GenoCode
Code, breed and share creatures that dance to music.
GenoCode is a small language for describing creatures. A program drives a 3D turtle that lays down
simple shapes, and the values marked as genes can be mutated, bred and morphed, so every
program describes a whole family of related creatures. Creatures can react to music, so how they
dance is part of their genes too.
You can write creatures as code or build them by dragging blocks onto a canvas, with the code
written for you. Creature files use the .genie extension.
creature Flower
gene rings = 3 in 1..6 step 1 // how many rings of petals
gene shrink = 0.7 in 0.4..0.95 // each ring's size compared with the ring outside it
gene twist = 29 in 0..180 // how far each ring turns from the last
Status: early development, heading for a first public release. The web app works: write,
view, breed, morph and dance creatures, as code or as blocks.
New to GenoCode? Start with Getting started. The
language is defined in the language reference.
Repository layout
| Folder | Contents |
|---|
packages/core | the language: parser, checker, formatter, interpreter and genetics |
packages/render | draws creatures, textures and backgrounds (three.js) |
packages/music | turns music into the inputs creatures react to |
packages/dance | the dance effects: morph, zoom, spin, turn, reverse and flat |
packages/blocks | the block editor |
packages/app | the web app |
creatures | the starter library of .genie creatures |
docs | documentation |
Development
You need Node.js 22 or later (see .nvmrc).
npm install
npm run build # compile all packages
npm test # run the tests
npm run check # build, type-check, test and check formatting, as CI does
Write creatures in the browser: npm run dev, then open the address it prints. Pick a creature
from the creature menu at the top or the Library, start a new one from the File menu, or
open or drop any .genie file. In Chromium-based
browsers, a file opened from disk is watched too, so you can edit it in any editor and see the
changes (until you edit it in the app). Save keeps a creature in the browser, and
Download… writes it as a .genie file.
The creature fills the window. The six modes sit in a rail on the left (tabs along the bottom on a
phone), each mode's tools float in a bar under the creature, and on a phone a sheet slides up with
the genes, the code and the blocks:
- View shows the creature beside its code (Code in the rail shows and hides it), rebuilt as
you type. The editor colours the code, marks problems, completes names and explains whatever you
point at. Blocks or Both shows the code as blocks too, kept in step with it, to build
creatures by dragging. Each gene has a slider, colour picker or menu in the Genes panel;
creatures that react to time or music get sliders for those under Try inputs. Lock a gene
(🔓) to keep it fixed while breeding. Picture saves the view as a PNG.
- Breed shows a grid of variations. Click creatures to choose them as parents, then Mutate
or Breed; Back returns to the previous generation, and double-clicking one opens it.
- Morph blends the creature through its variants, or the creatures chosen in the grid, in a
loop.
- Dance moves the creature to music (a file, a web address, the microphone or another browser
tab), by a dance style. Its bar has the music and the style;
[ and ] step through the creatures and the number keys through the styles.
- Video, in Morph and Dance, records the creature with its music as a video to save or share:
tall (Shorts, TikTok, Reels), square or wide, up to five minutes, or the whole song from the
start. It's made in the browser: MP4 where the browser can, otherwise WebM.
- Patterns designs texture and background recipes, with variations to breed, and exports
them as code, background files or pictures.
- Library has the starter creatures and dance styles, and everything saved in the browser.
Clicking a dance style dances the creature to it; Make it its own writes it into the
creature.
In View, Morph and Dance, the buttons at the top right of the creature turn the picture to look from
each side and (or the F key) show it full screen. File › Keyboard shortcuts lists the keys.
Help in the app opens the documentation: the getting-started guide and the language reference,
made from docs/ when the app is built. npm run build puts the whole website in
packages/app/dist; on every push to main, the Site workflow publishes it on GitHub Pages.
See CONTRIBUTING.md for more.
Related repositories
core and render are published to npm as
@genocode/core and
@genocode/render, so tools can live in
repositories of their own:
| Repository | Contents |
|---|
| GenoCode-cli | genie, the command line: check, format and render creatures |
| GenoCode-vscode | the VS Code extension and language server |
A version tag (such as v0.2.0) publishes core and render to npm.
Credits and license
GenoCode is inspired by DancerDNA (1999) and other work in evolutionary art; see
CREDITS.md. Released under the MIT License.
