Substrate Emergence

2025 · simulation · Linux

v0.0.2a-2 "Mutagenesis" " This is a very early, rough prototype. Expect bugs, performance issues, and limited content." " Note on Mac and Linux: Builds are compiled directly from Unity for these platforms with no modifications and are not supported. Platform specific bugs won't be fixed. Mac requires some commands to get it to run." Basics: * Energy particles come from substrate (environment) * Cells collect energy particles (food) via transmembrane proteins and store it in their vacuoles * Energy particles are constantly converted into cytoplasm by mitochondria (ATP production) * Cytoplasm is the equivalent of available energy to the cell (ATP) and is represented by the cell membrane area * When low on cytoplasm, cells will starve to death * Cell functions such as movement and organelle production cost cytoplasm * Nuclei consume vacuole energy directly to grow to the mitosis threshold (low background rate, faster manual rate) * Cells can divide and mutate ( mitosis ) * Automated behavior can evolve Controls: * Left-click and hold to drag * Long drag nucleus to enter cell into "cruise mode" * Double click nucleus to drain vacuoles and trigger mitosis (if possible) * Right click nucleus to kill cells (apoptosis) * MMB to control camera: click to pan, scroll to zoom * F3 to display debug HUD: FPS, live cell count, GPU particle count * Tab to cycle camera focus to live cells (janky) * +/- to speed up/slow down simulation: 0.5x, 1x, 2x, 3x, 5x, 10x * P to pause * F12 to save a screenshot * T to toggle tooltips * M to mark a species Extra Playtest Controls: * R to restart with new substrate seed * Spacebar to spawn cell at cursor (unstable) * K to kill all cells * C to place a particle spray (deprecated) * G to manually spawn geysers on dense substrate