How to play Sporeworks
Sporeworks is a cellular ecosystem puzzle set inside a 12 by 12 Petri dish. Invasive Vex blight spores are spreading across the eastern agar while a starter cluster of symbiotic microbes—Lumin builders, Myco fungal walls, and Phage hunters—waits on the west side. Using a limited budget of six pipette doses and three genetic expression sliders, you guide thirty generations of cellular growth to reach the target healthy biomass while containing the blight.
How to play
- Inspect the 12 by 12 Petri dish and read the strain brief to see the target healthy biomass and maximum allowed Vex blight.
- Select one of the five pipette tools: Lumin Spore [L], Myco Wall [M], Phage Hunter [P], Thermal Lamp [☀], or Purifier Bead [💧].
- Click or activate any cell on the dish grid to apply a pipette dose. Thermal Lamps enrich nutrients in a 3 by 3 zone, while Purifier Beads scrub toxins and weaken adjacent Vex crystals.
- Tune the three Genome Expression sliders—Lumin Division Rate, Myco Wall Adhesion, and Phage Aggression—at any point between generations.
- Advance the dish with Step +1 Gen or Incubate +10 Gens, then press Harvest & Evaluate Dish to score your stabilized culture.
Tips & strategy
- Drop a Purifier Bead directly onto or beside dense Vex clusters early to strip their toxin shield and sap their energy.
- Place a Thermal Lamp near your Lumin colonies so their surrounding agar stays above the nutrient threshold needed for rapid division.
- Crank Phage Aggression when Phage hunters touch Vex spores—each lysed Vex cell converts into fresh symbiotic biomass.
Accessibility
The 12 by 12 Petri dish is an interactive button grid where every cell announces its row, column, species or catalyst name, nutrient level, and toxin level. Every cell displays a distinct text symbol (L, M, P, V, ☀, 💧, ·) so species are never distinguished by colour alone.