A couple years ago I was hit with a similar inspiration and made my own spiritual successor of Simulated Evolution for the PICO-8, called Petri: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=141479
I have been circling doing this for the same reason, any recommendation or tutorials?
That is wild to hear.
Without digging into the details (my confession) it immediately reminded me of the kind of simulations that were introduced in the old "Computer Recreations" column of Scientific American.