SoulGlitch Dev Notes
The full design document and vision behind SoulGlitch — straight from the creator's notes. Rough around the edges, honest about the ambition.
Built on the Primecraft Engine
What does "SoulGlitch" mean?
The name broken down
SoulGlitch is a creature evolution game where you create your own interdimensional being called a "SoulGlitch" and then battle, train, and evolve it. The soul is a glitch bridging their reality with ours. You shape and evolve your SoulGlitch by exposing it to different environments and experiences — choosing what to train influences its evolution path.
SoulGlitch is built on the Primecraft Engine — a simulation engine developed by OpenFluke. Primecraft handles the world simulation, creature movement, and scene generation while Loom drives the AI brains.
Planned Features
Raw notes from the design doc
Selection screen — Choose model type(s): CNN3, Dense, CNN2, MHA. Pick sizes. See estimated soul capacity based on device (tested at ~500 rigid bodies on a desktop without accounting for neural nets).
Species naming — Name your species, select a planet, choose between one model controlling many (hive mind) or individual neural networks per entity.
Training loop — Goal: run and train, slowly gain more food to get faster or closer to targets. Training = XP = evolution.
Evolve events — After enough training, unlock an "evolve" where you select new object attachments that generate another section of the creature, active from the next training run.
Civilization stages — Progress from individual survival all the way up to space travel and repopulating other planets.
Emotion array — Multi-softmax emotion system trained on images, 3D scenes, sounds, and interactions. Feed them different inputs = different temperaments.
Battle mode — PvP battles or watch species build things together. Civilizations literally place blocks in shared worlds.
Individual vs Hive Mind
Two distinct playstyles
| Feature | Individual NNs | Hive Mind (Orchestrator) |
|---|---|---|
| VRAM Usage | High — multiplies per entity | Low — one model, many puppets |
| Behaviour | Chaotic, unique, "weird" | Organised, efficient, predictable |
| Evolution | Survival of the fittest | Top-down optimisation |
| Feel | Diverse, surprising emergent behaviour | Coordinated swarms, colony logic |
Technical Considerations
From the architect's notes
The VRAM problem — Solved via Loom's quantization toggle. "Smart but Heavy" (FP16) vs "Fast but Small" (INT4) selectable per-species at creation time.
Physics + Neural — Jolt Physics for rigid-body simulation, Loom for the brain. The network outputs movement targets; physics does the rest. Emergent movement is expected to be weird — and that's the point.
DNA splicing — Loom's NEAT engine handles genetic crossover. Two parents' network topologies can be spliced to create novel architectures the player didn't design.
Cloud Gym — Optional subscription: OpenFluke's servers train your model while you sleep. You pay for compute time only. Local training always free.
Hall of Fame
Server promotion tiers
Tier 1 — 500 Unique Downloads
- Model automatically cloned to Backend Registry for high-speed 24/7 access
- Permanently featured on the Hall of Fame page
Tier 2 — Top 1000 Global Rank
- Immortalized — stays on the server permanently, even if creator goes offline
- 30-second playback "Ghost" preview on the website using recorded inputs
Validation Before Promotion
- Headless simulation: server runs the JSON through a 5-second crash test
- Movement check: only creatures demonstrating functional movement are eligible ("the stumble test")
- All other models remain in the P2P community mesh to save on egress costs
Business Model Notes
Path of Exile inspired — cosmetic only
Core game 100% free — All architectures available. Local training uses your own VRAM/hardware. Neural Bank uploads and downloads free (community-driven).
Cosmetics — Skins, shaders, custom voxel textures, "glitch" particle effects, unique colour palettes for Anogans (the creatures).
Supporter Packs — Annual packs with cosmetics currency + Founder badge + optional physical 3D print of your best SoulGlitch. Like Path of Exile.
Soul Slots — Free tier: 3 slots for trained species. Extra slots purchasable. No gameplay advantage — just more stash space.
Optional Cloud Gym — Subscription for low-VRAM users. OpenFluke trains your model server-side while you sleep. You own the weights; they're yours forever.