Cell to Singularity: Evolution Never Ends is an Idle Game released in 2018, which follows the real life evolution of life and eventually human civilization. In it, you start in the primordial soup with the most basic building blocks of life, like amino acids and DNA, then evolve the world by researching upgrades and new life forms until you reach a technological singularity. The game is available on Steam for Mac and PC and on mobile devices.
This game provides examples of:
- Adam Smith Hates Your Guts: The price of each item (i.e., organism or technology) rises fast with how many of those items you have. This is most notable in the Mesozoic Valley, where having a certain number of various dinosaur species is often a requirement to finishing a level.
- Ad Reward: The mobile port has the option to watch an ad to add four hours to doubled Entropy and Idea gain.
- Anachronism Stew: Due to the nature of upgrades, it's very much possible to skip things that would have likely came out before a reached time period, or to obtain them out of order. For example, you can get to the Industrial Revolution without inventing music, or have computers before television.
- Artificial Intelligence: The initial goal of the game is to evolve humanity to the point where they could reasonably achieve a technological singularity. The simulation is also being run by an A.I. character called Semblance, who has recruited you, the player, to participate. She occasionally shows shades of Deadpan Snarker.
- While Semblance seems helpful and friendly, it's unknown in the current version of the game whether the planned futuristic expansion, The Beyond, will play out in shades of A.I. Is a Crapshoot or Benevolent A.I..
- Bio-Augmentation: The "Superhuman" unlocked after passing The Singularity for the first time uses these.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: The game starts to mention that you're playing it eventually, with the Information Age being described as "The age you're playing this game in. This game is possible because of this age.", Video Games stating "You're playing one right now!", and Game Engine stating "This game was made in one of these."
- But Thou Must!: The only option available is "Yes" when the game asks you if you want to take part in the experiment.
- Colonized Solar System: You can eventually travel to, colonize, and terraform Mars.
- Creating Life: The game's main goal, at least until you unlock the cultural evolution section. The researching of each new lifeform is even greeted with a "New life form created" message.
- Cyborg: The next evolutionary step after Humans, can be unlocked by passing The Singularity.
- Expansion Pack: On Christmas Eve 2019, the developers released the Mesozoic Valley Expansion, which added a whole new tree of upgrades involving the evolution of the dinosaurs (and their eventual extinction).
- June 2020 came the Rise of Reptiles update, adding 8 new reptile and bird generators to the main simulation. Each is unlocked the further one gets in the Mesozoic Valley.note
- By November 2020, the Mammal Kingdom update was released, adding 6 new mammal generators. These are unlocked using Metabits.note
- This was further expanded with the Aquatic Mammals update, released in March 2021, with Cetaceans as an additional generator purchasable using Metabits, and adding more upgrades to Caniforms.
- Magikarp Power: The Rover at first seems like a far cry compared to the previous Idea increasers, but getting several upgrades allows it to outclass them.
- Microtransactions: Darwinium cubes can be purchased to speed up production or get other bonuses. The cheapest unit you can buy Darwinium cubes in costs $1.99 US, though cubes can also be obtained through the Daily Rewards calendar, by reaching the highest tier of achievements, redeeming codes, or occasionally, through opening geodes in the Mesozoic Valley.
- New Game Plus: Purchasing the Singularity for the first time results in a simulation crash and game reset, allowing you to spend newly earned Metabits based on how much Entropy and Idea you cumulatively earned for special upgrades. Later on you can just reset for Metabits whenever you need to.
- Not-Actually-Cosmetic Award: Claiming an earned achievement grants a fairly large amount of Entropy and Idea. The last achievement of a line grants one Darwinium cube.
- Number of the Beast: The three main snake upgrades (Colubridae, Viper, and Python) each make Snake 666% more efficient. The other 4 upgrades each make Snake 333% more efficient.note
- The costs of Viper and Python almost count as examples of this trope, being 6.67 Octillion and 6.65 Septillion, respectively.
- Play Every Day: Buying Cytoplasm unlocks the Daily Reward Panel.
- Public Domain Soundtrack: The game features a number of famous classical pieces like Ravel's "Bolero" and Holst's "Mars, the Bringer of War".
- The Singularity: Late into the Emergent Age you lead humanity into a technological singularity by researching AI, Mind Uploading, and Self Assembly. Actually buying the Singularity for the first time results in the game "crashing" and resetting, allowing the player to upgrade the simulation and unlock new content using Metabits.
- Snail Mail: The description for the E-Mail upgrade: "Snail mail no more!"
- Tech Tree: The initial display of all your life and upgrades is done with branches and nodes, with the game calling it "Tech Tree of Life". There are several other tech trees unlocked later.
- Transhuman: You can access this organism (called "Superhuman") after you unlock The Singularity.
- Transhuman Aliens / Transhumans in Space: The endpoint of the tech tree of life (for now) are the distant, genetically-modified descendants of mankind colonizing interstellar space.
- You Have Researched Breathing: Since this a game about evolution, you often have to research simple organs like lungs or actions like cooking.
