I matched the first pair but nothing happened. Is it supposed to proceed to the next level?

Great puzzler concept! It shines through simplicity. However, maybe you have altogether too many operations at your disposal: once you start using horizontal to vertical swaps and such to their full extent, it's a pretty straight path to the finish line. Maybe you could add some limitations?

By the way, sound and music work in my Chrome (version 21.0.1180.79 on Ubuntu Precise). Some versions might not support Ogg Vorbis, so you'd have to provide MP3s or WAVs for those.

It should be clearer which part of the gene I'm selecting... Because I'm just clicking randomly hoping that I can change it the way I want...

Nice puzzle game, but since we got the mechanics, challenge just disappears.

Nice simple game for the time you gave it. The music felt a little like a 70s science program? Could use a labcoated scientist in big glasses explaining things and a bit of VCR grain to complete the effect.

A little bit boring... and it's hard to understand the controls (even if you can).

Oh boy I love that entry. It was hard to get into it at first, but as soon as I figured out what to do I had a blast.
I was kinda expecting to see some wild animals though. Maybe you could have a feature where you get some weird animals depending on the order of the colors the player leaves.

But it was simple and fun. Boy it was fun. I clicked around and clicked around, and had a major blast. I'd love to have this on my mobile phone to play on the train. I'd play it for hours.

Best entry I played yet. This has so gotta be finished. With a bit of polish and maybe different game modes (time trials and what not, maybe even have the player teach how he has to sort the colors to get something, and then he has not only to match the colors, but have them in the right order too) this is gonna be a neat game. Add particle effects and quirky lights, bouncy points and such... or live mutation showing (like the animal changing itself depending on the current setup, like a little puzzle to show the current state...).

Man i love this game. If you won't finish this up, I'll steal it and do it myself :D

nice idea. never really got the hang of the interface i must admit

A nice start. Suggestions: An example at the beginning (I initially thought I was trying to make two cells match, not make them single-colored), less subtle coloring (at least once I could barely tell yellowish from mustardy yellowish). More of a beginning and end. Limited moves or limited time or both.

Cool puzzle game, but as others have mentioned, the hardest part of the game is understanding the controls initially, after that, it's not that hard anymore. It doesn't fit the theme very well if you ask me. It's not like anything evolves here, it's just the graphics that are "themed".
I feel like the music didn't fit all that well. :(

The music was awesome too. I liked it a lot =)

I loved the concept! You could polish it and add time or click counter to increase difficulty. And increase the graphics a little. Then it would be a masterpiece :)

You should add a cap to the number of permutation we can do for each level. I ended up randomly switching the genes, hopping i would stumble on something i could easily solve (oooh the irony)

had a hard time getting what is the goal of the game.
really liked the music though. did it yourself?

That was a very cool idea for a puzzler.
I think it has the potential for a full-blown game.
If each puzzle had a limited set of moves you could make... one puzzle could have 3 swaps, 2 flips, and one splice or something.
The you could build up too... start the game with only one type of move and add moves as you progress.

Where is the source code?

It's a HTML5 game, so for the source you just have to press Ctrl+U (then click on evolution.js , that's where the majority of the code is)

I like designing puzzles myself, so I just love this for simplicity and the main mechanic. The bad thing is, controls are not very intuitive at first and it gets boring pretty quickly. Still, a very very decent entry!