Lifecraft

Lifecraft is a survival game where you begin as a simple cell and assimilate resources from a primordial broth. As you evolve into a more complex organism, you must manage its growing energy needs, resources and processes while keeping its subsystems in balance.

Build and evolve

Evolution unlocks new gameplay and lets your organism grow larger, from developing circulation to forming a brain and neurons. Utility evolutions provide tools for optimizing logistics. You expand chunk by chunk in any direction by producing the scaffold and tissue materials needed to make room for structures and reach new resources.

Energy is stored as ATP, which you produce through glycolysis and mitochondrial respiration. You use it to power structures inside and outside the cell. Microtubules transport materials between buildings, while circulation becomes necessary as the organism grows: pumps, arteries, veins and capillaries carry materials to where they are needed and remove them. Materials cannot be transported directly outside cells.

Maintain your organism

You manage each subsystem according to its own needs and create synergies between them. Homeostasis means keeping parameters such as temperature, oxygen and pH within their correct ranges. Cellular respiration uses oxygen and produces carbon dioxide, so respiratory tissue must connect to the circulatory system to bring in oxygen and remove carbon dioxide.

As the game progresses, you digest complex resources into basic elements using teeth, a stomach and intestines, and synthesize the enzymes needed for the process. Kidneys filter toxins, while other processes dispose of materials the organism cannot use. If the organism is wounded, hemostasis can stop the bleeding before tissue regeneration begins.

Respond to threats

Viruses, bacteria, fungi and parasites pose dangers from outside, while diseases and wounds can also interfere with the organism internally. You use the immune system to fight threats and must heal damage to survive.

Neurons, sensors and logic can automate subsystem management by applying specific rules to the organism’s behavior.