Breeder is edutainment. You use your knowledge of Mendellian genetics to breed aliens. Your goal is to take an alien, and breed it until it looks like the target alien.
•Requirements:
-68020 or better Macintosh
-System 7.x
-12" or above 256 color monitor
•Rules: You have an alien. You are given three other aliens with whom it can breed. Hit key 1-2-3 to make your choice. Following the simple random procedures of Mendellian genetics, a new alien will be born. You are trying to breed an alien of the same phenotype as the alien on the right side of the screen. Good luck!
•What is a "phenotype"? What are the rules of genetics?
If you don't know about genetics, here are the basic rules. You have traits -- i.e. hair color,
number of toes, etc -- that are controled by genes. Another name for a trait is a Phenotype, the end result, what you look like. Each of these traits is made from the father's contribution of genetic material, and the mother's. These contributions are called Alleles (therefore, you have 2 alleles per each trait). The combination of these two alleles is called your genotype. The question is, how do these two alleles turn into one trait?
Some phenotypes are dominant/recessive. Think of it like this: some alleles dominate the trait, no matter what the other allele is. If you have two "recessive," or passive, alleles for a trait, you demonstrate one characteristic; otherwise, you show another characteristic. The standard notation is a capital letter to represent a dominant allele, and a lower case letter to represent a recessive allele. Suppose being polka-dotted is dominate/recessive, with having dots being dominant (D). If you have two dominant alleles, you are "DD", and are dotted; if you are Dd (dominant/recessive), you are still dotted; if you are "dd", then you have no dots. In Breeder, there are three dominant/recessive traits: Short legs dominant over long legs, Polka dots dominant over no dots, and straight eyestalks dominant over forked eyestalks.
Other phenotypes are determined through intermediary genes. That is, if two alleles are different they combine to form a new trait. In this game, for example, a red color allele (call it R), when mixed with yellow (call it R'), forms (RR'), an orange color. The other genes that "mix" if the alleles are different in this game are size (big/med/small), and the mouth (happy/expressionless/sad).
Probablity plays a huge role when breeding two aliens, since each parent can contribute one of two alleles per trait.
•Game play:
Easy Mode: You can see the genotype of the aliens
Hard Mode: You have to breed for more recessive traits, and you don't know the genotypes.
•It's a fairly straight-forward game 'cause I wrote it in two days as an extra-credit bio assignment. It's freeware. Enjoy!
•Legal stuff: I take no responsibily for any damage this program causes another system. Parts of this program belong to Ingemar Regnemalm, as well as Symantic Corporation.
