Gooblets & Zappies

What's happening. The land labels itself by relaxation — the same engine as the rest of Project Genesis. Every patch has four labels (water · desert · plains · forest) and each step it relaxes toward agreement with its neighbours, guided by a slowly drifting moisture map, so biomes form regions and then creep and change. Pink bushes sprout on the plains and forest and slowly ripen back after they're eaten.

The two species. Gooblets are dumb herbivores with two needs: they wander to the pink bushes to eat, and run to the water's edge to drink. Eat 5 bushes (with a drink in you) and a Gooblet makes a baby — but go too long without food or water and it drops. Zappies are hunters — they chase the nearest Gooblet and zap it (though a Gooblet often slips away, especially by darting to the water), and after zapping 5 Gooblets a Zappy makes a baby of its own. Too many Zappies and the Gooblets crash; then the Zappies starve and crash too, and the Gooblets bounce back — a boom-and-bust that never quite ends (a few new critters wander in from off-screen so the world never fully dies). A fun toy ecosystem, not real biology. And the world keeps a quiet tally of all its dead: for every 5000 creatures that fall, a 🥀 Flower of Lament blooms on the very spot where the last of them died — a little monument to the fallen.

The Humans. Humans (dark red) also eat the pink bushes, but they gather wood from the forest and spend it to build brown settlement blocks. A Human standing on a settlement is safe from the Zappies (who hunt Humans too), and no other creature can walk onto settlement tiles. There can only be about two settlement blocks per Human — if there are ever too many (because Humans died off), the extra ones collapse back into plain land.

The Leviathans. Leviathans (dark blue) live in the ocean and never leave it. When a creature comes to drink at the shore, a nearby Leviathan swims over and eats it — unless it's a Human, who instead fishes the Leviathan and eats it (a big meal that fills both its hunger and its baby-meter!). A Leviathan makes a baby after eating 15 creatures. And they're territorial: whenever there are more than two, one hunts down another for a duel — a 50/50 fight, and the loser is gone. So Leviathans stay rare, and can even go extinct (drop more with the 🐋 tool).

The underground. Scattered dark holes drop any creature that steps on one into the caves below — hit 🕳️ Go Underground to watch. Down there are three biomes: mining grounds (grey), where Humans dig new tunnels; lava lands (purple-brown) with one big pool of lava that kills anything that touches it; and the underlake (brown) with water and glowing glowfruit to eat. You can't cross the black walls. Lurking in the tunnels are the Specters — pale cave predators that hunt whatever fell in and never breed, so as they die off the caves grow quiet. And every 500 days a giant black creature rises from the lava pool for a few seconds — any Gooblet or Zappy caught at the pool is turned into a fire minion that walks on lava unharmed, hunts the fallen, and (like the Specters) never breeds. While you're underground, the drop tools place creatures down in the caves — feed them to the dark, or grow a colony in the glowfruit lake.

The Fire Vessel — a hero's quest. But a Human caught in the Giant's reach doesn't burn — he's possessed and becomes a 🔥 Fire Vessel who climbs to the surface and terrorizes the land, slaying Gooblets and Zappies. To end him, 7 Humans must team up beside him — a 50/50 duel. If they lose, all seven fall and he rages on; if they win, one hero is handed a 🗡️ Fire Sword and dons orange robes. That swordsman then marches back down to the lava pit — burning through any settlement or wall in his path — walks the fire unharmed, and destroys the Fire King himself — rising as the 👑 Red King. Humans flock to him, don red robes, and raise his settlements. (Slay the Fire King and the Giant never rises again.)

The Humans get rich. As Humans mine, they collect stone and sometimes strike valuables. They carry it all up top: the stone becomes grey stone walls that keep the Zappies out, and the valuables go into the 💎 treasury. Once the treasury is full enough, a Human buys a boat and sails out onto the water to fish — where, if it's lucky, it might even hook a Leviathan.

The Sky Realm. Use the view button to rise to the ☁️ Sky Realm — a scatter of floating islands in the open sky (drop creatures & 👼 angels up here). The angels trade 1 💎 treasure for food, so a starving creature can run to one and eat. On the dark-red island lives a green dragon: gather 10 Humans on its island and they'll do battle — a 50/50 fight. Win and the Humans take a 👑 crown — one becomes King, and the others rally to protect him. Lose, and that whole group is gone. The islands are joined by bridges so creatures can cross between them. And back on the surface there's a purple portal square: have your Humans carry 3 treasures to it and it turns yellow — then any creature that steps on it is whisked up to the Sky Realm (and can step on the glowing sky portal to come back down). Some islands are darker forest islands where fluffy 🐑 Woolies graze on red fruit, while 🐉 Dragonlings — tiny dragons — fly across the whole sky hunting them (drop your own with the 🐑 and 🐉 tools). A Dragonling that catches a Wooly carries it home to the Dragon King to hatch a new Dragonling — and if the Dragon King is ever slain, a Dragonling rises to take the throne. Scattered rarely across the islands are 🐲🌱 Dragonsnaps — snapping plants the Dragonlings munch. But if a Wooly eats one first, it evolves into a horned 🐏 Fierce Woolie that no longer flees — it fends off any Dragonling that dares attack it. A Fierce Woolie also paws up a 🟫 dirt mound, and a gentle 🌸🐉 Flower Dragon drifts over to sow it with little white 💮 Sylvies. Drop a 🟡 Gold Dragon and it will ignore everything else to hunt down the Green Dragon and duel it to the death — a 50/50 clash of titans. The Gold Dragon has its own golden island where a 🥚 golden egg rests: every 5000 days it hatches a fresh Gold Dragon and a new egg is laid, so the gold line never dies out. And a darker legend haunts the heavens: once 500 dragons have died across all the ages, the sky tears open and a baby-blue 💙🐉 Soul Dragon glides out — sorrowful and alone — to hunt down the Dragonlings, raising its own lonely purple island in the void.

Long live the King. A crowned King (he turns yellow) mostly wants one thing: to get home to the surface. Once down, his people build him a 4×4 hollow keep with a wheat farm around it, and 3 blue-robed servants shuttle wheat from the farm to feed him while he rules from inside his walls. Sometimes the keep is ringed by a 💧 water moat that keeps the Zappies out (his own people can still cross it), and sometimes it's just open ground — it varies each time.

The Grove — an alternate dimension. Cycle the view button once more to slip into the 🌲 Grove, an overgrown world of three biomes: the lush pear-tree grove where purple pears pop up and little tan 🐭 Sniffers forage; the dark 🌿 Wild, where bristly 🐾 Claws devour any Sniffer — or any creature — that gets lost in there; and open clearings, where brown settlements pop up and gentle 🌳 Treemen live. The Treemen need nothing but the 🌲 wellness of the forest — but drop outside creatures into the Grove and they trample and eat their way through it, and the wellness falls. Let it sink too low and the settlements collapse; keep it high and new ones bloom. In the Grove you can also drop its own creatures — 🐭 Sniffers, 🐾 Claws and 🌳 Treemen — with their tools.

Nature Gooblets & flora. Drop a 🔴 Gooblet in the Grove and if it survives 50 days it turns into a 🌱 Nature Gooblet — a peaceful green one wearing a flower, that Claws no longer touch. As it roams it plants 🌺 red vine-flowers across the pear grove and 🌿 bramble across the wild. Where a vine and a bramble meet at the border, they merge into a 🌹 rose bush.

The Grove King & the portal. Every 2000 days the Treemen elect a King (he wears a 👑), and his mood works a portal that links the Grove to the surface — you'll see its square on both maps. A 🛡️ Safe King seals the portal (it shows a grey ✗). An ⚔️ Aggressive King throws it open and musters the 🐾 Claws — they stream through onto the surface and hunt Gooblets, Zappies and Humans. A 🤝 Helpful King opens it the friendly way: Humans who stand on the surface portal cross over to live with the Treemen, who build wooden pens and feed every creature in the Grove (no wellness lost while he reigns).

The five Monarchs. This world answers to five great Monarchs: the 🌊 Sea Monarch — a sea dragon whose folk raid Gooblets at the shore (the folk must dodge the Leviathans, who leave the Sea Monarch alone — but every 1000 days one Leviathan challenges the Sea Dragon for the throne in a 50/50 duel to the death; if the Leviathan wins it becomes the new Sea King, a different colour, and grows to full size over 500 days); the 🐉 Dragon Monarch of the sky islands; the 👑 Human Monarch, the crowned King; the 🔥 Fire Monarch, the Giant of the lava pool; and the 🌲 Nature Monarch — a great Giant in the Grove's central clearing whose size and glow rise and fall with the forest's wellness, and who expels any stranger that strays too near its clearing.

Play god. Pick a tool and click the map: drop 🔴 Gooblets, 🔵 Zappies, 🟥 Humans or 🐋 Leviathans (in water), 🌸 plant Bushes, or change the weather — 🌧️ Rain grows forest, ☀️ Drought spreads desert.

The Bestiary. Open the 📖 Bestiary to page through a book of every creature in the world. Any creature you haven't seen on your own screen yet stays a mystery — a ❓ ??? — until you find it (or make it appear), so explore every realm and trigger every monarch to fill all the pages. Each brand-new find ✨ sparkles in the book, and once you've discovered all of them you earn a 🏆 badge you can open to celebrate. There's a matching 🌿 Plantiary too — a second book for all the world's plants (pears, bushes, fruit, glowfruit, vine-flowers, bramble and roses), with its own sparkles and completion badge.