What's New

Choose a Starting Habitat

This release lets each new simulation begin from a chosen habitat type, making land, water, island, and barrier experiments easier to set up intentionally.

• New simulations now start with a habitat choice instead of always using the same random island setup.
• Habitat options include archipelago, single island, fragmented islands, mainland with satellites, open water, and barrier islands.
• Each habitat creates a different evolutionary pressure, from isolated island populations and divergence experiments to open-water specialists and shoreline barriers.
• Simulation-start timeline events now name the selected habitat in natural language, while older or invalid saved habitat values fall back safely.
• The Info page now explains the habitat types and how each one can shape evolution.

Chromosome-Level Species Experiments

This release makes species building more flexible and more biological, with chromosome-level gene editing for exploring sex-linked traits.

• Species creation now lets you view and edit genes by function or by chromosome, including X, Y, and autosomes.
• Karyotype templates are now optional starting points, including a new sex-linked reproductive strategy template for breeding experiments.
• God Mode can now adjust chromosome and gene values for individual spawned creatures without changing the saved species template.
• Creature details now separate genotype, gene summary, and phenotype views so inherited chromosomes and expressed traits are easier to review.
• Speciation now considers chromosome structure and expressed traits, helping species boundaries feel more natural as lineages diverge.

Maturity Timing Now Emerges From Body and Brain

This release makes life-history evolution feel more believable, with larger and more cognitively advanced species tending to mature later unless they evolve a faster developmental pace.

• Sexual maturity is now derived from body size and brain complexity instead of coming from a single direct age gene.
• A new maturation tempo gene lets species evolve faster or slower development relative to that derived baseline.
• Lifespan now follows that derived maturity timing more closely, so larger and smarter lineages usually pair longer juvenile development with a longer total life.
• God Mode now lets you temporarily edit a saved species' spawn genes so you can run what-if experiments, add unusual individuals to the gene pool, and explore how new traits affect a lineage without changing that species' saved default genes.
• Info pages and creature details now explain the new maturation model more clearly, including how larger and smarter lineages trade earlier reproduction for longer juvenile development.

Species Adaptations Now Evolve More Clearly

This release makes species change feel easier to follow, with clearer timeline milestones and species traits that update as a lineage evolves.

• Timeline history now distinguishes between traits and specializations that are emerging in a species and ones that have become dominant.
• Species traits and specializations now update over time as the species evolves, instead of staying fixed to its original default profile.

Juvenile Growth, Predator Contact, and Richer Run History

This release deepens the life cycle and ecosystem story in Tidepool, with growing juveniles, more physical predation, and clearer simulation history.

• Juvenile creatures now grow over time before reaching adulthood.
• A new brood-size gene adds more variation to how many offspring a creature can have.
• Predators now need proper mouth contact with prey, making hunting feel more physical and position-dependent.
• Milestone tracking surfaces notable moments as a run evolves.
• Population history now includes cause-of-death tracking so you can better understand what is shaping the ecosystem.

Timeline History, Specializations, and Local Saved Runs

This release made Tidepool much easier to revisit and interpret, with local saved simulations, timeline history, and clearer species-level analysis tools.

• Local saved runs now support autosave and reload, with up to 3 browser-based simulation slots.
• Timeline history and milestone events make it easier to see what happened over the course of a run.
• Species specializations and traits are surfaced more clearly in the UI and analysis views.
• New and improved graphs make population and mutation trends easier to follow over time.
• Saved-run loading and restore flow were improved so returning to a simulation feels more reliable.