Explanation
I apologize for this thing being confusing and technical
This is a cat genetics simulator based on the series Cat Genetics for Writers & Artists, so if you haven't seen that series, I would recommend it.
I would also recommend having a basic understanding of genes and their expression. (phenotypic dominance, punnett squares, that sort of thing)
Explaination of parts of the simulator
Under each category is a button. Inside of the buttons explains what the genes and and what the appearance is. Buttons with an asterisk (*) are ones that have a hidden recessive gene. This gene is not expressed in the parent's coat, but if both parents have the recessive gene, it could be expressed in their offspring. For example, if both parents are black cats, but are carrying the recessive gene for cinnamon, their child has a 25% change to be cinnamon colored. (Parents: B/b1, Child: b1/b1)
Phenotype: Explains what your cat looks like.
Genotype: Explains (part of) your cat's genetic code.
Tabby: Changes whether your cat has stripes (tabby) or is a solid color. If your cat is orange, it will always have stripes.
Tabby style: Changes the shape of the tripes. Mackerel is stripey stripes, classic pattern has big blotches. Not visible if your cat is solid-color (no stripes).
Ticking: idk how to explain this but basically, on tabbies, it makes all of the fur stripes, instead of some of them.
Base color: Affects whether your cat is black, chocolate (dark brown), or cinnamon (orangey brown). Not visible if your cat is fully orange.
Dilution: Makes your cat a more 'dilute' color. Black changes to gray/blue, chocolate to lilac, cinnamon to fawn, and orange to cream.
Orange: Changes whether your cat is fully orange, partially orange (this is called tortoiseshell or calico), or the base color. This is controlled by the X chromosome, so tortie/calico is only available on the female cat.
Inhibitor: Makes white stripes, even a little on solid-color cats.
Colorpoint: Makes your cat fully white or siamese. There are also less intense types of siamese known as burmese and tonkinese/mink. (this simulator is kinda bugged with regards to siamese, it's hard to code 😕)
White spotting: Adds white spots to your cat. Your cat can be fully white, high white (only a few bits of color), mid white (less than 50% white), or with no white markings
Fur length: Short fur or long fur
Randomly generate a kit: Randomly generates a genetically-possible offspring based on the parents, and displays it at the bottom of the screen.
Tip: It's fun to give the parents a bunch of carried recessive genes, and then click the "Randomly generate a kit" button to see all of their different possible offspring
Limitations
There are many appearance-affecting genes that are not included in this simulator.
I'm not sure how spotted vs. mackerel works genetically so I just included mackerel only.
The ticked fur patterns could be more detailed.
Some of the siamese-type markings probably don't look accurate. It was difficult to get it to work with all fur patterns. I think there's actually a mistake in the siamese calculator right now but I'm too lazy to fix it.
On tortoiseshell cats with little to no white, their orange/black patches are small and blend together. In cats with high white spotting (calico), the changer in color are wider. This isn't a feature in this simulator.
In real life, tabby/non-tabby gene may effect orange markings slightly.
There are probably some mistakes in general, I could have missed something while taking notes.
Our understanding of these genes may change in the future. This simulator is based on videos from 2023/2024.