You've discovered QP Curio's Novelty Engine, a massive clockwork computer that you can control.

QP Curio's Novelty Engine is an experimental prototype that invites the user to explore and direct procedurally evolving virtual creatures and their locomotion in a simulated, 2-dimensional environment. The Novelty Engine produces creatures that are attracted to a pulsing beacon or "food" icon. At the start, the creature is generated as a simple form (two rectangular "bones" connected by a joint). The Novelty Engine evolves new generations of these creatures that better satisfy their fitness goal of getting closer to the beacon. The algorithm that accomplishes this provides for interesting, seemingly complex forms and movement that tend to often mimic what we see in the natural world. The user has the ability to direct/manipulate this process in several ways and through this sort of open experimentation can explore notions of evolution. We have included the settings editor so that you may further customize your experience by tweaking the system's evolution and physics parameters.

So pull up a stool, dust off the machine's controls and let your curiosity evolve.