of the tree change as it ages! The lancewoods start their lives with leaves filled with defenses to protect it from being chewed up by the birds. The leaves have a silica glass in their sap rich with poison to tear the throats of the bird, and the leaf structure was more like the front of a swordfish. However as the tree reached a height above the grasp of the moa, the leaf shape would change to finally fill the canopy without worry of predation!

[@lightyear3429]

I suppose, that's why moa went extinct? ; )

[@rauldrac1]

I always have so much fun looking at this kind of videos were someone makes a virtual ecosystem and explain the mechanics behind it. I encourage you to do more of this.

[@Munch0ni]

severely underrated video, you’re a natural at making compelling and entertaining vids. Look forward to more :]

[@OutdoorsJack]

How do you only have 6k subs man . This video was one of the best I've seen in a while . Awesome job

[@K9Thunder619]

KZbin channels with videos like this have a million + subscribers I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw you only had under 10k! Just subbed and keep up the good work this was awesome to watch and your voices perfectly matches the edits and vid

[@futureskyline2033]

I love the moment when the creature suddenly spot the food. My attention is fully engaged and the sound effect is awesome. 😂

[@hyperfixatedd]

This is amazing, I'd be delighted to see more from this project

[@shadowcrafter01]

Even just seeing the intro I can see you put much effort into this. Definitely gonna watch til the end!

[@achtsekundenfurz7876]

That intro reminds me of a game which starts out as Factorio Light until the player character has a "What have I done" moment and spends the 2nd half restoring nature, finally leaving a beautiful world behind. No clue what the name was, tho. :( And this is an executable.4k (!) in size, which catches that mood quite well, too: kzbin.info/www/bejne/oHOTp3WjnrmlbNE

[@noelhermann6877]

I just love stumbling upon videos like that just blow my mind. Its not only an inspiration for people that code / develope things but also entertainment. I love the editing, the content and the way you deliver it. Very glad i came by this channel and i really hope (if thats what you aim for) that its gonna blow up and you can inspire more people with your content. Keep going my man, you really got the guts for it.

[@MC_CN]

Your production levels are on a quality similar to that of /Disrupt or Inside A Mind! Keep it up!

[@reuben4721]

really good video, editing is very well done, keep it up

[@the_slurp_kinghansen5936]

I am… AMAZED! Thank you for making this i hope for the best (and never give up even in the darkest moments you just gotta power past it) Good luck loved the video!!)

[@That1Knife]

Definitely something I would not finish, probably not start either because I'd know I couldn't even get 1/4 of the way. Proud of you, good job.

[@krissosful]

Awesome job, thanks a lot for sharing👏👏

[@kaigokumikanamo16]

this is how i want my yt feed to be....good editing and good content, you've just earned urself a sub man

[@vaderdev]

this was well made my guy!!!

[@rushcode.]

Yeah! Just go for it man! This video was beautifully documented. It was an absolute delight to watch and glad to see you're still making amazing things. I can only dream of making something like this in the distant future. I can't imagine the amount of work that went into learning how to make this simulation and detailing the video...It was totally worth it! Let nothing stop you!

[@Blocky_Frog]

This is great! Instantly subscribed, surprised you’re not more popular.

[@stickworldanimated9545]

This is Amazing good job!

[@JabolPunk_33]

Amazing work!

[@plusultraIscool]

You make amazing vids, and deserve more subs, keep it up

[@hallucinatinghawk3917]

This is truly awesome. I’m into biology, terrariums, and video games. Perfect!

[@howtogame2745]

This is actually amazing

[@neehans1490]

I FIND THIS VERY INTRESTING i hope u continue working on the game and making it AMAZING

[@gartersnake3288]

this editing is amazing

[@zn3128]

I am brand new to DAW and soft soft - these tutorials are excellent an very helpful to get soone like up and running. Appreciate

[@kamilstudios]

Awesome! Although I don't really understand much from the video (I'm a game animator with really basic coding knowledges), it is always interesting to watch how programmer building the system and logic for the game / simulation. Keep up the great work! You've got a new subscriber :)

[@erinkarp]

It's been great seeing more and more evo sims popping up on youtube

[@linusadestedt6517]

Definitely worth a subscription!

[@killermushroom4579]

underrated keep going your futures bright

[@zaidlacksalastname4905]

First unity video I've seen where nothing goes wrong. Bit of a change of pace when you just skip to when it's working. Great video!

[@galaxytsd]

Now this is the content im looking for

[@novakain4736]

please do not end this project. evolution has no end, and therefore this has endless possibilities. id love a speculative evolution simulation based game, like if this game and spore have a love child.

[@xx4002]

this is amazing

[@Nahemii]

Thats really cool! Would love to see it work out one day and become a lasting cycle :D

[@journeyg4249]

almost everything you say I don't know what your talking about since I know very little in coding. such a great video you made!

[@PunmasterSTP]

That was really well-done!

[@eddie.z]

Thanks!

[@EvanDoesDev]

First also so excited to watch!

[@bobinwobbin4094]

absolutely insane that you only have 6k subs keep it going

[@Rotaka]

Fascinating idea and incredibly well-made, too! I love the production quality, looking forward to your next video ! :)

[@P1xls-lp8hf]

Ive loved ecosystems but now a game! Amazing!

[@prologik85]

Simply awesome man!!! I'm sure my IQ was increased on at least 10 points. Congrats on your great work.

[@kingfhd2424]

bro this is the best game developing video i have ever watched. i want to play this so bad

[@nerd6174]

I was into ecosystems and coding so like DREAM VID

[@username2748]

Dang that’s crazy

[@spacerattheratfromspace7024]

Very amazing and underrated!

[@HALMC]

this is what i was looking for

[@steve_cat5504]

I like the editing

[@gameobject5487]

truly incredible

[@eddie.z]

appreciate it

[@UnderfundedScientist]

Absolutely legendary

[@eddie.z]

Appreciate it

[@UnderfundedScientist]

@@eddie.z seriously excited for the next episode

[@TylerGreen]

Loving the research involved with this video. Felt like a short film! This was a very interesting how the animals favored eating. Curious to see how the predator data will look if you make a part 2. Really nice job, would make an excellent course/class. Also curious, around 13:10 is that the music from Interstellar?

[@eddie.z]

it is! Thanks Tyler

[@breadrug3709]

HOLY CRAP THIS IS SO FFFF GOOD

[@geo1082]

KZbin recommended ever so often bring me a good video

[@AL-fl4jk]

I’ve been waiting for something like this forever. I used to play Darwin pond 😅

[@Eljay_Kay]

Getting strong Johnny Harris vibes from the narration. I love it!

[@deeznuts9027]

4:47 That is a fucking awesome detail

[@Frosty-zd4rl]

Amazing! Also very informative. If you keep makin' stuff like this you'll get up there in no time. EDIT: Also, despite what other people said, I didn't feel like it was super pretentious or anything. I feel like it was more professional/scholarly than pretentious if anything; and I get how those could be confused. By the way, what's the intro song? I really like it lol

[@eddie.z]

Thanks for feedback! The intro song is called Cold War Games, it's on epidemic sound :) Thanks for watching!

[@ravinrabits4858]

@@eddie.z yeah, what do they mean by pretentious? I didn't pick any of that up while watching the video.

[@profaneddonut5342]

the start look like they're moving at lightspeed and i love it

[@barodrinksbeer7484]

Hey, I would recommend trying R (stats programming language) for data analytics of your sims. It can be ported with Unity/manually imported. It will read your data much faster then excel.

[@healingpower1042]

you have a great future a lot better then now

[@HimitsuHunter]

One thing you could try is having the Predators and prey have a mechanism to swap between behaviors. Predators that can become herbivores and herbivores that can become predatory. And probably you can add a mechanism that lets the plants reward the predators for preying on herbivores. Those 2 things would likely stabilize your ecosystem and make it more dynamic as well.

[@BBearVR]

OMG IS THIS VIDEO IS SO UNDERRATED❤

[@Magicpencil-go6ke]

Legendary

[@eddie.z]

Thanks

[@Takehere]

Incredible !!

[@eddie.z]

Thanks!

[@karloleskovar1080]

I bet ur a beast at it now

[@ItzClaud]

Good job

[@justabasichuman5057]

this guy is gona blow up i can tell

[@yernero9686]

Great video

[@TheBetterMaddox]

ooooo i cant wait to playyyyyy :)))))

[@yungbullgamin]

Amazing vid!

[@eddie.z]

Thanks!

[@yungbullgamin]

Is there any way i can test this simulation or is it still too soon?

[@eddie.z]

@@yungbullgamin I'm going to refactor the code and add a bit of functionality before I release it. It's quite buggy right now. This should take a while though since I am relatively busy these days, but I'll get to it

[@yungbullgamin]

@@eddie.z totally undestandable💪🏾 stay motivated ! Your doing great

[@thepoggersmomentsarereal8130]

This is great. Would love to see simulations of plant evolution too!

[@eddie.z]

Thanks

[@thepoggersmomentsarereal8130]

@@eddie.z no problems !

[@Eddie-hk5es]

yes

[@rogueemerald742]

this deserves waaay more views

[@Eddie-hk5es]

indeed

[@healingpower1042]

Hey and I love your video

[@leviathan3729]

i like this tipe of simulation videos, please do more (if you can). i know that probably you already thought to add this but you should add a mimic version of each type of animal that isn't edible or that is stronger, ecc... so that the predators and the population of the other type of beings can be well stable. p,s, this video is really well done. keep on doing videos

[@eddie.z]

Thanks, yeah that's a good idea. Mimic vs Monarch is a pretty cool scenario to test out

[@ak471077]

Great video man!! Minor sound issue: your voice is soft at times and the music loud...

[@bencressman6110]

I think with these kind of projects, it gets really hard when you try to hard-code too many emergent phenomena. (Predator/prey, even plant/animal) There’s just so much troubleshooting that has to happen and in the end I think it boils down to the lack of resources to have millions of entities in a massive environment with many niches. It’s just too computationally laborious. The Bibites are great in how they use neural networks b/c this allows for more emergent behaviours, but even that project falls prey too many of the same pitfalls. It’s a constant fight between computational power, simulation size, simplicity of game rules, and simplification of emergent phenomena in our own biosphere. Does that make sense? This was really cool, and I’m excited to see more. I especially like that you made the flora dynamic so it could interact with the animals. I look forward to seeing more, but it’s a hard task you’ve set for yourself.

[@ankush4484]

thank you so much

[@joeykubler430]

Wow. I loved this video so much. I am new to this channel. I think you did an amazing Job!! Also, could you make this simulation available for ppl to test out? Or do you think it’s too basic for that? Anyways, that’s all from me now bye!!

[@dd6742]

Such a high quality video

[@eddie.z]

Thanks!

[@ogdoge2669]

This was great, I'd love to see you add in fungus, bacteria and viruses to help flesh out the ecosystem even more

[@TheOldandcold]

excellent video

[@eddie.z]

Glad you liked it!

[@healingpower1042]

Keep up the project of simulating ecosystem

[@victorsilvasoares4312]

Hello, starting today I will become a game developer! your videos made my eyes shine

[@victorsilvasoares4312]

Hello I'm back. so i really got started, learned a little bit about C#, a little bit about Unity, so... i've made 4 game clones since i posted this comment

[@meermohamad4707]

I can feel you bro

[@o_sch]

Here to claim sub 6k subscriber badge, great content and quality youll blow up

[@HanfGranaDE]

Masterpice.

[@jaegers931]

It works perfectly for me!

[@hellgazer8370]

i thought the thumbnail said "stimulated" and it just cracked me up so much. just *_stimulated._* ) v 🕷

[@hellgazer8370]

i thought the thumbnail said "stimulated" and it just cracked me up so much. just ) v *_stimulated._*

[@theothetorch8016]

0:04 Massively defied my expectations. Instead of a boring unchanging voice explaining this boring thing for hours, this seems to be a lot more impressive and well made with great storytelling.

[@daytonpeters4355]

I would watch a series dedicated to this simulation and seeing how far you can take it