Neuropony

Par

This month is a literal and figurative nightmare. I needed something to keep myself busy for a while, so I threw this together from some old pony assets I had laying around and a couple of artificial intelligence classes I based on this guide www.ai-junkie.com/ann/evolved/… A pony in this game has a single chromosome. Each pony is controlled by their own neural network (a very small very simple artificial brain). The artificial neural network is wired according to the pony's genes. The neural network takes input (what does the pony see around it), runs the input through a network of neurons and produces an output (what does the pony do). The pony with good genes have a higher probability of being selected when producing new chromosomes. A new chromosome is based on two other chromosomes, mom and dad. There is a chance that there is a crossover between the two chromosomes (at some point they both flip their genes). There is a chance that each gene will mutate. This is artificial evolution according to some very simple rules.