A friend of mine made this in-browser neural network engine that could run millions of multi-layer NNs in a simulated world at hundreds of updates per second and each network could reproduce and evolve. It worked in the sense that the networks exhibited useful and varied behaviors. However, it was clear that larger networks were needed for more complex behaviors and evolution just starts to take a lot longer.
https://youtu.be/-1s3Re49jfE?si=_G8pEVFoSb2J4vgS