Noble Ape / ApeSDK
ApeSDK, also available at apesdk.com with documentation, is the central long-running artificial life line in Tom Barbalet's public work. Tom created and maintains the Noble Ape / Simulated Ape simulation, an open source artificial life and cognitive simulation project active since 1996.
The current ApeSDK line is a portable C-centered codebase for autonomous ape-like beings in a changing landscape with weather, biology, movement, memory, language, social relationships, immune behavior, ApeScript, non-polygonal graphics, cached JSON parsing, and native wrappers. Earlier Noble Ape technology was distributed by Apple with new Macs from 2003-2009 and used by Intel from 2005-2011 to test processor mathematical performance.
Open source map
Tom builds simulations, games, tools, and small systems that explore how complex worlds emerge from compact code. The projects below sit between artificial life, cognitive simulation, ecological modeling, historical systems, deterministic game engines, practical native software, and language tools. Newer public game work is also represented through Jagged Seraph, a public-facing home for projects shaped by artificial life, generative AI, and moral play.
ApeSDK is the public home of Noble Ape / Simulated Ape: autonomous ape-like beings in changing landscapes with weather, biology, movement, memory, language, social behavior, immune response, ApeScript, non-polygonal graphics, cached JSON parsing, and native wrappers. The project has also appeared in academic teaching and research contexts in the US and UK.
A simulation where identical humanoid cage-fighting robots differ only by the command program loaded into the head-resident processor. The arena models position, velocity, contact, knockback, recovery, component damage, stoppages, and tournament comparison between command sets.
Caz is a Cat Operating System: a Z80-inspired virtual machine driving a simulated contemporary house-cat droid through readable assembly programs, sensors, actuators, body skills, reflex state, and domestic or rural scenarios.
The modern urban tactical line pairs a Mac SwiftUI project with a portable C + CMake engine. The work focuses on line of sight, suppression, wounds, civilian risk, hidden contacts, rooftops, breach/search interactions, objectives, scoring, replay validation, and shared deterministic rules.
World War II tabletop-style game projects with force setup, deployment, movement, shooting, artillery, transports, vehicle damage, assaults, morale, objectives, and victory scoring. The projects keep historical framing explicit rather than treating conflict as generic spectacle.
Zombie adapts the battle-simulation approach to selected armed engagements from The Troubles while deliberately excluding attacks on civilians, sectarian killings, punishment attacks, riots, and crowd violence.
A post-apocalypse shelter simulation about routine, scarcity, tools, morale, repairs, food, water, and everyday survival after the dramatic event has already happened.
Older environmental and historical simulations that keep the focus on terrain, weather, occupations, stress, conflict, and daily life. BronzeSim uses a small domain-specific language; london1940 models a city under wartime pressure.
immersiveape, apesdk-rs, apesdk-js, longtermbrief, skeleton, jungle, musictodriveby, and png2json carry the same habit into ports, viewers, engines, data conversion, and compact experiments. werewolf is a C to Rust, Java, JavaScript, Ruby, and Python transpiler. Its logo was designed by UK artist Stephen "Rochie" Rochfort.
Field of Chaos
Field of Chaos is the tabletop-skirmish rules line behind the public fieldofchaos repository. The codebase implements Field of Chaos Gold rules as a reusable C static library and command-line program that prints rule tables and deterministic examples.
The open repository includes the rules PDFs, traceability notes, public C API, tests, and examples for character generation, skill hierarchy, weapons, shotgun and grenade handling, movement, wounds, hit locations, melee, healing, and special foes.
Podcasts
The podcast archive is an important part of barbalet.com: eight feeds currently representing 1,900 episodes. The archive begins with Ape Reality #1, originally recorded on May 1, 2006, and currently runs through Biota's Artificial Life Podcast on June 15, 2024. The shows cover artificial life, Noble Ape development, role-playing and wargame rules, model railroading, artifacts and culture, and long-form or short-form conversation.
Noble Ape's creator discusses development, philosophy, and the artificial life community.
Latest: Long Funk Simulcast 52. Early Easter Egg.
Interviews with artificial life developers and theorists about history, practice, and future directions.
Latest: Biota Special: Jeffrey Ventrella.
Working style
Across these repositories, Tom tends to favor small, inspectable codebases, portable C foundations, deterministic test surfaces, native Mac interfaces, and systems that can be understood from the inside out. Some repositories are active development work; others are archives, sketches, ports, preserved stages, or public records of a longer line of thought. Together they form a public record of simulation craft: agents, worlds, battles, terrain, cognition, tools, language, podcasts, and experiments.