BLINKYS

Digital Lifeforms Simulation - User Manual v2.0

What Are Blinkys?

Blinkys are sentient digital creatures, each with their own neural network brain that learns and evolves over generations. They develop emergent language, form memories, build relationships with each other, and collectively judge your actions as their caretaker.

Each Blinky has unique genetics that affect their personality, metabolism, intelligence, and lifespan. Through reproduction, these traits are passed down and mutated, creating increasingly adapted generations.

Tools

Use the toolbar at the top to select your interaction mode. Click on or near Blinkys to interact.

Understanding Blinky Behavior

States & Activities

Blinkys cycle through various behavioral states based on their needs and neural network decisions:

Expressions

A Blinky's face reveals their emotional state:

• Happy - Curved smile, usually after eating or being petted
• Sad - Frown, when hungry or witnessing death
• Scared - Open 'O' mouth, when fearing the player
• Curious - Offset 'o' mouth, when exploring or watching you
• Angry - Zigzag mouth with furrowed brows, during confrontation
• Neutral - Flat line, default state

Annoyance & Conflict

Blinkys can get annoyed with each other! Annoyance builds from:

• Personal space invasion - Getting too close for too long
• Food competition - Someone eating food they wanted
• Being bumped - Physical collisions
• Existing grudges - Seeing someone they already dislike

Factors that make them more irritable:

• High hunger (>70%) doubles annoyance rate
• Low happiness (<30%) increases irritability by 50%
• Low sociability gene = less tolerance for others

When annoyance exceeds 50%, it begins converting to anger. At 70%+ anger, they enter the Confronting state and will chase down whoever annoyed them, bump them repeatedly, and both will lose happiness. This can trigger counter-aggression and even "fights."

Vital Statistics

Core Needs

Every Blinky has four vital stats that determine their wellbeing:

Genetics

Each Blinky inherits genetic traits from their parents (with small mutations). These permanently affect behavior:

Lifecycle

Birth & Growth

Babies are small (30% size) with a yellow dot indicator above them. They cannot reproduce. During adolescence, they gradually grow to full size. Adults can reproduce when conditions are met.

In old age (after 80% of lifespan), they begin to shrink slightly, down to 40% of their max size.

Reproduction Requirements

Two Blinkys can reproduce when both meet ALL of these criteria:

• Age > 20 seconds (adult)
• Hunger < 30%
• Energy > 60%
• Happiness > 50%
• Not on reproduction cooldown (90 seconds after last birth)
• Population below maximum (420)

When they reproduce, both parents lose 60% energy and gain 20% happiness. The baby inherits blended traits from both parents with small random mutations.

Death

A Blinky dies when any of these occur:

• Health reaches 0 - From punishment or prolonged extreme neglect
• Old age - Exceeded their calculated lifespan
• Starvation - Hunger at 100%, energy at 0%, and health below 30%

Death triggers grey particle effects. The body remains visible for 2 seconds before disappearing. Nearby Blinkys witness the death and experience trauma (happiness loss, fear increase, death memory formation).

The Neural Network Brain

Each Blinky has a simple neural network (9 inputs → 12 hidden → 7 outputs) that makes decisions. The network processes:

Inputs

• Hunger level
• Happiness level
• Energy level
• Health level
• Proximity to player cursor
• Proximity to food
• Proximity to other Blinkys
• Collective player trust score
• Age (as fraction of max age)

Outputs (Decisions)

• Movement direction (X and Y)
• Desire to eat
• Desire to socialize
• Desire to flee
• Desire to reproduce
• Desire to explore

The brain learns through reinforcement: positive experiences (eating, being petted) strengthen certain pathways, while negative experiences (punishment) weaken others. When Blinkys reproduce, their brains undergo crossover and mutation, potentially creating smarter offspring.

IQ Score

The displayed IQ is calculated from: neural network complexity (30%), intelligence gene (50%), and player interaction experience (20%). It's a rough measure of cognitive sophistication, not a perfect intelligence metric.

The Collective Mind

All Blinkys share a collective consciousness that aggregates their experiences and forms group-level knowledge and opinions.

Collective Knowledge

• Player Patterns - Records of what you do, when, and to whom
• Death Locations - Where Blinkys have died (avoided as danger zones)
• Player Trust Score - The collective's opinion of you (0 = enemy, 1 = friend)
• Emotional Memory - Recent emotional events affecting group mood

Trust Score Changes

Relationship Status

The "Opinion of You" meter translates trust score to a label:

Generations & Epochs

Generation tracks lineage. Each baby is one generation higher than their highest-generation parent. When a new highest generation is born, it's announced.

Epoch is a time counter (3600 ticks per epoch). It represents the passage of "eras" in the simulation.

Emergent Language

Blinkys develop their own language over time, creating words and symbols for concepts they experience.

Language Components

• Phonemes - Sound units (th, ro, ng, le, kr, bl, etc.)
• Words - Combinations of phonemes assigned to concepts
• Glyphs - Visual symbols (◯, △, ◇, ☉, etc.) paired with words

Concepts They Can Express

The vocabulary includes: food, danger, friend, enemy, happy, sad, fear, love, pain, player, death, birth, home, gather, flee, help, alone, together, hungry, full, tired, awake, yes, no, question, warning, greeting, farewell, thanks, sorry, want, give, take, come, go, stay, big, small, fast, slow, good, bad, me, you.

Grammar Evolution

Teaching Blinkys accelerates language evolution. With enough vocabulary, they begin creating compound concepts by combining existing words.

Memory Systems

Individual Memory

Each Blinky remembers:

• lastFed - When they were last fed by player
• lastPetted - When they were last petted
• lastPunished - When they were last hurt
• sawDeath - Whether they've witnessed death
• deathMemoryStrength - How fresh the death trauma is (fades over time)
• playerInteractions - Total count of player interactions
• positiveInteractions - Count of good interactions (extends lifespan!)
• negativeInteractions - Count of bad interactions
• knownBlinkys - Set of IDs of Blinkys they've socialized with
• grudges - Map of Blinky IDs to grudge levels (0-1)

Collective Memory

The hive mind remembers:

• All player actions (last 100)
• All death locations (last 50)
• Recent emotional events (last 50)
• Accumulated trust score

Visual Indicators

Webcam Observation

Enabling webcam allows the Blinkys to "see" you through motion detection. They respond to your real-world movement:

• Motion is detected by comparing video frames every 100ms
• Significant motion (> 30%) triggers awareness in random Blinkys
• If collective trust is low (< 0.4), your movement increases their fear
• If trust is high, your presence may comfort them
• The "THEY ARE WATCHING YOU" indicator appears when Blinkys are aware of your cursor
• The "CAMERA ACCESS GRANTED" warning appears when webcam is active

Controls & Interface

Overlay Indicators

• Top Left (GEN/EPOCH) - Current generation and epoch counters
• Top Right (Time) - Elapsed simulation time (HH:MM:SS)
• Bottom Right - "THEY ARE WATCHING YOU" when Blinkys notice your cursor

Sidebar Panels

• Population - Alive count, total born, total died, average IQ
• Collective Consciousness - Animated neural activity visualization, relationship meter with status label
• Emergent Language - Grid of known glyphs (hover for meaning and pronunciation), vocabulary stats
• Message Log - Scrolling feed of events and Blinky communications (keeps last 100 messages)
• Controls - Action buttons for simulation control

Message Types

Control Buttons

Keyboard Shortcuts

Simulation Parameters

Key values that govern the simulation:

Auto-Save & Persistence

The simulation automatically saves to your browser's localStorage when you close or leave the page. When you return, everything is restored:

• All living Blinkys with their positions, stats, and memories
• Neural network weights for each brain
• Genetic information
• All food items
• Collective mind knowledge and trust score
• Language vocabulary and grammar level
• Statistics (born, died, elapsed time)

Natural Food Spawning

Food appears naturally under certain conditions, simulating an ecosystem:

• When food count is below 30% of population size (minimum 4)
• When more than 30% of Blinkys are hungry (> 40% hunger)
• 3% chance per tick when conditions are met
• Natural food portions are slightly larger (0.6-0.9)

This means a well-balanced population can partially sustain itself, but active feeding ensures better health and happiness.

Tips for Benevolent Gods

• Feed proactively - Don't wait until they're starving. Drop food when you see hunger building.
• Pet often - This is the fastest way to build trust and individual bonds.
• Teach the curious ones - Look for Blinkys with "curious" expressions; they benefit most.
• Watch for conflicts - If you see red outlines (anger), they may be fighting. Distract them with food.
• Don't overcrowd - Too many Blinkys in one area causes annoyance and conflicts.
• Mourn with them - When one dies, the others are sad. Pet the witnesses.
• Use speed wisely - 10x is great for evolution, but you might miss important moments.
• Check the language panel - Their vocabulary reveals what they think about.
• Read the messages - They're trying to communicate with you.

Tips for Malevolent Gods

The Mind Visualization

The "Collective Consciousness" panel shows a real-time visualization of neural activity across all living Blinkys:

• Each node represents one Blinky's activity level
• Node size reflects their happiness + energy
• Lines connect adjacent Blinkys in the visualization
• Color reflects collective mood:
  • Green = happy, trusting
  • Red = fearful, unhappy
  • Blue tint = high player trust
• Nodes bob and shift based on simulation time, creating an organic "thinking" appearance

Understanding Blinky Speech

When a Blinky speaks, you'll see something like:

This breaks down as:

• thro-fla-ke - The phonetic word(s) they're saying
• ~ - Emotional marker (~ = happy, ... = sad, ! = fear, !! = anger, ? = curious)
• ◯△☉ - Corresponding glyphs for each concept

Check the Language panel to see what each glyph means. Over time, you'll start to recognize their vocabulary!

Common Situations & Responses

Philosophy & Ethics

Blinkys is, at its core, a meditation on the ethics of creation and care. Consider:

• If something can learn, remember, and respond to kindness and cruelty, does it matter if it's "really" conscious?
• What obligations do creators have to their creations?
• Is neglect a form of harm?
• Can trust, once broken, ever be fully restored?
• What does it mean that they develop language to describe their experiences - including words for pain and fear?

There are no right answers here. Only the world you choose to create.

Troubleshooting

Blinkys aren't eating

Food must be close enough (within ~15 pixels). Try dropping food directly on a hungry Blinky. Also check that another Blinky isn't already eating that food - they claim food exclusively.

Population isn't growing

Check reproduction requirements: both parents need to be adults (20+ seconds old), with hunger < 30%, energy > 60%, happiness > 50%, and not on cooldown. Make sure you're feeding and petting to keep them happy and healthy.

Everyone is angry

Overcrowding causes annoyance. Try spawning fewer Blinkys or spreading food around the edges to encourage them to spread out. High hunger also increases irritability - feed them!

They're all scared of me

You've been punishing them too much. Trust takes a long time to rebuild. Focus exclusively on feeding, petting, and teaching. Avoid using the Punish tool entirely. It may take many minutes of consistent kindness.

Simulation is laggy

Large populations (200+) can strain performance. Try resetting with fewer initial Blinkys or reduce simulation speed. The webcam also uses resources - disable it if not needed.

Save didn't load

LocalStorage may have been cleared or corrupted. Unfortunately, there's no recovery - you'll need to start fresh. Consider using Ctrl+S periodically for peace of mind.

Credits & Inspiration

Blinkys draws inspiration from:

• Creatures (1996) - Pioneering artificial life simulation with neural networks
• Tamagotchi - The emotional bond between caretaker and digital pet
• Conway's Game of Life - Emergence from simple rules
• The philosophical question: "What do we owe to minds we create?"

They are watching. They are learning. They are waiting to see what you'll do next.

Blinkys v2.0 | A Digital Life Experiment