Simpocalypse 1.2.0 released

Peter Piwowarski
Published , updated

We've just released version 1.2.0 of the Simpocalypse application today. Besides many bugfixes, this version comes with some important improvements:

  • There are now two modes for changing the simulation's parameters. Simple mode has fewer parameters and longer explanations for them, so it's easier to get started right away. Complete mode lets you change every parameter in the simulation, for maximum control, and shows the raw probability numbers behind them, for more advanced students.
  • It's now possible to save and restore the parameters that control the population, movement rules, and vaccines, along with the disease.
  • Simpocalypse has always supported saving the simulation's history as a SQLite database file for futher analysis. SQLite databases allow for all kinds of advanced manipulation of the data, but they require special tools to open, and some knowledge of how SQL databases work. 1.2.0 adds support for saving the history in CSV format, which can be opened with most spreadsheet programs, for more basic data analysis.
  • The user interface layout has been revised to make it, hopefully, a little bit easier to figure out.
  • We've been able to test Simpocalypse on a slightly wider range of different Macs, and we are now pretty confident that it will start on any PowerPC Mac that can run Mac OS X 10.5, and any Intel Mac manufactured to date, although many of the older ones will have trouble running the simulation with large populations or short cycle times.

There are still plenty of new features we want to add, and probably more bugs left to squish. Check back for more updates.