A spatial evolutionary game where thousands of agents interact on a grid, imitating their most successful neighbours. Choose from three classic games: Hawk-Dove (aggression vs. passivity), Prisoner's Dilemma (cooperation vs. defection) and Rock-Paper-Scissors (cyclic dominance). Replicator dynamics drives strategy frequencies toward Nash equilibria and evolutionarily stable strategies (ESS).
The emergence of evolutionarily stable strategies without central coordination. In Hawk-Dove, the ESS is a mixed strategy at p* = V/C hawks. In the Prisoner's Dilemma, spatial structure enables cooperation clusters to resist invasion by defectors. In Rock-Paper-Scissors, cyclic dominance creates rotating spiral waves.
Select a game mode, then adjust V (resource value) and C (fight cost) for Hawk-Dove, or Temptation for Prisoner's Dilemma. Watch the payoff matrix and ESS prediction update live. Increase noise to add mutation/exploration. Use 10× speed to fast-forward to steady state.
John Maynard Smith introduced the hawk-dove game in 1973 to explain why animals often limit aggression even when they could win a fight. The ESS concept revolutionised biology by showing that game-theoretic equilibria — not just fitness maximisation — drive natural selection.