INTRODUCTION

EVERY KEYSTROKE
SPAWNS A LIFE FORM.

You are the creator. The characters you type become living organisms — each one genetically encoded by its letter, each one fighting to survive in the ecosystem you build. This guide tells you how to read their world.

// HOW TO PLAY

any letter / number Spawns one creature. Its DNA is determined by the character and its position in your sequence. BACKSPACE Kills the most recently spawned creature with a dissolution animation. hover cursor Identifies the nearest creature — shows species, family, age, speed, and eye count.

On mobile, tap anywhere on the screen to bring up the keyboard. The canvas automatically resizes so your creatures stay visible.

// PUNCTUATION EVENTS

Non-letter keys don't spawn creatures — they trigger environmental events that reshape the entire ecosystem. These work on both desktop and mobile.

KEY EVENT WHAT HAPPENS
. Day / Night Toggle Canvas atmosphere shifts from void-black to deep indigo. Press again to return to day. The transition is gradual — the background slowly bleeds colour.
! Earthquake Screen shakes. A shockwave ring erupts from the canvas centre. Every creature is thrown to a random heading and scatters.
? Confusion Field 5-second chaos. All steering inverts — prey walks toward predators, flockmates flee each other. Purple tint fills the canvas.
, Rain 8 seconds of diagonal rain. Vowels (aquatic by nature) gain +18% speed. All other families slow by 32%.
; Spore Cloud All creature colours shift by a random ±30–80 hue degrees and slowly drift back. Use it to watch your ecosystem change skin.
: Freeze Frame Slow-motion at 20% speed for ~6 seconds, then gradually restores. Death animations, locomotion, and noise steering all slow together.
( Gravity Well A 4-second attractor field appears at the canvas centre. All creatures are pulled inward regardless of other steering forces.
) Repulsor Same as ( but inverted — creatures scatter outward from the centre in all directions.
ENTER Genesis Full-canvas light flash. All creatures receive +35% energy and all reproduction cooldowns reset — triggering a mass birth event the next frame.
SPACE Pause / Resume Freezes time. Creatures hold their positions. All simulation, energy drain, and behaviours halt until you press Space again.

// THE FIVE FAMILIES

Every printable character belongs to exactly one family. The family shapes the creature's size, speed, temperament, and role in the food chain.

HERD ANIMAL
Triggered by: a e i o u  A E I O U
Small, fast, and social. Vowels are drawn toward each other, forming schools that pulse and turn in unison. In the presence of a predator, the herd explodes into a frantic scatter.
SMALL FAST FLOCKING PREY
WANDERER
Triggered by: b c d f g h j k l m n p r s t v w y
(lowercase consonants)
Medium-sized and territorial. Wanderers loosely flock with their own kind and hunt scavengers for sustenance. They are safe from each other — but apex predators see them as prey.
MEDIUM TERRITORIAL HUNTS SCAVENGERS
APEX PREDATOR
Triggered by: q x z  Q X Z
Larger, faster, and relentless. Apex predators hunt both vowels and consonants on sight. They are solitary by nature — two apex creatures will avoid each other rather than fight.
LARGE FASTEST TOP PREDATOR SOLITARY
SCAVENGER
Triggered by: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Tiny, slow, and dim. Scavengers drift through the ecosystem in loose clusters. They seem harmless — but every wanderer sees them as food. Their survival strategy is purely numerical.
TINY SLOW WEAK GLOW SWARM
TITAN
Triggered by: B C D F G H J K L M N P R S T V W Y
(uppercase consonants)
Massive, slow, and completely immune to predation. Titans lumber across the canvas doing as they please. Nothing hunts them — they simply are, ancient and indifferent.
MASSIVE SLOWEST IMMUNE ANCIENT

// THE FOOD CHAIN

Predators actively chase prey within their perception radius (~120 px). Prey flee in inverse proportion to distance — the closer the predator, the more frantic the escape.

APEX ──────→
VOWELS CONSONANTS
CONSONANT ──────→
SCAVENGERS
TITAN ────── IMMUNE — hunts nothing, hunted by nothing

A predator that catches prey gains +0.42 energy. The prey dissolves in a burst of particles. Its energy feeds the hunter.

// ENERGY & SURVIVAL

Every creature has an energy reserve. It drains continuously at a slow rate. When energy hits zero, the creature starves — same death animation as a manual delete. Energy drain only activates when 5 or more creatures are alive, so small experiments never die on their own.

WELL FED
NO RING
HUNGRY
ORANGE RING
CRITICAL
PULSING RED

The ring that appears around a creature below 55% energy is your early warning system. A pulsing red ring means the creature will die within seconds unless it finds food. An apex predator kept well-fed can outlast many prey populations.

// REPRODUCTION

The ecosystem can grow beyond what you type. When two creatures of the same family stay within 50 px of each other and both have energy above 72%, they reproduce.

The offspring inherits a blend of both parents' DNA — color, size, speed, and body shape are mixed, then nudged by up to ±12% mutation. Both parents spend 0.28 energy and enter a 6-second cooldown.

Population is capped at 80 living creatures. If you type a long sentence and leave it running, the ecosystem will self-regulate — predators thin the herds, survivors reproduce, and a dynamic equilibrium emerges.

// SPECIMENS TO TRY

Copy any sequence below into the lab and observe what unfolds.

EXPERIMENT 01 — THE HERD
aeiouae
Pure vowels. They will immediately school together, moving as one rippling organism. Peaceful — until you add a predator.
EXPERIMENT 02 — THE HUNT
aeioz
Four vowels settle into a herd. Then the apex predator appears. Watch the panic scatter. The z will not rest.
EXPERIMENT 03 — APEX DUEL
quiz
Two apex predators flank two vowel prey. The predators will avoid each other but compete to hunt the same targets. Drama guaranteed.
EXPERIMENT 04 — SCAVENGER SWARM
123456t
Six scavengers drift in a loose cloud. Then one consonant wanderer arrives — and it's immediately outnumbered but relentlessly hungry.
EXPERIMENT 05 — TITAN PARADE
BIGz
Three titans move like glaciers. The apex predator circles them endlessly — unable to hunt them, and too fast to settle down. An apex surrounded by the untouchable.
EXPERIMENT 06 — FULL ECOSYSTEM
The world
"The world" — one titan, several vowels, several consonants. Leave it running for 2 minutes. The ecosystem will find its own balance.
→   ENTER THE LAB

START TYPING TO SPAWN YOUR FIRST CREATURE