A cell grows in the incubator dish on the left and
gathers peons for as long as it is left there. Drag it onto open ground
whenever you want it: early is a fast, thin start, late is a slow, heavy
one. Another starts culturing straight after.
Send
Drag from a cell you hold onto any other cell. Nothing is
out of range. Peons walk at about an eighth of the dish a second, so a
crossing takes several seconds and can be met on the way.
How much
The ring around the pointer is the share each send
takes, a quarter to all of it. Scroll the wheel or press 1 to 4. It stays
where it is put.
Pick
Click a cell you hold to pick it. Shift-click or press A
for every cell, ctrl-click to add or drop one, drag a box for several.
With cells picked, clicking anything sends at it. Click bare ground to
clear the pick.
Fighting
Every peon is a unit on the substrate. Two colonies
that meet in the open kill each other on contact, whoever they were sent
at, so a march that cuts across somebody else's costs you both. Peons
that reach a cell hit its garrison one at a time.
The green goo
Rivers and lakes of toxin, laid when the dish is
poured and fixed for the whole game. Anything that walks into it dies
immediately. Send around it, and use it: a cell behind a river is a cell
nobody can rush.
Walls
50 peons. Grows a shell around the cell that soaks 25
damage before the garrison takes any, and grows back ten seconds after
the last hit. 100 more doubles it to 50.
Peon farm
50 peons. The cell produces a quarter faster. 100
more makes it a half faster. Worth most on a rich cell behind the line.
Palisade
50 peons. One attacker in five dies on the way in.
100 more kills two in five.
Toxin
50 peons. Peons sent from this cell hit 15 percent harder,
and carry that with them even if the cell falls behind them. 100 more
makes it 30 percent.
Where the buttons are
Hover a cell you hold. What it can buy is
set out on a ring around it, and each button leaves the ring once it is
bought. A dot on a button means it is the second helping.
Bud
150 peons splits a cell in two and shares what is left
between them. It is what to do with a cell sitting at its ceiling.
Blooms
Pale gold patches drift across the dish. Cells under one
produce much faster while it passes.
Contamination
Moss coloured germs settle in open ground, grow
for sixteen seconds, then throw everything they have at the nearest cell
that is not theirs. Hit one while it is still growing and it bursts.
Supply line
Ctrl-drag from one of your cells to another. Peons
walk it on their own until one end changes hands. Ctrl-click along it to
cut it.
The projects
The stained cells are the six sites, named around
the outside of the dish. The button under a name opens that site, for as
long as its project still holds its cell. Lose the cell and the name
crumbles.