In-game event29 Aug 2026v0.4.4: Divide & Conquer pt. 2!Hey everyone! I am here once again to share a new update for the demo. I have been focusing a lot on improving the onboarding and accessibility of the game and in that spirit I have fleshed out the tutorial much more with dedicated tutorial levels for each mechanic. I am still adding levels, but the core lessons should be enough to teach the foundations of the game. I think it will be a massive…
Hey everyone! I am very excited to share another Alpha build, this time built around territorial domination! A lot has changed, and some things will be a bit rough while I patch the holes. The biggest challenge that I have been facing is that the game is confusing. Previously, I thought this was just an issue with the tutorial and onboarding, but over time I have realized that the tutorial is c…
v0.4.2a: * Gameplay & Balance: - Creative mode only: Place cells on demand in cultures. Ctrl + space opens the cell placer - Tool consistency changes: particle density is now consistent across all tool radii and is set by intensity - Improved effectiveness of antibiotics and viruses at high bacteria counts - Reduced amount of dense substrate left behind by dead cells - Motile cells have longer…
Hey everyone! I've just updated the demo and main app to v0.4.2. This will be one of the last major demo updates before Early Access starts. This is a big update. Tutorial overhaul I've attempted another rework of the tutorial, with improved pacing and details. I hope that it helps clarify the game for anyone who found the learning curve too steep to get started. Gameplay changes One of the big…
v0.4.1: * Improved controls (need testing): - Selections can now be filtered via the inspector - Right-click sets a waypoint for your selected cells to follow, up to 128 cells per order - Waypoint orders persist when selection changes - Apoptose order moved to Delete (rebindable) - Shift + select adds to selection, ctrl + select removes (works with box select) - alt + left-click dettaches plasm…
v0.4.0b: * pH tolerance and temperature tolerance gene mutations changed from multiplicative to additive to try to improve the bias of cultures towards acidification * Replication cost now scales with population density so overcrowding should be less of an issue * Added the ability to remove crystals. Right-click while holding the crystal tool deletes any crystals near the cursor. NOTE: The den…
v0.4.0: * Tutorial overhauled to be goals-first * Contracts reworked with new objective types * Widened cell temperature tolerance bands * Added strain valuation breakdown on strain tree with per-gene value * Added proper DPI resolution scaling to all UI elements * P to pause now works while tools are active * Seeding from the Cryobank now correctly exits menus to the dish and arms placement. E…
Hello everyone! I have just updated the demo and base app to v0.4.0. I will be closing the playtest now that Next Fest is starting, but don't worry! The demo is the same build and I will still be updating it as usual. This just gives it a permanent home on the store page. If you haven't wishlisted Substrate yet, now's the moment, it really helps the game get seen during the fest. And if you can…
v0.3.5: * Bacteria rebalanced to reduce the amount of active attention they require. Bacterial blooms are more rare * Reduced maintenance cost burden so labs can comfortably afford significantly higher cell counts * Biomarket, contracts, Cryobank, and glossary panels all merged into one "Manage" screen with tabs * Scaled down culture sizes significantly for improved population dynamics * Improv…
v0.3.4a: * Fixed sterilization not blocking bacteria spawning * Rebalanced contamination rates to be less demanding * Fixed bug where abandoning contracts could result in net positive Biomarks * Mutagen now unlocks upon tutorial completion * Fixed bug where specimens wouldnt be added to Cryobank from Biomarket orders * Updated contracts to reflect recent changes
Hello! For this update I was mainly focused on fixing and refining the central gameplay loops and removing some frustrating aspects. In my opinion it is a noticeable improvement over the last build, especially now that insta-death is no longer really a thing for labs. Culture maintenance felt too punishing so I've flipped it, and now there is a reward for keeping your populations low. You are m…
Hey everyone! I have been working on updating the tutorial and reinforcing the game loops, so I hope this update helps to clear up a lot of the confusing aspects of the game. I look forward to hearing everyone's feedback! v0.3.3: * Added guided tutorial (WIP) * Cryobank rework - now limited to 7 unique specimens preserved at a time * QuickStart moved to new lab option * Harvesting cells with G…
Hello again! After collecting the first bits of feedback from v0.3.0, I've made a few big changes that I wanted to announce here. To give career mode a clearer and more challenging goal, I've made Biomarks more important, in a few ways. Now, cultures will have an ongoing maintenance cost, which scales with culture size. This means that there is no longer an infinite money loop where your cultur…
Hey everyone! It's been exactly a month since the last update, and there is a lot to share. Most of the feedback has been from playtesters who are confused, so I have been working on a new tutorial to hopefully help out with that! I also have been working on streamlining the UI and improving clarity wherever I can. This is still a work in progress, but it's enough of an improvement over the las…
Hey everyone, v0.2.8 is here! There is a new UI, as well as a bunch of improvements and new features. While some of the newest features and cell types are still WIP, there are plenty of improvements that enable more selective evolution and creative lab shenanigans. The tutorial format has also been reworked, so I am especially looking for feedback on ways to improve the tutorial's content to be…
I've continued working on getting the simulation stable in the long term. Performance still drops but I'm pretty sure that it's from slime mold's being unbalanced now, so I'll be working on that next. I ran the simulation over night last night and found some more GC leaks, and fixed most of it today. I haven't had a chance to run it for very long, but so far memory use is noticeably lower and d…
v0.2.6b: * Stability improvements: - Fixed memory leaks causing gradual degradation over long sessions - Fixed various death/spawn lifecycle edge cases that could cause errors * Performance improvements: - Significantly reduced CPU cost of slime mold networks at scale - Fixed GPU upload path running at full cost every frame - Particle system now scales to actual cell count instead of fixed max…
This is a bigger update than usual that improves the functionality of Lab Mode. Contracts are more functional now and serve to guide you in exploring the simulation. The Strain Registry is also more functional in tracking your own collection of discovered strains. Changelog: v0.2.6: * Major contracts rework: - Improved coherence of objectives, progression and rewards - Better integration with p…
v0.2.5: * Reworked contract system to offer more depth and variety (Still very WIP, needs feedback and testing) * Adjusted weighting and masking for automatic strain grouping * Increased digestive enzyme damage * Fixed contract timer bug where time-based objectives would be impossible due to their timer being too short * Fixed major performance bug where hidden panels were being redrawn every f…
v0.2.4: * Expanded tutorial and adjusted explanations for clarity (need feedback) * Added pop-ups to major panels on first open with WIP drafts of explanation blurbs * Continued work on contracts. Fixed some contracts being impossible due to the culture lacking prerequisite cells, tweaked progression and available objectives. Contracts now automatically detect if an objective is completed on ac…
v0.2.3a: * Lab Mode fixes: - Removed spacebar spawner from lab mode - Added main menu button to resume last active lab - Made button to open saved labs more obvious, now says "LOGIN" - Improved lab save structure, fixes culture bleed between labs * Strain tracking fixes (formerly species tracking): - Strain Registry now correctly saves marked strains across *all* labs (excluding creative lab, t…
# v0.2.3 is on the Steam Alpha branch! I had some fun with this update and went pretty deep with the biomarket simulation and contract generation. Contracts come as either grants, which are upfront funding and a penalty for failure, or standard contracts which payout on completion. The biomarket has some calculations to simulate the value of cell strains based on their individual genes and some…
v0.2.1 Preview is Live! Hey everyone! I just put v0.2.1 up, which polishes up from v0.2.0. Both the Alpha and Default branches were updated. I moved v0.1.10a to a new "Previous" branch too. v0.2.0 had some big changes: Nutrients I've replaced generic energy particles with three nutrient types: aminos, lipids and sugars. There is a new world creation slider, "Nutrient Diversity", which controls…
v0.1.9a hits a few major milestones: I observed some interesting and unique cell strategies emerge when a species of cells evolved that used the heat generated by their mitochondria to kill other cells and feed. Eventually, these cells replicated too much and killed themselves off, being replaced by stationary, bulky cells with large energy reserves. This is exactly the kind of unexpected emerg…
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