History Main / Darwinia

* ''VideoGame/{{Darwinia}}'', an ActionAdventure / RealTimeStrategy game from Introversion Software

* ''Literature/{{Darwinia}}'', a 1998 {{Hugo|Award}}-nominated novel by Creator/RobertCharlesWilson

* ''Literature/{{Darwinia}}'', a 1998 {{Hugo|Award}}-nominated novel by RobertCharlesWilson

* ''VideoGame/{{Darwinia}}, an ActionAdventure / RealTimeStrategy game from Introversion Software
* ''Literature/{{Darwinia}}, a 1998 {{Hugo|Award}}-nominated novel by RobertCharlesWilson

[[redirect:{{VideoGame/Darwinia}}]]

''Darwinia'' is an award-winning ActionAdventure / RealTimeStrategy game about a MagicalComputer that runs a simulated world called Darwinia. The inhabitants of the world, called Darwinians, are docile green stick figures that each have their own unique digital soul. This is all part of a research project on artificial intelligence, [[ExcusePlot or something]].

When the player connects to the Darwinia server, the world has been hit by an infection of a very nasty computer virus and Dr Sepulveda, the scientist responsible for creating Darwinia, is at his wit's end and starting to seriously consider wiping out the whole project, and two decades of research just to stop the virus. The player showing up gives him hope that his digital world can be saved.

Over the course of the game, the player visits a number of unique locations, with Dr Sepulveda giving pieces of history for Darwinia in most of them. Towards the end of the game, some very nasty forms of the virus are encountered, one of which can actually destroy the souls of Darwinians.

The game was praised for its retro-inspired graphics and unique-but-intuitive control scheme, but sold terribly due to its retro-inspired graphics and unique-but-intuitive control scheme.

Introversion Software has since made a multi-player sequel called ''{{Multiwinia}}''. It has also been released on Xbox Live Arcade as ''Darwinia+'', combining the basic game, the rocket level that served as the second game demo (now considered an epilogue), and Multiwinia.
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!! '''This game provides examples of:'''

* AllYourPowersCombined: Viruses can "evolve" into more complex forms if left alone for too long. In addition, some viruses can consume souls and lay eggs, which spawn more viruses.
* ArbitraryHeadcountLimit: You can only control 3 programs (controllable units) at the start of the game, and can upgrade it to a maximum of 5.
* ArtificialStupidity: Programs only attempt to move in straight lines. They will happily run up an unclimbable slope (and stay there forever), or right into a wall of instant death. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] by the fact that you're supposed to treat your programs like action game protagonists, not like RTS units.
** Darwinians will also attempt climbing slopes slowly, but are unable to get past a body of water.
* BadassNormal: The Darwinians themselves, once they get weapons, can hold their ground with quite ease and blow minor viruses out of the system. That is, until the computer starts rolling in [[DemonicSpiders jumping spiders]].
* BeatThemAtTheirOwnGame: Infected Darwinians can take over Armor (in battle cannon mode) the player has set up for the regular Darwinians.
* BigCreepyCrawlies: Most of The Virus could count as a digital version. Do ''not'' zoom in if you're arachnophobic.
* BrainwashedAndCrazy: Infected Darwinians.
* BugWar: The plot can basically be seen as this in a computer. Played straight to the point where you can't feel any sympathy for The Virus.
* CannonFodder: In ''Biosphere'', you need to use the Darwinians to punch through the enemy waves of infected Darwinians.
* CrapsackWorld: In ''{{Multiwinia}}'' especially. Four tribes of mutated Darwinians are in a constant state of war. No side really knows why the fight even started. Meteor showers and nuclear strikes are commonly used, to the point where "WMD" refers to something [[ItGotWorse other than nukes]]. To top it all off, DeathIsCheap and souls come back all the time to just keep fighting, unless of course the dark forests get to them, in which case they haunt the ruins of battlefields for all of eternity.
* DeathIsCheap: Because Darwinians get reincarnated soon after death.
* DeathIsASlapOnTheWrist: Programs can simply be rerun for free, and getting back to where you were before is usually just an inconvenience, since any building you've reprogrammed can be used as a starting point. Dead Darwinians can be reconstituted at an incubator as long as the souls can be collected in time.
* DemonicSpiders: In the form of - of course - giant spiders. They are so tough that the only way to kill them quickly is by using explosive weapons, but their favorite combat maneuver is jumping into close combat, so you have a hard time killing them without losing some of your own units to friendly fire. [[invoked]]
* DueToTheDead: If you see a bunch of Darwinians get killed, chances are pretty good that you'll see a bunch of kites launched as the souls drift upwards off the playing field.
* EnemySummoner: Spiders jumping and laying eggs.
* FanSequel: You're encouraged to make your own once you finish the game, and some fans have made some pretty big ones.
* GeoEffects: Forces move slower when climbing hills, faster when going down them, shorter throws when throwing up slope, and longer throws when going downslope. Thanks, physics!
* TheGoomba: Virii, which are present in large numbers.
* InstantWinCondition: As long as you complete the objectives, regions can remain as infected as you want.
* ItRunsOnNonsensoleum: The justification for the retraux visuals is that the Darwinian world is the result of a bunch of old, notably crappy computers running in tandem as a parallel processor. Sepulveda didn't anticipate the Darwinians that eventually showed up, and was instead doing research on creating a new type of video game.
* TheLifestream: The Soul Repository, which also acts as the world's power source (it provides solar energy).
* TheMissingno: Tripods
* MookMaker: Eggs are laid by Spiders and Spore Generators. Triffids are more dangerous, because they launch larger eggs from a distance if it detects any enemy.
* OmegaCast: Not counting the nameless Darwinians and The Virus, Dr. Sepulveda is the only named character in the game.
* OurSoulsAreDifferent: Digital souls. The manual explains what a digital soul is, though the game itself says little. Suffice to say, they're as important to a Darwinian as our souls are to us.
** Digital souls are basically Darwinian AI, encoded as a form of computerised DNA. The glowing, physical object is just the way the game represents that chunk of code. It mentions how the most successful souls reincarnate pretty much as-is while the less successful start fresh as a template based on the most successful, leading to a continued evolution of the Darwinian race. One level has you recapturing this template, the Pattern Buffer, from the virus.
** Also, one type of virus can destroy the Darwinians' souls, leaving behind ghosts in the world.
* PaperPeople: Darwinians.
* {{Pixellation}}: A non-censorship example. 3D programs and enemies have pixellation filter to either make it look more retro, or to indicate damage.
** It could have been also done to show that the programs and enemies are foreign to the Darwinians' world, as it and the Darwinians themselves are rendered without pixelization.
* {{Retraux}}: Its presentation.
* {{Sequel}}: to {{Uplink}}. Various news stories in the first game hint towards the plot of the second, and you're implied to be a hacker, much like the ones featured in {{Uplink}}, at the beginning of {{Darwinia}}.
* SomeDexterityRequired: Earlier versions of the game had a complex gesture system which was replaced with a simpler menu by default.
* ThankTheMaker: The Darwinians consider Dr Sepulveda to be a {{God}}. They've even made statues of him after he accidentally sent his webcam video data to the Darwinia sky rendering system.
* TheVirus: Darwinia, being a computer, has been infected by a particularly nasty one, which is responsible for all the enemies you face.
** Futurwinians from ''Multiwinia'', too. Opening a box will occasionally call in a FlyingSaucer (theorized by fans to be an {{Uplink}} hacker's connection) that will abduct any Darwinians nearby and convert them into a new, silver-colored faction on the game board. These Futuwinians are created with the Mind Control Ray Mk. 2, which converts their opponents into new Futurwinians...who thanks to the mechanics of the game, also possess Mind Control Ray Mk. 2. [[DemonicSpiders Not fun]]. Curiously, the ''actual'' remnants of the Virus, while annoying if you trigger it, are just a little more powerful then beginning players.
* VideoGameCaringPotential: Darwinians act very eerily human-like. They explore when they're bored, they jump in the air when they're excited, they run away and scream when they're scared, and they even have funerals (specifically, if they see a soul ascending because you didn't collect it, they'll release a kite to guard it on it's way to heaven, as Dr. Sepulveda explains). It's ''really'' hard not to become attached to them.
* VideoGameCrueltyPotential: On the other hand, you can send them marching into a large cluster of TheVirus, your squads can throw grenades at them, you can promote every single one into an Officer and then execute them, or you could [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking make them walk a]] ''[[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking really]]'' [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking long way to get to their destination]].
* YouRequireMoreVespeneGas: Notably (for an RTS) averted. Digital souls act as a kind of resource, but they're only useful for creating more Darwinians. Beyond that, the only real resource is program space.
* ShoutOut: Damn near everything in the game is a shout out to something or other; ''VideoGame/CannonFodder'', ''{{Tron}}'', ''{{Centipede}}'', ''SpaceInvaders'' and the ZXSpectrum to name but a few. Hell, Dr Sepulveda even looks like Clive Sinclair.
* ZergRush: Possible, once the Darwinians have weapons and your officers have the 'follow me' order. Get enough together and you can overwhelm most enemies through sheer weight of numbers.

* VideoGameCaringPotential: Darwinians act very eerily human-like. They explore when they're bored, they jump in the air when they're excited, and they run away and scream when they're scared. It's ''really'' hard not to become attached to them.

* DemonicSpiders: In the form of - of course - giant spiders. They are so tough that the only way to kill them quickly is by using explosive weapons, but their favorite combat maneuver is jumping into close combat, so you have a hard time killing them without losing some of your own units to friendly fire.