Heliopedia
It’s a cute little game, but the inventory management is a real pain. The planets and their surroundings get quickly cluttered and that takes a lot of the fun out of the game. Would be nice if we could delete stuff more easily than dragging it all the way to the sun. The game doesn’t feel ready or polished, it seems to have a bunch of bugs here and there as well. Also I was hoping it would be a bit more realistic/educational but it’s really more on the same level as Little Alchemy ie. Stick + Bug = Stick bug. It took me two days to make sand, because I thought the logical route would be rocks but no, obviously I needed to make bunnies first.
– Real player with 13.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Creature Collector Simulation Games.
Cute little game, but ran into game breaking errors.
If you try to charge batteries under a thunderstorm, it crashes your game with a FATAL ERROR message. Poop doesn’t dissolve in water, despite what it says in the journal. And there’s no keyboard option to quickly pick up a ton of items instead of clicking over and over again, which will strain your wrist. You can also lock yourself out of progression if you run out of materials or have trouble cooling down planets.
I really enjoy the game, but it definitely needs some fixes and fine-tuning.
– Real player with 12.5 hrs in game
Fractal Evolution
Fractal Evolution is a 2D space exploration RPG with life simulation elements inspired by Conway’s Game of Life.
You will explore a universe, fight monsters, and complete quests, with the ultimate goal of returning life to the universe in the form of single-celled creatures called Fractals. Each planet begins with just two unique fractals that breed with each other, and ultimately spawn a network of creatures competing for resources and constantly evolving. Study the evolution of these creatures and eventually gain items that allow you to engineer their genome. Every universe is unique, and runs on a non-deterministic simulation that follows two simple equations. One for physics, and the other for biology.
Read More: Best Creature Collector Simulation Games.
The Forger
What can be said, it was a click clicky click and then click the same thing 1000000 more time game,
I would like a bit more hints to the chest puzzle. The first one was super easy, the next clueless.
respawn hit point regain is too high to fast for the mobs.
Changing design or size / placement for hit meter bar.
my eyes were really not able to stare at one point for so long. with also focusing on how much I am doing damage for let alone for the timer where he reset all hit points and starts over.
– Real player with 5.7 hrs in game
Read More: Best Creature Collector Simulation Games.
it’s a pretty dumb little clicker with lots of unfun random chance, that never really goes anywhere
– Real player with 3.1 hrs in game
Vilmonic
Vilmonic is a sandbox game which focuses on the evolution of alien species called anims; they adapt to environments, go extinct, go through periods of population peaks… Anims change shape as they try to find a way to fulfil their role in a niche, when faced with competition from other anims. I have high hopes for this game, and I believe the developer will continue to grow it.
Vilmonic for me is a concept game, it is still in beta as I write this, the game has potential to inspire many into pursuing perhaps even careers in genetics, or simply educating people in times where evolution has been considered controversial. It has a friendly aesthetic for new users, the control schemes can be somewhat clunky.
– Real player with 151.7 hrs in game
The ONLY modern A-Life game you can do a successful Wolfing Run.
For the young ones, that is a term coined by the Creatures series community, which has been on the net since 1999.
Wolfing is leaving your artificial lifeforms to their own devices for several hours, maybe while at work or sleeping, and coming back to a population that has changed, persisted, and survived natural selection factors. Mods are needed for Creatures 2’s bugs but the three games can theoretically support a “wild” population of creatures without player input for extended periods.
– Real player with 30.8 hrs in game
Just Add Noise
ALPHA VERSION COMING SOON.
Create a world, play it music and watch it react and evolve.
Just Add Noise lets you control an audio reactive world. Build a scene and play it your own music.
What will your music attract?
Early experiments here. Although these are a very limited representation of what Just Add Noise will be like…
Just Add Noise is a solo indie project made in Unreal Engine. An early access version should be available soon.
Bird by Example
What is Bird by Example?
Bird by Example is — and I say this with great passion — an RPG sandbox where all the occupying NPCs are grotesque birds who mimic your behavior with deep learning algorithms. Nothing is scripted! Everything is emergent! Be the bird you want to see in the world!
Steam has asked me to be more explicit with the game’s features:
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world
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objects
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jump
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crawl
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punch
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squawk
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bite
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physics objects
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other*
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stories??**
It’s an artificial intelligence sandbox acted out by birds with concerning musculature! Help them see, help them love, help them eat a big fat bug! Right now at this very second, the metaphysical bounds of this game hold a throng of hungry birds who wish nothing more than to be like you! Like Mama!
_*: Imprint psuedo-neurologically upon independent bird agents, using recurrent neural networks, gradient descent, and a custom-built system of semiotic metadata evocation (to afford transferrable behavior between distinct objects and agents which share characteristics along an n-dimensional space).
**: Isn’t life a story? Aren’t we all little stories, flying on this crazy rock?_
You said this was a game? Who’s Mama? I’m Mama? Who are you again?
Please pay attention. These birds are equipped with artificial neural networks that optimize themselves against your own actions! Using trendy deep learning algorithms found in a black box at the bottom of the sea, and something called ‘gradient descent’, they will try to become mathematically perfect distillations of you! It’s very computationally expensive and very math!
But what do you actually do?
Explore, follow self-imposed rules, and cultivate your flock! Tutor a bird to act just like you! By simply doing things, they will learn from you by witnessing your play! Bite an orange and you may start to see other birds doing similarly! Squawk at a another bird and watch your flock erupt into squawkage!
Oh! That’s interesting. So they have brains!?
Woah, strong word! Let’s avoid that word!
Have you ever played a game, and thought: “This is fun, but I live in such fear that I cannot enjoy it…”
Yes, I do live a life of fear! And thank you for blowing off my silly and ethically challenging question!
Yes, you do live in fear! You’re like any brain-wielding creature! But in Bird by Example there will be nothing to be afraid of! In bird world there is nothing to be afraid of! Nothing to be afraid of! Turn that brain off!
Okay. And the game is fun? It’s a game?
You must teach the rest of the birds basic life skills! If not, they will all starve to death!
Wait, you coded these birds to feel hungry but didn’t teach them how to eat?
That feature was out of scope! Please!!! Hungry!!!
Hold on… What’s a bird?
A bird is a fictional creature which came to me in a dream on a particularly cold night in February. I woke up in a sweat the next morning and quickly tried to recreate the apparition from memory. The results? Remarkable.
Earliest known footage of a “Bird” from that morning.
They were perfect. All they needed was a name.
The word ‘Bird’ is a mix of the word ‘word’ and the letter ‘b’ This is because I needed a word — or “wird” — to describe the birds. Sadly, a word using ‘a’ was already taken. It’s like gamertags!
I experimented for many weeks with flight, but no matter how much I stretched out their arms they would not.
Whatever. Doesn’t matter.