Galapagos

• Developer — Anark Game Studios • Publisher — Electronic Arts • Platforms — Microsoft Windows, Mac OS • Released — Microsoft Windows October 7, 1997Mac OS October 9, 1997 • Genre — Action, Simulation • Modes — Single-player

The main character of Galapagos is AI-controlled and only indirectly responds to changes the player makes to its environment. This character is capable of maneuvering through the environment while avoiding surfaces and obstacles it has previously learned is harmful, entirely on its own. However, the creature does not know how to manipulate the levers and switches found throughout the various areas in the game, so it is up to the player to help. As it moves around, the camera angle changes to reveal the new obstacles. Correct manipulation of the devices, through puzzle solving and careful timing, is needed to succeed.

A synthetic bug-like creature known as Mendel (named after Gregor Mendel, the founder of Mendelian genetics) has just been created in a dystopian lab in the world of Galapagos (a reference to the Galapagos Islands). Mendel is the first of its kind, a prototype which will one day be used to create an army of "belligerent autonomous agents, to be used as instruments of dominion, to conquer other worlds for the exploitation of their resources". Mendel turns out completely harmless and lonely, so they instead plan to study and dissect the creature to continue their plans of creating a "xenocidal war machine". The player character has full control over the laboratory environment and wishes to subvert their plans by helping Mendel escape from the lab, and ultimately leave Galapagos.

The technology used to create Mendel's artificial intelligence is a proprietary system called Non-stationary Entropic Reduction Mapping, or NERM. NERM was designed to be self-organizing, meaning that it does not require prior knowledge of the system that it controls. Mendel was purposely designed to look unlike any real world animal, so that players would not have too many preconceptions about how he should act and what he is capable of. The environments in Galapagos were created with a proprietary tool called Leveller.