I build simulations, games, tools, and small systems that explore how complex worlds can emerge from compact code. Most of my public work sits somewhere between artificial life, cognitive simulation, ecological modelling, historical systems, and practical native software. I am especially interested in agent behavior, environment, weather, language, long-running simulation lineages, and the way older ideas can be carried forward through new platforms without losing their original character.

My central project line is ApeSDK, the public home of the Noble Ape artificial life simulation. Its aim is to create a detailed biological environment alongside a cognitive simulation. Around that core are ports, experiments, supporting tools, and descendants: immersiveape, the next incarnation of ApeSDK; apesdk-js, a JavaScript port; apesdk-rs, a Rust version; and skeleton, a Noble Ape skeleton project.

I also work on historical and environmental simulations. london1940 simulates London in 1940. bronzesim is a stand-alone C simulation of an Early Bronze Age-style island world.

A growing part of this account is historical wargame and battle simulation work, mostly in Swift. derZweiteWeltkrieg simulates Second World War battles. guderian focuses on the battles of Heinz Guderian, while monty explores the battles of Bernard Montgomery. zombie simulates and refights battles from The Troubles. fieldofchaos is a programmatic exploration of tabletop skirmish games.

Other projects explore engines, tools, language, and utilities. werewolf is a C to Java, JavaScript, Ruby, and Python transpiler. png2json takes a PNG file and turns it into a JSON description. musictodriveby is an urban 3D engine. jungle is a first-person jungle perspective for the Mac. lastbreach is a post-apocalypse mundanity game.

Across these repositories, I tend to favor small, inspectable codebases, portable C foundations, native Mac interfaces, and systems that can be understood from the inside out. Some repositories are active development work; others are archives, sketches, ports, or preserved stages in a longer line of thought. Together they form a public record of simulation craft: agents, worlds, battles, terrain, cognition, tools, and experiments.

For a more curated index of the public projects, visit barbalet.com.