Year 1 · Spring·Preparing terrain…
Generating landscape…
X — · Y —
— px / tile

Ecosystem Explorer

About the project: a self-contained little world with an awful lot going on.

Ecosystem Explorer is an interactive, procedurally generated environmental sandbox. Terrain, rainfall, rivers, erosion, soil moisture, vegetation, ice, occasional volcanic activity, fire, snow and seasonal climate influence one another as simulated time passes. Change the land or the weather, then watch what happens.

The rules are deliberately simplified: this is a creative experiment in emergent landscapes, not a scientifically calibrated Earth-system forecast. Oceans are fixed sea-level boundaries; the other water is redistributed through rainfall, springs, runoff, evaporation and infiltration.

Everything runs locally in your browser. The map uses colored grid cells and symbols rather than photographic tiles. World seeds, settings and portable save files allow repeated experiments.

For more information about the simulation, its environmental rules and the ways to explore it, see the Ecosystem Explorer about page.

Created by Ethan J. Hulbert. Inspired by Permaculture Network.