Spike: maze-solving as a fitness function for digital evolution
How it works: Critters start at the yellow square and navigate toward the red exit. Each critter has a genome encoding pathfinding tendencies — how much it favours forward progress vs exploration. Every 6 seconds (one generation), critters that reached the exit (or got furthest) breed a new generation. Their genomes recombine and mutate. Over many generations, the population should evolve to solve the maze faster.