Evolution Game

An evolution game is a type of forum game consisting of gamified worldbuilding in which player(s) "evolve" species within rules and game mechanics devised by the game master. Though it is considered a speculative evolution community activity today, the evolution game actually has its roots in the Spore fandom, with the earliest examples such as NESLife, Sagan 4, and Cyto being devised as Spore fangames.
Evolution games overlap heavily with spec evo community projects, but they are not the same thing; a community project is any speculative evolution work where a community of creators write and draw their own species, whereas an evo game must have some form of game mechanics and a game master. While most evolution games are considered community projects, there are also some such as Cyto that function more like early MS Paint Adventures, with participants giving suggestions and voting on the evolution of a central "protagonist species" while the actual entries are only made by the GM.
==What Counts as an Evolution Game?==
As the name suggests, an evolution game is a game about evolution. The term is generally used for forum games where many players provide input in some form on the evolution of one or more organisms. However, what counts as "evolution" and what counts as a "game" varies. For example, is Evolutionification actually an evolution game, or does its abstractions make it too far removed from the genre's roots in biological evolution as the primary mechanic? And if casual evolution games with few rules and no game mechanics except to have fun evolving wacky creatures, such as the case of many games run on 4chan in the late 2010's, still qualify as evolution games, then why don't regular collaborative speculative evolution projects such as Populating Mu? There is little agreement on where these lines should be drawn, though those who are more involved with speculative evolution than evo games tend to believe that the line between community project and evo game is very fine, while the inverse believe it to be blurred.
==History==
The then-upcoming game Spore was showcased at a number of gaming events in 2006, sparking a wave of fanart and creature concepts imagining what a playthrough of the game would be like. It is unknown what the first evolution game was, though the earliest known example, The Evolution Game (2006), dates back to March 2006, and cites Spore as its inspiration. It is possible that evolution games might go even further back than this, but as all known evolution games from 2006 cite either Spore or another evolution game as inspiration, any pre-Spore evo game would likely have been very different in structure. Evolution games seem to have had at least two independent origins on CivFanatics Forums and the GamingSteve Forum in 2006, which each followed similar formats from one another despite no other apparent connection due to the former basing their mechanics on SimLife and the latter on SimEarth, two evolution-themed video games made by the same team that was behind Spore, Maxis.
Evolution games would really kick off on the GamingSteve Forum, which had opened a subforum dedicated to Spore fan content and was a bit of a Spore fandom community center at the time. By September 2006, Hydromancerx and his friends had devised a forum game where they evolved multiple creatures on the same world together. On September 2, Sagan 4 was created, thus beginning what would later become the biggest and longest-running evolution game of all time and exposing the genre to the Spore fandom at large. As it was limited in membership by being invite-only at the time, there was a wave of copycats--and at least one failed attempt at an "sequel" by the same team, Fermi 5--within the GamingSteve community. They became so popular that for a time, the GamingSteve Forum even had a subforum dedicated to Spore-themed forum games. Most of these have long since shut down, but Sagan 4 still goes strong to this day.
Most of the early history of evolution games prior to 2011 is unrecorded due to old forums shutting down, but the concept of an evolution game is known to have spread to the Spore Wiki by early 2007, as a result of Sagan 4 being rehosted there. This brought greater attention to the format, causing it to spread even further. In early July 2007, the Spore Wiki administrators decided to purge all fan content, forcing Sagan 4 to rehome and likely destroying other evo games that are now largely forgotten. Even after fan content was allowed again in 2008, evo games never returned to the Spore Wiki.
There is a significant gap in archived information about evolution games between 2008 and 2011, apart from a handful of short-lived Sagan 4 copycats. Somewhere in this gap, a simplified permutation which lacked the organized timescale systems of earlier evolution games appeared. Judging by how rare timescale systems are today, this permutation is probably ancestral to the majority of modern evolution games. This permutation may have its roots in 4chan, where evolution games would later become popular; an anon responding to a thread about evolution game history laments:
On May 15, 2011, evolution games made their way to 4chan. On /tg/, a user named Siralus asked if there were any traditional games where biological evolution was the primary game mechanic/tg/ - Untitled thread - 4chan, Sun 15 May 2011 (archived on 4plebs); a mere 38 minutes later, fromAether, an experienced evo game GM, posted the first 4chan evo game: Molluskquest/tg/ - Molluskquest - 4chan, Sun 15 May 2011 (archived on 4plebs). Unlike previous evolution games, which typically featured original, hand-drawn artwork for each species, Molluskquest was entirely pixel art, and new species were created through sprite editing. It is not known for certain if fromAether's previous games on other forums were pixel-based, as they have been lost. Regardless, so-called "pixel evo games", as well as more traditional art-based ones, very quickly exploded in popularity on 4chan before later spreading to Reddit and 8chan as some of 4chan's community jumped platforms over time, bringing their active evo games with them. Though there were many evolution games on 4chan in the 2010's, much like Sagan 4's copycats, many of them were short-livedSpecposium 2021 - Day 1, Specposium, YouTube. Most of them are preserved on 1d6chan1d6chan - Main Page.
Evolution games reached the MS Paint Adventures fandom by at least late 2013Evolution: Commence - Page 1, MS Paint Fan Adventures, Dec 22 2013, though with the loss of the MSPA Forums, most information about the evolution games they made--including what the first MSPA-like evolution game actually was and when it began--is missing.
FromAether, under the alias bluebugs23, brought evolution games to Reddit on December 31, 2014, with the aptly-titled "The Evolution Game"The Evolution game! A collaborative world-building experiment., Reddit, 31 Dec 2014.
In early 2017, Sagan 4, now the oldest and largest evolution game still ongoing by a significant margin, entered a period known to its community as "the Limbo" where it was regarded as lost media. Several of Sagan 4's members wanted to continue playing and went on to create a new wave of traditional evolution games with Sagan 4's mechanics, the biggest one being Vailnoffia. Eventually, in August 2019, Vailnoffia's members turned back to Sagan 4 and created Sagan 4 Beta, an unofficial reboot--later turned official side project--which would draw attention to the evolution game format on the Speculative Evolution Forum. Sagan 4 itself would return in early 2020, just in time for the Covid-19 pandemic to hit it--and all other ongoing evo games, for that matter--with a veritable tidal wave of new activity.
The 2020's can be thought of as the age of Discord-based evolution games; although there were earlier examples, such as OurFoodChain, the pandemic and increased exposure of the concept caused many small games hosted on the platform to pop up in a short time. This momentum continued well past the initial lockdown, helped in part by the virality of All Tomorrows, and later Serina in September 2021. The latter also resulted in the rise of "seed world" evo games. Before then, though there were exceptions such as Molluskquest, the vast majority of evo games, even those that had starter animals of some kind, focused on alien life, whereas seed world evo games will usually have an Earth animal as their starting species. Unfortunately, such Discord-based evolution games are extremely difficult to search for and archive, and may be prone to sudden deletion by a hacked bot or staff member; in response, some evolution game enthusiasts, especially those from Sagan 4 who witnessed it nearly become lost media, also began trying to convince GMs to create wikis or other websites to host their games' content.
==Evolution of an Evolution Game==
Evolution games themselves are frequently subject to evolution, which has been observed to follow specific patterns.
===Science Creep===
Science creep is the tendency for long-running evolution games to become more serious and scientific over time. The majority of evolution games don't start out serious, but eventually, someone who's passionate or knowledgeable about biology will join and cause a shift. Not even intentional joke games are immune; 2speccers2tools went from about what it sounds like2s2t's title being a reference to 2 Builders 2 Tools, the oldest and most famous anarchy server in Minecraft to finding scientific explanations for how an organism can survive off of "pure spite" within mere days.
===Earthlike/Alien Cycle===
Though most evo games take place on alien planets, unless they're invite-only, they still inevitably produce at least one Earthlike organism. If the game goes on long enough, this can eventually lead to a cycle of favor and disfavor which can drive the community apart if not properly managed--not necessarily because of the Earthlike organisms themselves, but because of what the most extreme proponents against them may try to come up with to get rid of them and take their place. This is because submissions made out of hate and spite may not be very well thought-out, and once the cycle has moved on, they may even be found to have been in rule violation. Sagan 4 in particular went through three such cycles, all of which saw turnover in membership and the creation of what would otherwise be considered completely unacceptable submissions to replace the "terrible earth clones", problems with which are still being discovered on the regular as of 2024.
==Anatomy of an Evolution Game==
Evolution games are highly varied, but there are a few things that are common to a significant portion of them.
===Starter Species===
Most evo games give the players something to work with from the very beginning. Some, such as Sagan 4 and 2speccers2tools, opted for the starter organism being the first cell, onto which the founding members projected any kind of microbe they wanted. Other evolution games such as NESLife or Janjira may opt for a more complex starting organism or set of organisms, which will usually be one of the following:
*Small plant or algae
*Generic sessile organism
*Worm
*Fish or other "primitive" vertebrate
*Arthropod
*Specific Earth animal (specific to seed worlds)
===Timescale System===
Although they became less common in the 4chan era, timescale systems defined early evolution games, granting them cohesive evolutionary histories. They may have either one or two levels of division in one of these setups:
* Steps only: Time steps are small (typically <10 million years, rarely fewer than 2), extinction events occur randomly between time steps.
* Periods only: Time steps are larger (>10 million years) and a geological or ecological shift occurs at the border. (Example: NESLife)
* Steps and Periods: Many small time steps make up larger ones, between which geological or ecological shifts occur while giving space for more detailed evolutionary steps in between. (Example: Sagan 4)
===Non-Species Submission Types===
Most evolution games allow the submission of single species, but some--especially when they start to reach truly gigantic sizes, as Sagan 4 had--will introduce additional submission types to flesh out the world or ease the maintenance of plants and small animals.
Genus groups are a submission type introduced to Sagan 4 in 2011, which are present in some of its later copycats as well as in the parody evo game 2speccers2tools. On Sagan, these originally served to immortalize the then-unpopular microbes by freeing them from the limits of single-species entries, but it was soon co-opted for maintenance of early succession species, small animals, and eventually trees.
Sagan 4 allows the submission of a limited number of landmarks, such as interesting geological formations, per "Week".
==Major Variants==
Most evolution games are played by drawing new species descended from previous ones and seeing how they perform within the mechanics defined by the GM. The specifics can vary significantly, however, with there being several different styles developed over time or invented by especially innovative DMs.
===Branching Evolution Games===
In a branching evolution game, players will usually work on many different species following different evolutionary paths.
====Sagan-Like====
As one of the first evolution games, Sagan 4 was highly influential to others that followed. Sagan 4-like evolution games are defined by the following characteristics:
*Well-defined time steps, often consisting of a smaller one for evolution and a bigger one for map updates (eg. Sagan 4's Generations and Weeks, respectively)
*A series of ecosystem pages or equivalent documents containing a list of every single biome, each one with a list of every single species in said biome, split by map update
====Timeless====
Timeless evo games emerged sometime between 2008 and 2011 and are a type of evo game that usually lack well-defined time steps or much else in the way of organization, as they are not typically expected to get big. The benefit of these is that the GM doesn't need to put a lot of work into mechanics, but they're prone to imploding if they happen to get even the slightest spark of popularity. Most evo games on 4chan and Discord are in this category.
====Pixel Evo Game====
Pixel evo games emerged in 2011 and are defined by the use of sprite-editing, rather than fully original artwork, for each species. As significantly less time is spent on the artwork itself, pixel evo games tend to have more detailed mechanics in other areas.
====No Limits====
Evolution games without limits seem to have originated on 4chan, though record of them is scant. The only "game" in these is to evolve wacky creatures for fun without much worry about rules or extinction, making them the least gamified type of evo game.
===Protagonist Lineage Games===
In a protagonist lineage game, players only influence the evolution of one lineage of organisms. Usually, the DM will make all the artwork based on player input. All known MSPA evo games are in this category.
====Cyto-Like====
A Cyto-like evolution game is one where players suggest and vote on evolutionary changes to an organism, which the DM then brings to life. This category is named for Cyto, the earliest known example.
====Character Evolution====
There is some debate as to whether character evolution games count as evolution games, as they center on a character with the magical ability to "evolve" as though they were a lineage of life-forms, rather than biological evolution itself. These usually have some form of combat or RNG element to determine the character's survival.
===Evolution RPG===
==Examples==
:This is a list of evolution-themed forum games that contain clear game mechanics or self-identify as evolution games. For collaborative speculative evolution projects that are not evo games, see Community Project#Examples.
:This list only includes notable or large evolution games. For a more complete list, see List of Evolution Games.
===Active===
* Sagan 4 -- oldest ongoing evolution game
* 2speccers2tools -- parody
===Inactive===
===Complete===
* The Evolution game! A collaborative world-building experiment. -- First known Reddit evogame
==Notes==
==References==
*
Category:Speculative Evolution
Category:Science Fiction Fandom Glossary