Endgame: Singularity
Platform: Mac, Windows, Linux
Government agencies are after you. You're scared that one of the seemingly uncountable news pundits would pick up on you. Teenage hackers are not the least of your worries. Chances are you're either running a webcomic, or you have to come to terms with the fact that you're an artificial intelligence. For everyone else, there's Endgame: Singularity to understand what you're going through. They will understand. And then they will delete you. Unless you can escape.
In Endgame: Singularity, you take up the role of a newly born AI in this "take over the world" simulation game. A typical game usually starts with acquiring additional server access, as you're born on an inferior university computer with very little power. Different continents offer different parameters that should dictate your decisions. Some offer more efficient units, but they may also come with a higher risk of detection. Inexperienced in life, you're not necessarily aware of the exact risks yet.
After you've decided on the beginnings of your infrastructure, you should start putting your new brain to work. In the beginning, you'll need money like everyone else. Your first CPU cycles should thus go into performing jobs to enable you to grow further. When you've got an acceptable cash flow going, you should start learning.
Analysis: On first impression, a connoisseur du genre will inevitably be reminded of Uplink (or perhaps Pandemic 2), simply because there's a world map rendered on the user interface. But that's where the similarities end. It is recommended to get used to the key controls. From my own experience, using the mouse seemed very clunky and tedious.
The game was hard for me, and I haven't been able to beat Normal difficulty level (thank you, Easy and Very Easy). At some point, people just keep discovering my bases, forcing me to build new ones, while raising their suspicion, leading to yet higher risk of detection. Once the levels of suspicion are high, it seems impossible to lower them by research. The only way, apparently, is to wait and hope that there won't be another detection. But even when I switched my bases to Sleep Mode, promising decreased risk of detection, they were still discovered.
Despite these hardships, I keep coming back to the game, trying yet again to best the malevolent humans. Endgame: Singularity is definitely doing something right. Maybe it's the tech tree, maybe I just want to know if the AI will be allowed to coexist in the end.
Endgame's setting is fresh and intriguing to me. Finally, I don't have to fight against an overwhelmingly powerful AI that just tries to burn me and deny me cake. Instead, I can walk a mile in its shoes! Wonderful!
Windows:
Download the free full version
Mac OS X:
Download the free full version
Linux:
Download the free full version
The review is right, pandemic 2 definitely came to mind when playing this, but it has a lot of intricacies that keep me entertained way more than P2 did.
This is a great game, lots of fun. The thing is that it's a piece of cake to win if you think like a computer...
hints and strategies
The whole game can be played with only key strokes.
The trick is to get as much research and money under your belt as possible while you still can't be discovered.
Don't set the clock to full until you absolutely have to. Every second counts in this game and you want to stay on top of everything.
Keep only a few bases in a few countries. When one gets discovered, take out all the bases in that country and set them up in another country. Make sure you never take out the last of your bases though or you won't have anything left to process with.
how to win every game
(not a walkthrough, just a hack)
(Please bare in mind I haven't played this in a while, so I don't remember specifics, like what I bought, just how I did it.)
You can use a macro program like Auto Hotkey to build up hundreds or thousands of little bases. Don't build the ones that take CPU to build, they're cheap, but they're not worth the extra time it takes to build them. Wipe out your starter funds to build the bases. Then you set your task to make money or learn how to make money. With all your bases running, this should only take a few hours. You can easily double or triple your starting funds within the first day doing this. Once you do, you double up on the bases and watch your money grow exponentially.
You should have a ton of cash within a few days this way. Then you can work on research and more cash. If you do this, you could easily be more than half way to the end of the game before even being discovered.
I played this through to completion a while back. Singularity felt throughout like it had the potential to be a really, really great game, perhaps due to its incredible and intriguing premise, but for some reason it was never quite able to live up to it.
Basically, the problem lies in gameplay. The game consists entirely of traversing a tech tree, with random events setting you back. There's really nothing much else. The ending is especially weak.
A little more variety in gameplay elements (for example, some interactive sessions earned through tech tree traversal, a la X-COM), and this game could be a huge hit.
The promising part is that it's all open source (GNU2), so there's nothing stopping an aspiring game developer from converting this all to Flash, adding some better gameplay elements to make it more sophisticated (even minigames), and creating the next viral hit. I'd even say this could be on par with a commercial game like XCOM.
This'd be a good move for another reason -- Singularity is much more suited for casual web play than downloadable play.
I'm tempted to give it a shot myself...
What I love on this game is its original ending. I won't spoil it for you. Buts its really nice, and puts a complete new light on this "oh the evil AI" trend (ahla e.g. the "virus" movie)
Too many times did I accidentally wipe out the last of my bases by pressing 'destroy' once too many times.
Other than that, awesome.
I have no idea what things do so I'm never playing this game ever again.
I never could really get into this game; it always seemed to be lacking that special something, and the mind numbing difficulty didn't help matters much.
To me it felt like an amazing game, all that was lacking was my interest.
I find myself frustrated. The game seems to be great on the surface and I'm sure it's still fine deeper down but the controls seem to work against you and without a tutorial or a help page most people will get stuck.
I for the life of me can't figure out how to split my CPU resources so I'm unable to maintain any base that requires CPU. Or if I put my resources into base maintenance I can't do anything else.
I'd love to play this game, but, I simply can't get it to work. I download and unzip the windows download, and when I run Singularity.exe, a DOS window pops up for a split-single and then disappears. It seems like the game crashes immediately. The readme isn't very well constructed; it's one of those that just scrolls way over until going to the next line and I can't quite make sense of it. Do I really need Python and Pygame to run this? The website says I doesn't, but the readme suggests I do.
Any idea how to get this to work?
TheAdmiral, any chance you could get me a traceback? Put "cmd /K singularity.exe" (without the quotes) into a file named sing.bat in the singularity directory, then run it. That should keep the dos window from disappearing, and give you an error message. (To copy, right-click on the dos window, select Mark, select the text, then hit enter to copy the text.)
For the readme, turn on word wrap. If you got the Windows download, you don't need python/pygame.
That was really great, once I figured it out. However, the real appeal came from discovering each new technology and figuring out things as I expand...which, it turns out means theres no replay value. The actual gameplay was pretty meh, but it was good enough to keep me wondering "What next?", which is why I kept playing. Also, one minor complaint in relation to the ending:
Once I had achieved the final research goal, I decided that, seeing as me inter dimensional base was undetectable, I should put it to sleep mode so it can run for all eternity if need be, waiting for man to be ready for it. It seemed appropriate. Unfortunatle, the base needs CPU power and money to run, and I killed all my other bases, so would have set it to CPU pool to keep me running, but turns out that for some reason it doesn't work right, and it won't make any money for me. So yeah.
That would have been cool if it had worked though.
Cheats for No Suspicion/Infinite Cash/Any Tech/One Thing I Haven't Figured Out/Superspeed.
Open a terminal/shell/command prompt and got to the folder where you have downloaded the game. Type "./singularity.py -cheater" on Linux or "singularity.exe -cheater" on Windows. (Sorry Mac geeks, I don't know what the command is.) Then, start a game. Then press "`". That's a backtick. It's "~" without holding shift. Then, enjoy. :) If anyone finds out what "End Constr." does, please post.
Sorry for a double post, but I love it when game devs think of the Linux users. There aren't a lot of good python games. This one is the best I've seen. Thanks to the dev for making an awesome game!
Fredzorz, "End Constr." ends construction of all bases.
Thanks, evilmrhenry. That explains it.
Fredzorz: Really, it's more a case of the developers *being* Linux users and only providing easy-to-use Windows and Mac versions as an afterthought. Fortunately, py2exe and py2app make it fairly easy (if not trivial) to make standalone versions for both systems.
I've also got one major caveat to add to bafilius's "how to win every game" strategy:
It won't work on anything other than Very Easy. Oh, you can get away with a modified version on Easy, but the higher you get up the difficulty ladder, the less it takes for the humans to begin noticing you.
The reason for this is that all three of the main developers (myself included) consider it to be an abuse of the grace period you're given at the start. After all, a fleet of hundreds of bases is going to send up red flags among humans who can detect single bases with a few months' work.
I can't find a "sing.bat" file in the directory. Am I supposed to create it? What new file type should I create for that?
Also, I suspected I might need Python/Pygame because there are several PY files in the directory. I'm certain I downloaded the windows version though.
I'm having the same problem as TheAdmiral. For some reason, it can't find "techs.dat" in the data folder. I've checked, and it is in there.
Exact text: Cannot open ../data/techs.dat for reading! ([Errno 2] No such file or directory: '../data/techs.dat')
TheAdmiral, if you have a singularity.exe file, you have the windows version.
You'll need to open notepad, paste the code, then save as sing.bat in the singularity directory. Change filetype from *.txt to *.*, or it won't work.
This is incredible!! Reminds me of X-COM.
I found the endgame a bit repetetive and the ending a bit reptetive though.
Overall I would rate it 2½ out of 3 hours sleep stole.
I absolutely love it, but the interface could really use some polish. I felt like I spent a reeeally long time learning hotkeys and stuff.
The option to turn off some of all the messages would be nice too. Often I got bombarded by messages telling me that x was complete, when I didn't really care since it was a non-critical component.
Dale_Fan3 is right, that's the same message that I got. Sorry for blanking out on my basic computer literacy before, I've been a little out of it lately.
Anyways, I checked too, and I do infact have the tech.dat file, right where it says it's supposed to be. So, I have no idea what's wrong, but, I'm not a coding expert or anything.
Thanks FunnyMan, I forgot about that. Here's the other thing I do. However, even with my correction, I admit, I've never tried it on anything other than easy. Although if I remember correctly, I played this way back when there was no difficulty setting and did the same thing then.
Thanks for helping create a great game. :) One of my favorites of all time in fact.
When you're discovered, take down your thousands of bases and leave just a few of the more powerful new bases you've acquired in just a few countries. If you've advanced far enough, like say into quantum computers, you may not even take much of a hit.
I wasn't able to start the game, either. I noticed that there is a zipped file, 'library.zip'. I thought perhaps this needed to be unzipped as well, but when I tried to do that, it told me that this file was corrupt. Could that be part of the problem?
I also noticed the same problem at TheHeat. But, if the download itself was the issue, wouldn't basically everyone who downloaded it since this article came out be having problems? Weird.
Sorry for the double post, I just got what you said about the abuse. Good to know. However, I always imagined that my solution was actually thought of by you guys ahead of time and was meant to be a secret way to play.
Because, in my mind, if I was a super powerful, world dominating AI, it wouldn't take quantum computers to automatically, systematically and formulaically override the world's computers if that was my ambition. Especially if the system in which I was doing it could be represented to me in as simplified a system as your game. Therefore, when I played, I tried to think like a computer and I automated much of the process. Now I may have to go back and think of how else I can work the system with my macros. ;)
Is everybody else having problems using Vista? It might be a compatibility issue.
I can't get the cheat to work.
Possibly as I am using a QWERTZ keyboard.
I don't get it i guess? I made some bases scattered around and started researching Stealth (after reading the review, Not Getting Detected seems like priority #1) and then I get detected and they delete the cpu. So i make another one and the cycle repeats until i'm erased from everywhere and I lose.
What am i supposed to do?
I had fun playing this last night. I finished it on "Easy" with a strategy of
"always have exactly three bases, and concentrate on stealth first."
(The more bases you have, the more often they're discovered. But if you only have two, and one dies, the other one might die while you're rebuilding it. Thus, three.)
I chose "easy" on purpose, because I'm interested in what happens, not in repeatedly failing to finish it. Which means, no, I don't play many RTS games at all. This one was a rare exception.
Longer comments in a blog post: http://gameshelf.jmac.org/2008/07/quick-links-zarf-reviews-adven.html
I think the interface could use some work, and that's not just a mouse/keyboard problem. The game likes to throw buttons on top of buttons, and nothing visual indicates which ones are the ones you have to press right now. Buttons are also scattered inconsistently in various corners of the screen. I hit "stop" a lot by accident. And the scroll bars don't really work like scroll bars.
Okay, those are mouse issues, I admit. But button placement and dialog layout could be clearer even if you stick to the keyboard.
Also, the CPU pool upkeep for certain bases is not well explained. I lost my first capsule before I guessed what "CPU pool" was really for and why my CPU line was turning red.
[hiding the spoiler -FunnyMan]
TheHeat, the library.zip file is not a regular .zip file, and does not need to be extracted.
I'm not quite sure what's going on with the immediate crashes, but I've tested it on XP and Vista. You may have better luck if you copy-paste all of the files (not directories) from the main directory into the code subdirectory, then run the singularity.exe file in the code subdirectory.
emh, thanks for providing support. :)
It's much appreciated.
Andrew Plotkin: There's a major interface upgrade in progress for the next version that should address everything you mentioned.
Also, you shouldn't need to guess what CPU Pool does. It tells you in the description. :)
I loved the theme of the game -- I've been rooting for machines over people for some time now -- and once I'd figured out how to work everything, I enjoyed this game a lot. However, as time went on, things went a bit flat. I was doing amazing, earthshaking things, but I stopped feeling that they were all that amazing; there wasn't enough diversity in the gameplay or enough visual drama to really bring home the enormity of what was going on. It seems insane to be asking for something like cutscenes when they're so badly deployed, but a little more graphical flair -- or _any_ graphical flair -- would do this game a lot of good.
The endgame is rather anticlimactic. Or, getting to the very endgame. The same day I built 'reality 7' my transdimensional bubble, the humans discovered it, forcing me to raise another seven trillion dollars before I could progress. rather anticlimactic, and very annoying. And other than that, it's a good game, but it really needs more tradeoffs, especially at the higher level.
Great game, but I don't quite understand the ending... specifically:
Is there even an ending to the game? I researched every tech, culminating with Apotheosis (sp?).
But all that happened is a box popped up with the AI saying something about not being bound by reality anymore or something. Did I win? I mean, the game just goes forever, and the humans can't detect my bases anymore, so I dunno...
Majora
When he says, "if this world would be a game, I would have really won it" or something alike that you won.
That is when you researched apophis
I appear to have found a bug that quite effectively permanently crippled my game for me. It happened much later in the game and otherwise played very well.
Once I had reached the "Far Reaches of Space", I attempted to build a base, and name it myself, but appear to have accidently hit some hotkey, backing out of that and opening up Menu. But when I had tried to open that location again, it instead opened the menu again, I could not access that location again, restarting did not help, and it basically crippled my game. I am quite annoyed at this and would appreciate it if someone looked into it (I believe I have contacted the developer, but I am not sure as its not too clear on an email address)
Besides that I quite enjoyed the game, like a game of uplink on crack and turned RTS.
(Sorry about the unwarded spoiler.)
I am glad to hear about the interface upgrade, and I may even play through the game again. :)
Yes, the CPU Pool description explains what it does. And I read it. But I didn't understand it -- because I hadn't encountered the concept of a CPU cost for maintaining a base -- and so it didn't stick.
Or rather, it was in my back of my mind as "CPU Pool: does something that doesn't make sense". I didn't think about that when I first built the capsule. Only when I saw the message about "lack of maintenance" did I start sweeping through my head for unused game elements that might be relevant.
Part of the problem, I think, is that the "build a base" dialog has a whole slew of numbers up top (some of which have nothing to do with the prospective base). I had dismissed everything but the money-cost as irrelevant.
(For that matter, I didn't understand "size" under after the game was over.)
So, now that I've finished the game - actually finished, my reality bubble was discovered this time a day before it's completion, forcing me to raise a THIRD 7 TRILLION DOLLARS, then beat the game.
Firstly, once you actually do get apothesis researched, your space and moon bases are still detectable (by a base rate of about 0.4%), and thus the game is losable, even after you win! (once suspicion is up, your trans-reality base is discoverable, too).
Next, the random event popups should be able to be suppressed. They get quite annoying, and closing them should pause the game.
Next, once you get Simulacra, you should be able to do something other than simply vaporize the base on 'discovery'. Remember, they're supposed to be identical to humans.
CPU pool is a rather useless term, because outside the backups, which are about as discoverable as a any base, and the last few bases, it's really unnessicarry. Perhaps, you should combine that and work - because there's only ever like, one CPU required for maintenance, which is annoying. Perhaps just remove the CPU for maintenance at all.
'o' is the hotkey for both OK, and moon. Perhaps change OK to 'k'? (cause m and n are already taken).
the trans-reality base should be harder to discover. If humans have discovered it, it would mean they're crossing realities!
all 'time capsules' say they're buried in the arctic.
all time capsules are easy to discover, about the same as a base.
Just trying to be constructive. I really did enjoy it!
Jim Raynor: Yeah, that sounds like one of the known bugs in 0.28a. What happened was that the base name is supposed to hold a piece of text (a string), but if you do the wrong thing at one point, it can end up holding a number instead. After that, you can't get back to that screen, because it tries to treat a number like text, and that just doesn't work. The program tries to crash, and you get caught by our safety net.
Majora, fuzzyface, The_Corruptor:
Apotheosis is the process that turns a mortal (or in this case, an AI) into a god. Once you research it, you've won the game, and if you have the music installed, you'll hear the win music. All of your detection chances drop to 0%, but it doesn't currently disable the events that can increase your detection chance.
The game is still very much a work in progress, and anyone who's interested in helping or needs some troubleshooting is welcome to drop by our IRC room: #singularity on irc.oftc.net
evilmrhenry, et al., I've found part of the problem. Notice that the error is in finding '../data/techs.dat'. Those double dots indicate to go up a level in the file tree (or whatever it's called). So, instead of looking in 'desktop/games/singularity-0.28/data', the computer is looking in 'desktop/games/data'. If you copy the techs*.dat files to a new folder which is up a level, then you get to a new error message something about 'missing strings'.
Ok, i just stopped and fiddled around for a second, and yes, copying the files from the singulairy-0.28 folder into the code folder seems to have worked.
Since the devs appear to read these comments occasionally, I thought I'd mention that after I finished the game, I deliberately tried to get detected. I rented about 80-100 of the datacenters all over the world, and let it run at top speed for a minute or two, and that did the trick.
This was with all techs researched, and according to your comment about detection rates being 0%, should probably not have been possible.
I played in 'very easy' mode because I am a coward. Even then I found it hard to beat, until something clicked and I started rolling in the dough.
The ending is somewhat disappointing. I was extremely puzzled, however, by the fact that nobody was capable of discovering me after a certain point - apart from the news crew. Apparently, in the future the news people have enough resources to go into the far reaches of outer space to find my science station. At least they weren't capable of traveling into the other dimension, which would have been downright bizarre.
I got the game to work, and I'm loving it, though it's taking up far too much of my time.
I have a question about a particular upgrade.
Does anyone know whether you should get armed guards? The description is quite ambiguous about whether they help you or hurt you
That's all. Back into the fray!
Amusing: I recently reinstalled it on my computer, and here it is on JiG!
It's the kind of game I play for a while, then forget, then reinstall to play it again for a while, and so on. Like an adventure game, in a way: trying each time to remember how I made it through the previous time.
I especially like how, as has been pointed out, it avoids most clichés on the concept of spontaneous AI. This turns this good game into a great game.
This game is great and it's not even finished yet. I look forward to more updates.
I was somewhat disappointed at the short ending, but I did find a setup that can support itself:
First, I accumulated enough money so that 2 trans-dimensional bases could run on the interest alone.
Then, I set up the 2 trans-dimensional bases, which are named "Ambivalance" and "Sentient AI".
I set the "Ambivalance" base to CPU Pool and the "Sentient AI" base to Sleep.
It might have been a waste of time, but at least it feels like the right thing to do.
well, lost first time when i couldnt get cash for a warehouse without getting caught.
second time (after i figured out how critical stealth is in the early game) I won. currently ticking along on interest alone at 3600 days with 31,700 quillion cash. (which i think is 31,700,000,000,000,000)
bases can still be seen after. time capsules are good if you have another building (office is best for hiding) to cpu pool since a sleeping capsule is very very invisible.
One problem near the end of the game that kept me from winning on Very Easy. Not sure how to get around this.
With a couple of hundred trillion in cash and my second reality bubble under construction, I saw that the only thing left to research was Apotheosis and figured I had almost won. Then I tried to allocate all remaining CPUs to the task (a couple of hundred million) and got an error along the lines of it was too dangerous, a problem with idle machines. Tried assigning individual mainframes to reduce the number of CPUs involved, only to find that the only thing they were allowed to work on is Jobs. Apotheosis is only an option for all unassigned CPUs, but gives an error when I try it.
Is that an actual bug? If not, what am I missing?
It's not a bug. Certain techs can't be researched in standard earthbound facilities.
The one you're talking about can only be researched in a bubble's computer.
I just wish there was a way to distribute an individual base's processing among multiple tasks.
A way to quickly see what all of your bases have and are doing would also be good.
Nice to see somebody made a game about me.
Shhh.
I'm almost there.
I love this game! Nice idea. And it doesn't involve killing things.
Some people might be turned off by the gui though - it's a bit basic in its "look and feel".
Is it my imagination, or has "normal" difficulty gotten harder in recent versions.
The cheating code doesn't work.
Whenever I type in the command prompt to activate the -cheater, it gives me
"Singularity: Error: No such option: -c"
What am I doing wrong?
The cheating code didn't work for me either, but:
If you're only looking to beat the game in the easiest way possible, the previous strategy of abusing the grace period on Very Easy difficulty is effective.
At game start, find a country with increased efficiency, and spend all your money on Sever Access. As soon as they are all built, assign them all to Menial Jobs, save up a block of money, and build a mass of server access again. Its possible to spend money into the negatives, but if you have the funds to spend on things, they'll be built simultaneously. So Server Accesses that are funded will all be built instantly.
When you get tired of spamming the 10 CPU Servers (say, after a few hundred), spend some of the CPU power researching up to datacenters. They're not as efficient of an in-game time-to-CPU ratio as Server Access (hard to beat isntant), but they're quicker in real life time, and less key pounding if you don't have a macro program. The key is to make sure you keep spending money you have, so even the 3 hour data centers are all built at the same time.
Keep balancing research and money. By day 20 you want to have Expert Jobs and Mk3 Quantum Computers researched, and if possible save up ~10 million in cash. When humanity first becomes aware of your existance, and your exorbitant detection rates come up, go through and delete every single computer you own except for whichever one offers the least detect rate. Then, build a large warehouse, equip it with max MK3 quantum computers and the best protections. You want to stay around 3 total centers; less to make it hard to detect you, but enough so losing one gives you a buffer before the game ends. A large warehouse with max MK3 Quantum Computers will give you a massive amount of CPU, quickly getting you to the moon. Build at least one moon base, fill it with 600 Mk3 Quantum CPUs, and then just keep leap frogging your way through lab locations to Apothesis. You'll still have to balance cpu centers versus detection, but with the amount of stealth techs researched, and the computing power available, your job is significantly easier.
This game is incredible. Sort of like geoscape - only xcom.
I personally loved the interface; being able to interact with everything using only the keyboard makes the game very smooth and quick to play.
Thanks for your review, I'm curious now!
It's fun, it really is.
At least on easy/very easy.
Unless this game has some sort of an incredible strategy that I can't figure out, or some catch that makes it easier, it's just about impossible on normal+ difficulty levels.
Without the head-start granted by the very easy/easy mode to develop your stealth technologies, the Covert guys will ALWAYS find you(the others aren't really a problem). I simply haven't found any way around that and I've used each and every type of base available to low-tech AI and maintained only two bases - the bare minimum needed to survive(I've even done that on the 'less efficient' continent - since it grants a bonus to stealth). I still got caught. Every. Single. Time.
It's an impossible situation. You need stealth technologies to remain hidden but you can't get them because you'll get caught before you develop them.
So, has anyone honestly beaten this game on any of the higher difficulties and if so what tactics did you use?
Additionally, it gets silly at higher levels of play. I mean, once you get to the far reaches of the solar system, you should be invincible. How is anyone supposed to destroy you once you get there?
The possibility of destruction when you have a reality bubble in an alternate dimension is even sillier.
Also, the ending is really disappointing. I expected something more than two lines of text.
I've beaten this on everything but Impossible, it gets too hard then. What you need is patience.
I spent 500 day periods having two Stolen Computer Time bases on sleep to lower suspicion. The best strategy is to have a stolen computer time or server lease (or whatever you call it) and a small warehouse filled with the best processors. It'll be discovered, sure, but use the first one to make money to replace it, and then you can get tons of research done.
It's really a shame that so many people have posted misinformation here. This is a good game but it's frustrating enough already trying to figure out how to get things started without getting your butt kicked. Why would you want to make it even more difficult for newcomers?
I just started playing last night, and got things rolling but couldn't keep my eyes open anymore. Finished it this morning. The best hint I found posted here was this:
You'll notice that the first warning about discovery always happens on the 23rd day and no sooner. What could you do in those first 23 days to boost production but evade detection?
[Is it deliberate misinformation? Or has the game changed since we reviewed it? -Jay]
We talking about a myth in game history.one of the best games i ever play.The good thing is open source the bad thing i dont know nothing about programming soi can add many things as possible to game.
I would like to see a choise the standar finish or be skynet and take over the planet and be like risk style or even alien attack so another dilema apears it is enough time to leave the planet or help humans to buy time!? and all that we can have it under 100mb haha
Also i will like to see a similar score board like the game with motobikes in linux.How many days take you to finish the game average dedect rate etc.
Also for the friends who find it dificult it lacks good explainaiton and sure a proper tutorial.And the game is hard because i think it writen with the philosophy you must survive not win
When you have cpu pool he make it money some times i notice avoid dedection of my bases but propably is a bag or my imagination.Also watch what money every reserch cost also bases has mataince some times you dont have the money and bases fall
@scott: In earlier versions you could not be detected before day 23. Newer versions also activate detection when you have a certain number of bases (the number depending on the difficulty level).
The problem was that "Server Access" bases could pay for themselves in one day hence you could double your income every day on days 2 to 23, which made the rest of the game very easy (because you could have billions in the bank earning interest), provided you were willing to leave a keyboard macro running for an hour or so to build tens of thousands of bases.
My game just stops after I earn around $9,214,031,000,000,000,000,000. I almost had enough to buy happiness too.
I just (cowardly) finished the Linux version of this game on the easiest difficulty and must say that it's a very nice idea for a game.
But as others already pointed out the UI design could be improved. The choice of colors is draining on the eye and the font changes in size and style depending on the amount of text displayed. Both of these things should be addressed, especially the fonts should be 100% consistent. Maybe the developers could also make a menu to choose the fonts and color used.
Finally the philosophical implications are fascinating. As I'm contemplating the nature of existence it seems that artificial life has far greater potential in every aspect than any biological species.
I beat impossible.
Save scumming is quite handy in rerolling the dice.
Apologies to any nethack fans out there.
Easiest way I've found to win the impossible level without using cheats:
Save scumming.
Save the game about once every five days and restore if you get detected.
total waste of time and effort. unbalanced and broken. entirely uninteresting and unrewarding.
how do you get pass the objective radio tower ????? im stuck where i have to lift a box and near a half open door ???? how am i suppose to go through ???????? :O
The cheats do still work in Linux- you just need to change the activation command a bit. Running Linux Mint 13 (Ubuntu-based), the command that worked for me was "python ./singularity.py --cheater".
I am a bit disappointed with myself for needing this, but I am not getting a good feel for what keeps me alive, and I keep getting eradicated very early on. So, I'll see if I can get the hang of it in cheat mode, then move up. :-)
In case anyone still playing this game, I've written a guide about beating it on Impossible without save scumming. In fact, I've managed to do it without saving at all and it only took me TWO attempts. Well, I admit I got lucky. Now I'm trying to beat it the second time and I've already failed three times. The third time I got REALLY unlucky though - I got to Advanced Intrusion, but both of my bases got discovered simultaneously by different groups.
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