Help And Tips

Here you can see basic gameplay information and general tips.

Basic game mechanics

The player controls members of a species which needs to spread out into the world, and evolve into more complex lifeforms. You control a single cell from your species, and can influence other cells.

The world is divided into patches. The area the player's cell inhabits is your current patch.

Compound clouds

The various compound clouds are:

White – Glucose

Yellow – Hydrogen Sulfide

Orange – Ammonia

Purple – Phosphates

Red – Iron

=== Microbe proteins and organelles ===

Prokaryotic Proteins

Cytoplasm, Metabolosomes and Rusticyanin (as well as Thylakoids and Chemosynthisizing Proteins) produce ATP .

Chemosynthisizing Proteins produce Glucose .

Thylakoids produce Glucose for free, as long as there is sunlight.

Nitrogenase produces extra Ammonia .

Oxytoxisomes produce toxins that can damage or disable other cells.

External Organelles

A Flagellum increases your speed in one direction.

A Pilus can be used to stab the other cells or to defend against them.

Chemoreceptors allow detecting compounds and cells from further away.

Slime Jets give a short boost of speed in one direction.

Cilia increases turning speed of cells, and can be upgraded to pull things towards you.

Membrane Bound Organelles

The Nucleus doubles your cell's size, reduces all damage taken by 50% and unlocks membrane-bound organelles.

Mitochondrions and Ferroplasts produce ATP .

Chemoplasts produce Glucose .

Chloroplasts produce Glucose for free, as long as there is sunlight.

"Nitrogen Fixing Plastid produces extra Ammonia .

Vacuoles give you a lot of extra storage for compounds.

Toxin Vacuoles produce toxins that can damage or disable other cells.

Lysosomes let you feed on other cells more efficiently, and allow engulfing cells with chitin or cellulose membranes."

Signalling Agents allow you to send signals that friendly cells can react to.

Binding Agents allow binding with other cells. Required to advance to the Multicellular Stage.

Non-LAWK parts

These parts are only available if you deselect 'LAWK only' in the New Game settings.

Thermosynthase and Thermoplasts produce ATP for free, as long as the environment is hot enough.

More Game Info

Every time you reproduce, you will enter the Editor, where you can make changes to your species (by adding, moving, or removing organelles) to increase your species' success. Each visit to the editor in the Microbe Stage represents 100 million years of evolution.

Each generation, you have 100 mutation points (MP) to spend, and each change (or mutation) will cost a certain amount of that MP. Adding and removing organelles costs MP. However, removing organelles that were placed in the current mutation session refunds MP for that organelle. You can move (and rotate) or remove an organelle by right-clicking on it and selecting from the pop-up menu.

Cellulose and chitin cell walls can't be digested without having the enzymes that can break them down first. These enzymes are produced by lysosomes, which are exclusive to eukaryotes. Prokaryotes don't have such organelles and digest their food less efficiently. For small cells this is fine, but for larger cells, having no lysosomes is a big disadvantage.

The binding agent allows your cell and others of its species to build a cell colony where the cells share the compounds they absorb and produce with each other. While in a colony, you can't enter the editor. To do this, you must leave the colony by pressing the Unbind all key. Large cell colonies are the way towards multicellularity, and the end of the Single-Cell Stage.

If you survive for twenty generations with 300 population, you are considered to have "won" the current game. You can still continue playing as you wish.