Games like Substrate: Emergence

If Substrate: Emergence scratched a replayable and relaxing itch for you, keep reading. Start with these games when you are ready.

Thrive
Start as the first spark of life on an alien planet and steer your species across billions of years. Build your microbe from real organelles, hunt or photosynthesise your way to survival, and watch rival species evolve against you. A calm, science-driven evolution sandbox where every run plays out differently.
Replayable, Relaxing
92% of 1,726 Steam reviews are positivePlayers online now: 21$4.99
Gridworld
Gridworld is an artificial life and evolution simulator. Watch creatures evolve through natural selection as they learn to find food, avoid danger, and compete with other creatures for survival.
Also in Colony sim · Replayable, Relaxing
85% of 238 Steam reviews are positivePlayers online now: 1$1.99
The Sapling
Design your own plants, algae, fungi and animals, then set them loose in a world together. Add random mutations and watch evolution fill every niche, or shape the planet yourself, ice ages included. A calm, creative ecosystem toy from solo developer Wessel Stoop.
Replayable, Relaxing
88% of 1,987 Steam reviews are positivePlayers online now: 53$17.99
Species: Artificial Life, Real Evolution
Play with evolution! Species: ALRE is a scientifically-grounded, emergent simulation of natural selection. Creatures evolve and speciate in response to in-game mutation and selection forces, allowing you to experience and tinker with evolution in real-time.
Replayable, Relaxing
73% of 976 Steam reviews are positivePlayers online now: 1$19.99
Creatura
Seed, Breed, Create. From single cell organisms to complex ecosystems. Evolve every part of your own unique aquarium / terrarium by applying scientifically accurate principles of natural and artificial selection, in Creatura - ultimate Virtual Evolution Vivarium Simulator.
Replayable, Relaxing
67% of 219 Steam reviews are positive$14.99
EvoLife
Create and evolve your own digital lifeforms! Watch or interact as your creations adapt and thrive in a world governed by the laws of physics. Download now and start your own evolutionary journey!
Replayable, Relaxing
83% of 30 Steam reviews are positive$9.99
The Bibites: Digital Life
Digital life that actually evolves. Bibites are tiny creatures with neural network brains and genes of their own: set up a world, let natural selection do its thing, and watch new species, predators and parasites emerge. Or skip evolution and engineer your own lifeform. An aquarium, a science lab and a god game in one.
Replayable, Relaxing
96% of 229 Steam reviews are positivePlayers online now: 30$9.99
Cellings
Cellings is a creative sandbox game taking place in an abstract procedural world full of various species. Experience the full evolution of cells across 3 generations, compete with other species, and explore breathtaking worlds.
Replayable
95% of 37 Steam reviews are positive$7.99
Lifecraft
Survive and evolve as an organism with this simulation game in which you will literally start as a single cell and manage and organize all its functions to a fully fledged system! Assemble, breathe, eat, fight threats, produce energy, grow, anything is possible!
Also in Colony sim · Replayable
81% of 141 Steam reviews are positive$22.99
Ecosystem
Seed a simulated ocean with random creatures and watch evolution do the rest. They learn to swim, hunt, mate and adapt while you sculpt reefs, tune their DNA and track the family tree. Slow, strange and oddly relaxing.
Replayable, Relaxing
76% of 611 Steam reviews are positivePlayers online now: 4$19.99
Intelligent Design: An Evolutionary Sandbox
Polygons eating polygons eating polygons. An evolution sandbox where the genetics really are simulated. Seed a world, walk away, and come back to species neither of us designed. Watch populations boom, bust and go extinct. Best left on a second monitor.
Replayable, Relaxing
53% of 98 Steam reviews are positive$0.76
Biosys Inc
Biosys Inc. is a biology simulator that takes you to a new planet where you will be responsible for the process of abiogenesis. Start with a single cell and watch your ecosystem thrive by itself. All cells carry DNA that will allow them to mutate and evolve into complex beings.
Replayable, Relaxing
71% of 7 Steam reviews are positive$3.99

Cheaper than Substrate: Emergence

Thrive

Grow a microbe into a species, choosing every adaptation as your alien world changes around you.

$4.99

Gridworld

Gridworld is an artificial life and evolution simulator. Watch creatures evolve through natural selection as they learn to find food, avoid danger…

$1.99

Cellings

Cellings is a creative sandbox game taking place in an abstract procedural world full of various species.

$7.99

Intelligent Design: An Evolutionary Sandbox

Polygons eating polygons eating polygons. An evolution sandbox where the genetics really are simulated.

$0.76

Biosys Inc

Biosys Inc. is a biology simulator that takes you to a new planet where you will be responsible for the process of abiogenesis.

$3.99

Microcosmum: survival of cells

Grow your cells, absorb your rivals and take over the microscopic world, one drifting organism at a time.

$7.99

Cell HD: emergence

Based on a 3D version of mathematician John Conway's "Game of Life," the game puts the player in a biological world that is uncannily alive.

$5.99

PHYSARUM: Slime Mold Simulator

PHYSARUM is a sandbox simulation game. Simulate the real world slime mold Physarum polycephalum by generating millions of living particles.

$5.99

evolution for beginners

Evolution For Beginners is an evolution simulation where you can create and cultivate your own species by only using evolutionary mechanics.

$3.49

XenoBloom

A calm creative experience where you guide the development of an alien ecosystem.

$4.99

Simultree

Simultree is a short incremental game about monitoring life simulations.

$6.99

Earthtongue

Care for a miniature ecosystem in a strange world, exert limited influence to encourage the growth of different fungi and bugs and try to maintain…

$4.99

Hidden gems like Substrate: Emergence

Planetary Life

Terraform a barren world, tune its climate and watch the life you seed evolve across millennia, all at your own unhurried pace.

$11.99

Primordialis

Design a living creature from cells and send it into the deep, where every run rebuilds it from scratch.

$19.99

The Bibites: Digital Life

Digital life that actually evolves. Bibites are tiny creatures with neural network brains and genes of their own: set up a world, let natural…

$9.99

Simultree

Simultree is a short incremental game about monitoring life simulations.

$6.99

Ecosystem

Seed a simulated ocean with random creatures and watch evolution do the rest.

$19.99

Thrive

Grow a microbe into a species, choosing every adaptation as your alien world changes around you.

$4.99

Lifecraft

Survive and evolve as an organism with this simulation game in which you will literally start as a single cell and manage and organize all its…

$22.99

Rogue AI Simulator

Play as a Rogue Artificial Intelligence, in the sequel to the hit Flash game "I'm an Insane Rogue AI", played more than 4 million times!

$11.99

The Sapling

Design creatures and plants, release them into one world, and watch what evolution does with your creations.

$17.99

Surviving the Abyss

Run a cold war cloning lab on the ocean floor, juggling oxygen, power and light while something waits beyond your pylons.

$19.99

Space Simulation Toolkit

Build tiny worlds from atoms, tweak their rules, and see what happens.

$17.77

Cell to Singularity - Evolution Never Ends

Tap from lifeless rock to humans, dinosaurs, Mars and beyond.

Free

Newest games like Substrate: Emergence