Gorgonetics

When you open Gorgonetics for the first time, it loads demo pets and gene templates automatically. You'll see two sample pets in the left sidebar — a BeeWasp and a Horse — ready to explore. No import needed.

First launch — demo pets are pre-loaded and ready to explore

The app opens on the Pets tab. The left sidebar lists all your pets with their species, gender, and gene count. Click any pet card to select it and view its genome in the main panel.

The pet list sidebar — search, select, and manage your pets here

Hover over a pet card to reveal the edit (pencil) and delete (×) buttons. Edit lets you change the pet's name, gender, breed, and attributes.

Hover a pet card to reveal edit and delete controls

Click the "+ Upload Genome" button at the bottom of the pet list. Select a .txt genome file exported from Project Gorgon. The pet appears in your list immediately.

The Upload Genome button — import genome .txt files from the game

Click a pet to see its gene visualisation grid. Each dot represents a single gene, organised by chromosome (rows) and position (columns). The colours and patterns encode what each gene does.

The gene grid for a BeeWasp — 10 chromosomes of colour-coded gene dots

Hover over any gene dot to see a tooltip with detailed information: the gene's ID, whether it's Dominant (D) or Recessive (R), and its current effect. This is the quickest way to understand what a specific gene is doing.

Hover any dot to see its tooltip — gene ID, type (Dominant/Recessive), and current effect

Use the buttons in the top-right corner to switch between views:

• Attributes — colours genes by gameplay attributes (Toughness, Intelligence, etc.)
• Appearance — colours genes by visual traits (body colour, wing scale, etc.)
• Stats — opens the stats panel showing a summary of attribute counts and positive/negative breakdowns

The view toggle — switch between Attributes, Appearance, and Stats

Appearance view — genes coloured by visual traits

Stats panel — attribute counts at a glance

The stats table is interactive — click any attribute row to filter the gene grid down to just that attribute's genes. Everything else dims out so you can see exactly where those genes sit across the chromosomes.

• Click an attribute to select it and filter the grid
• Ctrl+click to select multiple attributes at once
• Alt+click to hide a specific attribute instead
• Click the selected attribute again to clear the filter

Intelligence selected — only Intelligence genes remain visible, everything else is dimmed

When viewing a Horse pet, breed filter buttons appear above the gene grid. If the pet has a known breed, an Auto button activates automatically — filtering genes to that breed and greying out the manual buttons. Click Auto to toggle it off and choose a different breed manually.

• Auto (green) — automatically filters to the pet's breed. Manual buttons are disabled.
• Toggle Auto off — clears the filter and re-enables manual breed selection (All, St, Kb, etc.)
• You can control whether Auto is on by default in Settings (gear icon in the top bar)

Auto mode active — the green Auto button selects the pet's breed, manual buttons are greyed out

Click the Compare tab in the top bar to compare two pets of the same species side by side. Pick two pets from the sidebar picker, or enter compare mode from the pet list and tick two checkboxes.

Once both pets are picked, three views are available along the top:

• Attributes — side-by-side attribute totals with the winner highlighted per row
• Gene Stats — positive/negative counts per attribute for both pets
• Genome Diff — the full gene grid for both pets aligned by position, with differences highlighted. Click a chromosome label to focus; Ctrl-click to multi-select, Alt-click to hide.

The Genome Diff grid has its own Attributes / Appearance toggle that mirrors the single-pet view — Attributes colours genes by effect direction, Appearance colours each gene by the trait category it controls (body hue, wing scale, coat, etc.). Each view has its own filter bar, shown only when that view is active.

Switch to the Genes tab using the button in the top bar. The sidebar shows dropdowns to select an animal type and chromosome.

The Genes tab — select animal type and chromosome, then click Edit Genes

After clicking "Edit Genes", a table appears with every gene in that chromosome. Use the dropdowns to set the dominant and recessive effects, then click "Save All Changes".

The gene editor — set effects for each gene position

Click the Gallery button in the view controls to switch to the image gallery. Here you can upload screenshots of your pets, view them in a thumbnail grid, and open them full-size in a lightbox.

The Gallery view — upload and manage screenshots of your pets

• Upload Images — click the button and select one or more images (PNG, JPG, WebP). They're stored locally with the app.
• Thumbnail grid — click any image to view it full-size. Use arrow keys or click the navigation buttons to browse.
• Delete — hover over a thumbnail and click the × button. A confirmation dialog appears before deletion.

Click the database icon in the top bar to open the data management menu.

The data management menu — export or import a backup archive

Export Backup opens a dialog where you choose what to include:

The export dialog — pick what to include in the backup archive

• Gene definitions — effect data for all chromosomes
• Pet data — genome, attributes, and metadata
• Pet images — all uploaded screenshots

The backup is saved as a .zip archive containing your selected data.

Import Backup lets you pick a .zip backup file. The app shows what the archive contains and lets you choose what to restore, with two modes:

• Replace — clears selected data and restores from the backup
• Merge — keeps existing data, adds new records, skips duplicates

Add tags to your pets to categorise and filter them. Open the pet editor (hover a pet card and click the pencil icon) to manage tags.

The pet editor — add, remove, and autocomplete tags

• Type and press Enter to add a new tag, or pick from the autocomplete suggestions
• Click the × on a tag to remove it
• Tags you've used before appear as filter buttons above the pet list — click them to filter
• Select multiple tags to narrow down further (all selected tags must match)

Tag filter buttons appear when your pets have tags — click to filter

Click the gear icon in the top bar to open Settings. The Display section lets you customise the look and feel.

Settings — theme toggle and font scale controls

• Theme — choose Light, Dark, or System (follows your OS preference)
• Font scale — adjust text size from 75% to 150%. You can also use Cmd/Ctrl + +/- keyboard shortcuts, and Cmd/Ctrl + 0 to reset

Dark mode — easy on the eyes for late-night breeding sessions

Gene grid in dark mode — gene colours stay vibrant

The Settings panel (gear icon) also includes these options:

The Settings panel — visualisation options and update checking

• Auto-select breed filter — when enabled (default), viewing a Horse pet automatically activates the breed filter for that pet's breed
• Check for updates — checks GitHub for new releases and can install them directly (desktop app only)

Gorgonetics is fully keyboard-navigable. Here are the key shortcuts:

• Tab — move between interactive elements. A visible focus ring shows what's selected
• Arrow keys — navigate between pet cards in the list, items in dropdown menus, and cells in the gene grid
• Enter / Space — activate buttons, select pets, or show gene tooltips
• Escape — close any modal, dialog, dropdown, or tooltip
• Cmd/Ctrl + Plus/Minus — increase or decrease font size
• Cmd/Ctrl + 0 — reset font size to default