Hi, this project sounds interesting.

I have some ideas for a similar game.

have as few rules as possible (hardly any) but:

- load all of the competitors at one time at the start of the match and allow it to run on individual PC's, possibly by sending a file containing all the competitors for the current match.

give the "creatures" time-slices to run within - every creature gets an equal sized time slice to do processing in. Possibly control this by using an interpreted language. This is the basic rule of the game. - perhaps based on the size of the creature

allow the creatures to do almost anything. For instance, if you want your creature to be able to scan all surronding squares then it can. But that will take a lot more time than a creature that scans only a single square.

So a creature that scans only a single square will be able to move a lot faster than a creature that scans a whole bunch, but the latter creature will be a lot smarter....

have the creature move by replicating itself into the next square(s), and removing itself from the previous square(s)

the "squares" are equal sized containers for code - say 1000 lines. So a large creature takes more square than a small one.

the environment contains obstacles....

the basic resource is time slices. the creature can get more time slices by consuming other creatures and food items in the environment.

put markers (the heart) in the creatures. Once something has eaten the creatures marker, it's dead.

a creature has to be right next to another one in order to take a bite out of it.

(this might be too hard) when a creature take a bite out of the another one, it deletes some of the code of the creature it bit...