What's New

Body Composition and Movement Rewrite

This release makes creature bodies more biological, with new body-composition genes and a rebuilt movement and physiology model that create richer evolutionary trade-offs.

• Body Core genes now separate muscle mass, optional structural tissue, fat stores, general muscle, fast-twitch muscle, and endurance muscle, replacing the older simple strength, density, stamina reserve, and stamina recovery traits.
• Body composition now affects real survival trade-offs: muscle adds power, stamina capacity, bite support, and energy demand; fat adds reserve energy and mass; structural tissue adds dense support and toughness without directly creating push.
• Movement and physiology have been rebuilt around mass, structural and muscle support, terrain, muscle profile, stamina recovery, tissue-based energy reserve capacity, and baseline energy needs.
• Land movement has a smoother path: tiny light creatures may stumble onto land, tail-assisted slitherers can cross early land gates, and strong long-legged walkers can carry farther through each step or bound.
• Evolution can now produce more varied body plans, including lean muscular hunters, reserve-heavy survivors, supported heavy walkers, underbuilt miniatures, burst sprinters, and endurance-focused lineages.
• The selected creature menu now exposes the new model with structural/muscle/fat/organ body composition, mass, body defence, stamina recovery, specializations, and notable traits.

Carcasses, Scavenging, and Bite-Based Hunting

This release makes the food web more alive: creatures can leave carcasses, scavengers can emerge through tiny carrion nibbles, and hunting now depends on bites, jaws, body size, and shell defence.

• Creatures that die outside predation can now leave temporary carcasses behind. Weak meat digestion starts as tiny nibbles, while stronger scavengers get more useful energy before carcasses decay.
• Live hunting now happens through repeated bites instead of instant eating. Mouth size handles physical gape, mouth type steers plant-feeding/scavenging/hunting specialisation, and stronger jaws make bites more dangerous.
• Shells now protect through durability and clear trade-offs. Weak jaws can be blocked, strong predators can wear defences down, and armoured prey pay movement and energy costs.
• Creature inspection and visual cues now make carcasses, scavengers, damaged defences, and stronger predator teeth easier to spot.
• Physics and evolution tuning have shifted, so older saved simulations may play out differently than before. For the cleanest look at the new balance, try starting a fresh run with Primitive and watching the lineage evolve.

Edit Habitats During a Simulation

This release adds Habitat Edit Mode, a Phaser-native way to reshape island layouts while a simulation is already running.

• You can now enter Habitat Edit Mode from the simulation HUD to add, delete, move, and resize islands without restarting the run.
• The simulation pauses while editing and returns to its previous pause state when you apply or cancel the habitat changes.
• A dedicated edit overlay replaces the normal HUD while editing, with tools for island editing, creature visibility, and apply/cancel controls.
• Creature visibility can be toggled while editing, making it easier to reshape terrain around active populations or inspect where lineages are stranded.
• Existing food and creatures stay in the world when the layout is applied, so experiments can create new land bridges, isolate populations, open migration routes, or stress-test survival after habitat disruption.

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.