Western Mere
seed 314 — the same seed always grows the same pond
A brand-new pond, and not one of them knows anything yet.
Arrow keys select a creature and step to the nearest one in that direction; Enter follows the selection with the camera; Escape clears it.
🏊 What it is doing
Pick an animal — click one, or press M — and this line will follow it.
👁 What it can see
Pick an animal — click one, or press M — and this shows what that animal can see.
A creature never sees the pond. It is told which way the nearest speck of food lies and how far, the same for the nearest animal it could eat and the nearest one that could eat it, and how full it is. That is all. Everything it ever does, it does from that.
🧠 What it decides
Pick an animal — click one, or press M — and this shows what it decides to do.
Nobody wrote a rule that says swim towards food. The animals a pond is handed turn towards the food they can see about half the time — a coin toss. Five thousand steps later, the ones still swimming manage it nearly three times in five. That small edge, taken again every step of every life, is the whole of what has happened here.
🍽️ How full they are
Pick an animal — click one, or press M — and this shows how full they are.
Food is the only thing that fills them. Swimming empties them, and so does sitting still. Reach the mark and they split in two, and half of everything they have goes with the new one — which is why nothing here is ever full for long.
🔍 What you are looking at
🌱 How far this pond has got
none of 10 yet🏅 Worth watching
the stand-outs in the water right now — pick one to follow🧬 How they have changed
the animals now, against the ones this pond began with🎯 Are they getting better?
nobody taught them where food is🏁 Day one vs today
the animals this pond started with, against the ones in it nowTen animals from this pond's first moments, ten from right now, and eighty specks of food in each of two identical ponds. Who clears theirs first?
🏆 Pond records
the best this water has ever done — living or not📜 Chronicle
the natural history of this pond, as it happens- The pond is young. Its story will appear here…