Spore game

Computers have been used to study evolution for a long time, especially the molecular side of it, since any organism's genome or even a single gene is a huge long string of data. Esoteric mathematical methods which I'd really really like to learn about (really wish they'd implemented the science-oriented com.sci course at Lawrence before I graduated*, or that I'd taken more maths) are used to generate diagrams called phylograms, which you can think of as "family trees" for a given group of critters/plants.

They're also used to simulate evolution. This is mostly done by really hardcore biology and artificial life geeks, but some consumer software has allowed "normal" people to dabble as well, notably Gameware's Creatures, which is a super cute virtual pet game as well as being a cool artificial life and artificial intelligence engine. Some people become hardcore tinkerers, creating ingenious objects and metarooms to add on to the prepackaged worlds. Before C3 came out, one person made a version of the C2 norns with modified brains that were smarter, called Canny Norns. (free download of Creatures: Docking Station for PC and Linux, haha no Mac version suckers)

I read about Will Wright's upcoming Spore (Flash site, may take a while to download if you don't have broadband) a while ago and was very excited. Since Wright is the guy behind the Sim____ franchise, I guess it's the spiritual heir to the abysmal SimLife, which I tried a long time ago and got fed up with almost instantly. Spore looks great, though.

Unfortunately, the website (here's the front page if you want to skip the intro) has fairly minimal information and no release date. Lot of nice screenshots and very positive press, though.

*I did take CMSC 150, back when it was taught in C++ instead of Java, and liked it enough that I went on to CMSC 200. Much to my surprise I ended up sharing the Sophomore Prize in Computer Science with a com.sci major that year. After that people kept saying "Wait, I thought you were a com.sci major..." Probably have forgotten 90% of what I learned. Keep telling myself I'll get back to it and haven't for years =P