Cell to Singularity - Evolution Never Ends News

Welcome back, Universe Architects!

Thanksgiving has passed with a lot of updates and excitement. We released the latest installment of the Civilization: Neolithic Age update and our third limited-time event of the year, Explore: Music – Good Vibrations. We hope everyone has been enjoying the new content.

A big thank you to our beta and Steam players for keeping a watchful eye out for some bugs last month. Thanks to their vigilance, we were able to apply hotfixes early. For context, in September, we saw an uptick in crashes. To resolve those issues, we updated our Unity from version 2020.3.33f1 to version 2022.3.10f1. And it worked – the game’s crash rate on Android went down from 3-4% to less than 1%.

Along with the Unity upgrade, we also updated our APIs and Ads SDKs. Unfortunately, this resulted in the Cell to Singularity banner blocking the exit button for some players, meaning they were unable to exit ads. We also saw some reports of players losing their Darwinium inventory. Thankfully, we were able to resolve both issues quickly, and we strongly advise all our players to update to the latest versions to address most issues they might encounter. The Marketing/ Community team has also been reaching out to players from our various socials to provide help where needed. A thank you again to the community for supporting each other.



Quick tip: Another solution to restore any lost inventory is to use the backup save option. The game autosaves progress in different intervals in the background. Players should take advantage of this feature as their first line of defense in protecting their save files.

If you have already updated to the latest version and still encounter problems, please do the following:

• Email [email protected] with your platform/device and the latest build version number.
  
• If multiple devices are used, mention the build version numbers installed.
  
• Give a detailed summary of the issue.
  

More quality of life improvements are in the works for next year. The goal is to avoid disruptions while continuing to add lots of new content to the game:

• We are working on an anti-cheat system for Research Race events. The challenge has been for the system to recognize and separate out players who do not use legitimate methods to finish the race.
  
• We are also testing several new performance optimizations. This should help the game to run smoothly, even on older phones.
  
• An in-game news feature system is also planned, to share the latest news and updates in the game. This feature is especially important for instances where players are required to update their game versions in order to enjoy the latest content.
  

We are excited to hear players’ feedback for the Explore: Music – Good Vibrations garden. We are currently experimenting with various formats and approaches to in-game events, and are curious about what players like, so make sure to share your thoughts with us.

Stay tuned for December as we mark the last livestream of 2023 to celebrate all the content released over the year. (The November livestream was skipped because of Thanksgiving). This November, we are grateful for you, our players. Cells has grown bigger and better thanks to your continued support. The year hasn’t ended yet and we have a jam packed schedule of content ready for you to enjoy over the coming holidays. Can you guess what’s next?

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Beyond Episode 21 is coming soon! Semblance’s journey continues as her projections have yielded inconclusive results. Her quest for another rare, earth-like planet that could sustain life continues. After re-calculating her trajectory, it looks like she might have found something, an echo of something similar. Keep an eye out for Beyond Episode 21: Echoes of Earth to find out more.

Always thankful, stay cellular!
- The Cells Team

Welcome Universe Architects!

Coming in hot after the release of the Civilization: Neolithic Age update, a new event has taken the stage. For today’s show, it’s time to get loud. Hop to the beat and blow your horn. Clap your hands for Explore: Music — Good Vibrations, live today at 11 AM EST.



Sound is all around us, from the crash of a wave to the tap of a foot. It takes something truly special to turn a sound, a beat or a couple of notes into a medium that can captivate and inspire. How have humans managed to form a global phenomenon from such a simple concept?




Explore the journey from sound to music as we follow humanity’s drive for creativity. From the bang of a primitive drum to sensational pop, this tree's beat is truly unique.

• Listen through seven new generators and fifty three trait nodes as you explore through the evolution of sound.
  
• Tap to collect new currency and add to your melodious ensemble: Music Notes and Songs.
  
• Blare the new Saxophone Quantum Charge to gain new currencies.
  
• Follow the history of music from what was once an isolated group activity to a worldwide phenomenon accessible to all. Everyone can be a star!
  

Listen closely and you’ll be able to hear the different BGM tracks between the tree and garden view. The BGM track is noticeably softer in the garden so that the sounds from the instruments can shine through.

• Create a band with a new instrument with each generator unlocked. Show us your inner musician by playing on the instruments in the garden view.
  
• Instruments strut their stuff as musical notes and sound effects appear with each tap.
  
• Nanobots are dancing to the beat as both new currencies can be redeemed in the new event.
  

Get them while they're hot! Available only in this show, three new badges are available for all to indulge.

• Enjoy popular hits with new badges- Waves of Sound, A Melodic Recipe and A Musical Mix as they reach top charts.
  
• A new logit prize is ready to be added to your collection. Listen to eight songs from across the simulations in your portable Jukebox.
  

Accompanying the release, we will also have a Let’s Play event today on Discord from 11am to 12pm EST. Play together with the devs as we talk about the event. Let us know how much you are able to complete within the hour.

Tune in next week as we release another dev diary. We will sadly be skipping this month’s livestream due to the Thanksgiving (US) holiday. We have another livestream scheduled for December to mark the end of 2023.

We would like to thank our beta test players for giving us feedback to help fine tune the event. Your support was crucial as we welcomed a new member to the team. All players are encouraged to give us feedback and we can’t wait to hear what you think of this event.

Thank you for listening. Always stay cellular!
- The Cells Team

Hello Universe Architects,

It’s harvest season here in the Northern Hemisphere. We’ve been spending the season celebrating human innovation from beyond the Stone Age. Which means…



The Civilization: Neolithic Age update has finally arrived! Join us for a quick trip through time as we prepare for the ultimate harvest together.

[h2]The Beginnings of Harvest[/h2]

Did you know that the Neolithic Age is also known as the New Stone Age? While they may be similar at a glance, what sets the Neolithic Age apart from its stoney predecessor is human advancement in agriculture and animal domestication.

Now you can see those differences for yourself in the new Neolithic Age scene of the Civilization Garden! Follow a farmer steering his ox and plow, witness the invention of the wheel, and more.



[h2]Follow the Cultivation of Society[/h2]

Ever wonder how silk is produced? Or what caused the popularization of fired brick? Learn even more about the Neolithic Age with new nodes on the main tree, including:

• Nine new trait nodes with fascinating facts about Irrigation, Settlements, and more!
  
• Four new trophy nodes can be added to the tree— including the Metabit purchase, Çatalhöyük.
  

[h2]Collect Egyptian Wonders[/h2]

A Wonder of the World is practically sitting in your backyard. Unlock new trophy nodes from the Augmentation Store, including the Egyptian Pyramids, Sphinx and Cat Domestication. Which one will you choose first?



[h3]Additional Features:[/h3]

• Discover a new Neolithic Age secret achievement!
  
• The Logit Store has been Augmented. Welcome to the Augmentation Store:
  - Logit Prizes and Darwinium purchases are now officially known as Augmentations.
  - Venture through new tabs to better organize your Augmentation preferences.
  - Purchase the new Penguin 3D Profile Icon and Mammal Profile Icon Pack.
  
• Fixed: Giant Squid cutscene replaying after reboot.
  
• Research Race bug fixes and improvements.
  
• Additional Stone Age tuning and polish.
  

We hope you’ve been savoring these long-awaited Civilization updates. It may be obvious, but our team is gearing up for the overhaul of the Bronze Age. Look forward to it as we update its progress on our social channels and dev diary!

In addition to Civ’s continuation, we’ll also be releasing our newest Explore Event in just a few days! It’ll bring a beautiful sound to your ear as you Explore: Music — Good Vibrations, starting November 20th at 11 AM EST.

There’s even more to anticipate, but we’ll hold on to a couple secrets while you enjoy the new Neolithic Age update!

Happy harvest, and stay cellular!
The Cells Team

Salutations, Universe Architects!

Coming to you live from the outer reaches of our galactic neighborhood, we are ready to present the next chapter of the Beyond - Episode 20: Strange Worlds.





Semblance is looking for a new home that could harbor life. But it seems that Earth is extremely rare… will she find another? As we start the search, get ready to encounter very alien exoplanets— some terribly hot, others torn apart by gravity, all unfit to harbor the beginnings of life. What strange worlds will she find?


[h2]Moving farther away from the Sun[/h2]

Players went on a widespread journey as we charted the lives of stars in the H-R Diagram through Episodes 18 and 19. With the full range of stars understood, players will be moving farther out into the milky way in search of distant systems with planets. Traverse and discover five new generators of exciting exoplanets—Fomalhaut’s Ring, WASP-12b, Awohali, Kepler-70b and Janssen.



You’ll notice some missions call back to earlier generators as we delve deeper into the story of finding another Earth-look-alike. Help Semblance learn about other star systems by upgrading some of the old generators



[h2]The Brink of Doom is Coming[/h2]

Put a ring on it with twelve new "Series II" trait cards including ‘Diamond Crust.’ Live on the edge with ‘Brink of Doom’ as we follow Semblance in her search for a new home. These strange worlds have fascinating traits, even if they wouldn’t be a great place to move into!





[h2]The 3D Garden is Expanding[/h2]

Space is expansive and so is our 3D garden! As we go beyond the stars, we’ve made more overall improvements to the garden.

• Distance units now change when zooming in/out in the Beyond garden.
  
• Improved models, textures and new particle effects were required for Episode 20’s exoplanet generators both on the tree and in the garden.
  

[h2]More to Enjoy[/h2]

Of course, there’s more to uncover:

• Two new constellations join the night sky including a familiar companion - Canis Major and Ursa Minor.
  
• A cluster of ten new achievements have also made its way into the Beyond simulation.
  
• Fixed by popular demand: Alpha Centauri now appears correctly in the garden with all three of its suns present in one instance and in the correct distance.
  
• Lowered the taps required to unlock the Beyond from 400 to 200.
  
• Visual fix: Sedna doesn’t get enough sunlight on iOS.
  

Fun fact: Did you know? The production time and quantity for generators roughly corresponds to the mass of the celestial body. Van Maanen’s Star is small, and has a quick production speed - but it doesn’t produce as much stardust as the much slower, larger Arcturus. Overall it produces more per second - but the timer corresponds to its mass.


[h2]The Beyond Episode 20: Strange Worlds is available to all players on Steam today and will be available on iOS and Android on 10/30/2023.
[/h2]


Driven by her need for continued survival, Semblance is on a mission to find a new home. So far, her observations have not been fruitful. What’s missing … or is she looking in the right place?


[h2]Game Fixes & Improvements[/h2]
This build also contains improvements and fixes for some recent challenging bugs:

• Possible fix: We’ve had a major issue where ads cannot be closed on Android - this has been blocking some people from watching any ads. We’re introduced a fix in this version, let us know if the issue continues to persist.
  
• Neural Network functionality now works across multiple devices.
  

If you’ve been following the dev diary and livestream, there’s more content planned before the end of the year. Look out as we release more information over time. Thank you to all of our players who are providing continuous feedback to help iron out some of the issues we’ve been having. We are able to tackle them fast the more support we receive to reproduce these bugs. We appreciate each and everyone’s help!

Always stay cellular!
– The Cells Team

Hi Universe Architects!

It’s been some time since we last made a dev diary. It’s the busiest we’ve been for a while, and we hope everyone is enjoying all of the updates we’ve been working hard on. Thank you for your continued feedback for these updates, especially to our beta community for replaying our test builds multiple times. We would not be able to do this without everyone’s enthusiasm and support.

Get your tea ready and let’s take the time to recap all the content that’s been out before we take a look into what’s coming up next. Warning: It’s a bit of a long read.




We released our second limited time event of the year Explore: Tea — A Journey of Serenity.
We are still figuring out our process for bringing more events to you at an increased cadence while also gauging topics that would resonate with our players. Although we aspire to incorporate a 3D garden for each Explore Event, the reality is that even a simplified version demands too much time for production. We currently face a dilemma between accommodating player demand and managing our internal team's bandwidth. We aim to deliver enjoyable experiences for our players, but when stacked up against potential delays, we'll need to review the necessity of Explore Event 3D gardens once more moving forward.



We’ve also received a lot of questions on why we chose tea as a topic. It is very different from what we’ve done in the past, and it was mainly an internal decision based on the team’s love for tea. In January, we created a poll asking our players what topics they would like us to pursue for future events. Out of the many topics that were suggested, tea was the only topic that seemed to gain widespread interest within the team. And so, what was once a conversation starter became a project that led to the creation of a new limited time event! It was led by a two person team with different members floating in as needed during its development. We even surprised players at PlayNYC (learn more: link) as Tea made its debut to the public as a beta feature.


If players are still curious about the process and want to learn more, our Discord ‘Let’s Play’ event during Tea’s launch can be viewed here: https://youtu.be/b0WxdtFoVwY

We hope players enjoyed Explore: Tea — A Journey of Serenity, and we will be using your feedback to help us improve future events.




The Dawn of Civilization is in full swing! With the release of the Stone Age Civilization update, we introduced seven new research nodes and four unique trophy nodes to the Main Simulation tree. Göbekli Tepe, Dog Domestication and Lascaux are three new prizes that appear in the Civilization Garden once unlocked from the Logit Store. Players will need to save up Logits and Darwinium in order to acquire these exclusive new items. We also added a new hidden achievement. Many players should have already found it. If not, it is tied to a special interaction with a certain canine companion.



You may notice that the Stone Age Garden is bursting with life! We’ve added animated characters and other decor to make the garden feel more complete. It doesn’t come without restrictions, though. With each new 3D model we add to the garden, it increases the size of the game app while also reducing the ability for older phones to enjoy the new content. As a result, the characters and environment went through multiple iterations to reduce its poly count so that the game can continue to grow. We are constantly optimizing our assets to ensure that our game requires less space and can be played on older phones.




Discover strange and bizarre exoplanets as the simulation takes an alien twist with Beyond Episode 20: Strange Worlds taking the stage very soon. Follow Semblance as she explores strange solar systems to find an exoplanet that could support terrestrial life. Will she be successful? There will be five new exciting exoplanet generators based on recent NASA research to explore, with twelve Series II trait cards to boost the Beyond simulation.



At a technical level, every new episode of the Beyond requires us to rank up our 3D visualizations, and Episode 20 is no exception. In Episode 19, we added exoplanets, which required us to make planets independent of the generator that they were unlocked with. For Episode 20, we needed to flip that - make planets orbiting a star where the planet is the generator. A lot of surprising technical changes came out of that one small change. When you click on a star to focus on it, the camera needs to know to zoom in on the planet, not the star. The name that appears in the garden should also be the name of the star system (“Wasp 12”) rather than the name of the planet (“Wasp 12 b”). When you tap the “-” button to unfocus the generator, it needs to focus on the star in the system it is in. As we add fascinating new generators to the Beyond, Semblance isn’t the only one leveling up her simulation.

With the story of the Lives of Stars concluded, we’ve been exploring our branding to give the next episode a unique look and feel while still connecting it to the overall Beyond expansion. There were a lot of design favorites but ultimately we picked a direction that reflects the story’s progression. Do you have a favorite?






We’ve made a lot of changes and progress towards the revamped leaderboard system. Some of it is very confusing and has broken along the way. We’re really grateful for our players' feedback as we polish this system. It’s unfortunate that some unexpected bugs popped up with each fix, many of which are tied to the complexities of developing a multiplayer system that affects the relationship of data between our server and the game.

Whenever we do beta tests for the leaderboard race, we are essentially testing whether the data feedback call between the server and the game is working as intended. Playtimes need to be accurately recorded to show the correct time passed to complete the race and earn rewards. Each tier is divided into a group of at most 15 players (after the most recent update). Players are grouped according to their tier rank as well as their place in the race.

For example, if you are a player who started the race on Day 2 of the event then you will be placed with other players who are also starting the race on Day 2. All of you are in the same tier rank too. Similarly, players who cheat will be grouped in the same tier with other cheaters. They will not be seen with non-cheaters. However, if a player follows someone who is a cheater, they will also appear in your list even if you are in a tier with non-cheaters.

We also test some of the profile and icon customizations we’ve added to ensure that they are working properly. We hope that this information gives a better understanding to our players on how the leaderboard race works. We admit that it is not perfect and we are iterating it constantly based on player feedback. We are getting there, and we appreciate your continued support.



We’ve been having a lot of discussions on how we can make the new leaderboard system integrated in other simulations with more improvements over time. We are even in talks about removing cheaters from the leaderboard race to prevent them from participating in the future. For now, we will continue reviewing player feedback and gauging excitement over this existing feature.




Halloween is around the corner, and something supernatural has invaded the simulation once again. The dodos are back to haunt the simulation! Semblance needs help to capture these ghostly nuisances.



Since we’ve debuted the Dodo Ghost Hunt in 2022, we’ve received a lot of requests to bring back this fun and popular event, particularly for those who have missed its secret achievement. This year, with the revamp of the Civilization Garden, the Dodos have migrated to new locations and it will be up to the players to find their new hiding spots.

The Dodo Ghost Hunt will run from October 18 to November 8, 2023. Can you find all 66 dodos? 🦤

Fun fact— the Dodos have periodically escaped their graves and have run amuck during development over the past year. We’ve had to stamp them out a number of times and have wondered if they’ve become a bug or a feature. Ourgameishaunted






It’s been an eventful year so far. We've released more content than we’ve done in past years, but it’s also come with its difficulties. It should come as no surprise that balancing for Metabit production has been challenging.

We wanted to re-balance Metabit production since we planned to add more nodes and Logit prizes with the launch of the revamped Civilization update and more. But the main reason this became a bigger focus was due to the introduction of the Giant Squid Logit prize. An error in its curve exploded the game economy and caused players to finish the game faster. As a result, the game’s retention began to drop and we’ve been working hard to fix that. Unfortunately, we were not successful and our retention began to drop even more as the game became harder to play with the slow Metabit production. With the 5th Metabit tuning iteration we are able to see a small recovery in our retention, but only time can tell before we can determine if there was any meaningful impact.



Balancing of Metabit production is going to go through multiple iterations over time as we add more content. We'll be going beyond eight iterations from what we have initially stated in order to ensure that the game's economy is balanced. We are thankful for all the feedback we’ve received from our players as it helps us pivot in the right direction. It’s been a rough ride, and we thank you for your patience and continued support.






Phew, that was a lot to review! If you've made it this far, thanks for reading along. As the year is coming to an end, we want to share an updated roadmap of everything we’ve accomplished. We are proud to say that we’ve fulfilled our aspirations and goals for the year and are excited for more to come. Coupled with a monthly dev diary, our future goal is to release two roadmap updates a year.

We are currently ahead of schedule as we have three Beyond ranks in development. There are also three updates planned to expand Civilization and its garden. We’ve just released the Explore: Tea — A Journey of Serenity limited time event, and we have another one currently in the works. It will be a great melody in our symphony of events. We also have other topics lined up and want to thank our players for always sending us suggestions.

That is all, everyone! Thank you again to all of our players, especially the beta community. We hope the sentiment is shared when we say that we listen to your feedback. Our game continues to improve and grow due to our players’ time and support for us. Keep an eye out as we announce the launch for Beyond Episode 20: Strange Worlds in the near future.

On Friday, October 20th from 1 - 2pm EST, we will be live on Twitch for another livestream. Join us as we talk more about the Civilization update, Beyond Episode 20, and plans for tuning the leaderboard system. A new Darwinium code will also be waiting for you to redeem.

Stay Cellular!
- The Cells Team