Suggestions

A friend just turned me on to the screensaver, and I love it! My kids and I enjoy cheering on the hapless creatures. I have a couple of suggestions to make it even better:

1. Something to make the cheering more exciting. I'm thinking of two things, actually:
   • A red circle on the ground showing the previous record distance.
   • A countdown timer or progress bar showing how long the current creature has to beat the record.
2. Something to give the viewer a sense of the overall progress. I'm thinking of a line graph in one corner that shows the min, max, and average distances for each generation.
3. Something to give the viewer a sense of the genealogy. One idea I had was as follows (which assumes some things about the generative process): make each creature a single, unique color in the first generation. Each child of a creature that's picked to advance to the next generation retains that color -- slightly mutated. For example, the children of #FF0000 can be #DF0000, #FF1000, #FF0010, and #FF1010 (but probably more randomized than that).

Thanks!