2026-08-27 · blog
Astronōka (1998) — the same trap never works twice, and the praise arrived twenty years late
Episode 40 of “Today Is Release Day”: Astronōka, released by Enix for the PlayStation in Japan on August 27, 1998, at 6,800 yen. It was developed by MuuMuu and System Sacom, with game design and AI by Yukihito Morikawa. You grow vegetables in space, tuning weight, pattern and flavour on a crossbreeding machine to win contests, while defending the field against a pest called Baboo with a layout of traps. The twist is that the Baboo adapt: catch one in the same trap often enough and its legs grow stronger, or it sprouts wings. A genetic algorithm runs underneath — only one Baboo appears per day on screen, but at least ten generations turn over internally and the fittest individual is the one you meet, and the mutation rate rises whenever evolution stalls. The reception at the time was quiet, and Morikawa later described his shock that the AI was working properly and nobody gave it credit. The praise took twenty years: at the 2019 anniversary event, AI researcher Yoichiro Miyake called it the best game in the world built with a genetic algorithm.
