Video Game / BIOTOMATA

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You play as a single-celled organism in a petri dish, absorb biomatter into yourself to grow stronger, assimilate enemies to obtain their abilities, and evolve yourself to grow bigger and stronger. As you do so, you discover what went down in the laboratory you were born in and determine your fate in one of twelve Multiple Endings.

The game can be played on Galaxy Click here👁 Image
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This game contains the following tropes:

• Abandoned Laboratory: As you progress into the sampling room, you soon realize that the laboratory you were born in has become abandoned. This is first evident by the Spiny Mouse's description having "Once fed by hands that never returned; Like you, it was left behind;".
• Achievement System: The star icon in the menu, listing achievements like "Oops, My Pseudopod Slipped": Defeat your first enemy.
• A.I. Breaker: A.X.S.U. will always try to use Suppression as long as the player doesn't have the Heal Block status. This move will fail if the player's Fortitude is over half its strongest stat, which is its 1K Vitality, such as a player in a Multicellular run... which will cause it to repeatedly use Suppression to no effect instead of actually attacking.
• All Animals Are Dogs: In the Complex Lifeform ending where you save Daniel, you become his household's pet, who acts like a Big Friendly Dog despite being a large, anomalous, and potentially dangerous organism. It even exhibits enough Canine Loyalty to keep returning home to its masters.
• Alternative Calendar: Checking the archives will reveal that the dates appear to have different names for months, while the day stays the same. Months appear to be named after deities of light or the sun — Tapati, Mithra, Amaterasu, Lugh, and Ra, while years are named in roman numerals.
• Ambiguously Human: One of the stages you can evolve to is "Human (?)", which requires all of your parts to be humanoid parts. This lets you pass off as human when it comes to certain events.
• And Then John Was a Zombie:
  • Once you reach the specimen lab, you'll start encountering corrupted animals, and the Research Wing has you fight corrupted humans. You'll then be able to obtain the Aberrant Mass that allows you to evolve into a corrupted form, becoming one of the corrupted humans too.
  • The Aberrant Researcher was a researcher that tried to save others from the Voidrot corruption, and is now one of the corrupted humans themselves.
• Anti-Debuff: The Renew ability removes all debuffs on the user. This is handy against enemies that stack Damage Over Time on the player, or the A.X.S.U. boss that gives you Anti-Regeneration.
• Anti-Frustration Features: If you're going for both "Human" endings, you'll need to obtain the Resonance Blaster which deals massive undodgeable damage based on your mind stat, but only affects Corrupted enemies. If you don't save Daniel, you still won't have to fight the A.C.T. squad at the end, which is fortunate as they're not Corrupted enemies, and your stats as a "Human" are not enough to suffice against them.
• Anti-Regeneration: The Suppression ability prevents all forms of regeneration on the afflicted target for 20 seconds, as long as the user's highest stat is greater than 2x the target's Fortitude. This is used against you by (and obtained from) A.X.S.U., which is a pain if not removed via Renew, and vital against Corrupted enemies, who all regenerate naturally.
• Arc Words: The endings all have a certain repeated text to start a new run:
  • Endings where you aren't human and don't resolve the safehouse event (as well as the Eldritch ending) have "Begin the next harvest".
  • Ending the game as a human and not resolving the safehouse event has "Is there a better end?"
  • Endings where you resolve the safehouse event while not Corrupted or Eldritch have "A new dawn awaits".
  • Ending the game as a Corrupted after resolving the safehouse event has "Another dusk awaits".
  • Ending the game an All-Consuming has "REBUILD. REPEAT. RUIN."
• The Assimilator:
  • Beating an enemy makes you consume them, and will give you access to all the moves it can use, with the exception of those that need firearms.
  • The Hungering Flesh has only one attack: Assimilate. This deals damage equal to 10x its vitality minus your fortitude, and its 2k vitality means it's pretty much a guaranteed One-Hit Kill if it's pulled off. Of course, you get access to this ability once you defeat it, which is very useful if you're going for a Unicellular run that focuses greatly on Vitality.
• Beneficial Disease: In the Multicellular ending where you save Daniel, you become a mutualistic parasite that infects Daniel's household, and reacts when Daniel, his wife Evelyn, or daughter Lily falls sick. Evelyn's aching knees stopped aching while she never got any migraines from then on, and Lily completely recovered from a cold within two hours of symptoms. It even extends to mental health, as Lily also no longer experienced night terrors.
• Bittersweet Ending: Only one ending doesn't involve your entity turning good or becoming a scourge upon humanity, and it's obtained by choosing not to save Daniel while you're human. It leans more on the bitter side, though, as you're taken into custody by the police after being seen as the Sole Survivor of the lab incident.
• Blob Monster:
  • The very first boss in the game is an Amoeba that tries to engulf and consume you.
  • The penultimate boss of the game is the Hungering Flesh, an eldritch entity of consuming flesh that tries to assimilate you for a One-Hit Kill.
  • Your character can also become one if they pick all The Protoform perks for a Unicellular run, and stay in a Unicellular form. Depending on the ending, you either become a benevolent organism that feeds off and dissipates harmful radiation, or an ever-growing mindless mass that assimilates everything in its wake.
• Bookends: The very first boss in the game is a Blob Monster, being an amoeba that tries to engulf and assimilate you. If you're going for the good endings, your Final Boss will be the Hungering Flesh, an eldritch Blob Monster that tries to engulf and assimilate you.
• Boring, but Practical: Fast Strike is a move that deals damage equal to your Power plus Dexterity stat, with no additional effects. It's one of the best moves in the game because its 20 AP cost is relatively low compared to higher power moves, and it has a ridiculously short cooldown time of 1.5 seconds like its name suggests.
• Cap: Items have a limit of how many can be gathered. The majority that boost stats cap at 100 of each, but the "Regen Serum" that boosts out-of-combat healing caps at 20.
• Catching Some Z's: The icon for the "The Quiet Cure" achievement is a closed-eyed crescent moon in a nightcap with "zZZ...", highly implying that it's sleeping, especially since the text for that ending mentions "Lily sleeps".
• Challenge Run: As said in the settings menu: "CHALLENGE MODE":
  CAPS ASTRAL EMBERS AT 42.
  The originally intended balancing for BIOTOMATA, with an emphasis on strategy and puzzle-solving during endgame. No special unlocks, but you get bragging rights for getting endings with this on! :)
• Cosmic Horror Story: A sickness called the Voidrot has been plaguing humanity for several centuries, always arriving between set cycles and getting stronger than ever. Solstice Industries' best technology is unable to cure this disease, and thus they come up with NOVA, a fast-evolving organism made to combat it by adapting faster. Ultimately, it's revealed that Voidrot's nature is an eldritch phenomenon, and in all of the endings, even the good ones, a proper cure to the Voidrot is never actually found. In the worst ending, your strain of NOVA evolves into an All-Consuming entity via the Voidrot and causes a global apocalypse.
• Counter-Attack: The Void-afflicted Patient retaliates with its PWR stat in damage when hit by a physical attack.
• Creepy Cockroach: The first enemy you face in the Sampling Room is an Oriental Cockroach that's decided it wants a fresh meal instead of scavenge, and you so happen to be the first one it comes across. Just like a fast-moving cockroach, it's capable of hitting quickly with Fast Strike, but can also use Harden Carapace to increase its defense and Renew to Anti-Debuff itself if you used Toxin Dart or Nematocyst Jab to poison it.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • One ability you can get is to decimate opponents whose combined stat total is less than 1/3 of yours, skipping the fight altogether.
  • If you evolve to an All-Consuming form, your stats will be maxed out so high that it outstrips every enemy in the game several times over. Even the Hungering Flesh, which normally sports very high stats, is so outclassed that it can be instantly decimated by you, and the 30k HP final boss can and will be beaten in one sufficiently-powerful attack.
• Death of a Thousand Cuts: Both Ciliary Sweep and Ciliary Dance hit multiple times for 0.3x your base Dexterity each, the former hitting three times and the latter six. While these attacks eventually get outclassed in damage by attacks later on, they are extremely useful for the Hollow Operative boss, who sports ten stacks of Dodge that each allow him to No-Sell a physical attack, and each hit from Ciliary Sweep/Dance will remove one stack.
• Developer's Foresight: If you rescue Daniel in the final area while in a non-corrupted form, and then evolve into a corrupted form, you'll be forced to eat him and get his ID before starting the final encounter.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?:
  • The penultimate boss is a straight-up Eldritch Abomination made of ever-consuming flesh. You can beat it as a unicellular organism, a basic multicellular organism, a lesser complex creature, or "human".
  • It's possible to be defeated by the A.C.T. squad at the end while you're an Eldritch or All-Consuming organism, though you'd need to be actively trying for the latter.
• Door to Before: Near the end of each zone, there will be an optional stat check that the player can take, that's Gray Is Useless if not met such as the first's 25 Body requirement. If passed in any run, it will allow you to enter the next zone without having to complete the current one and persists between Nova Chrysalis resets.
• Dump Stat: Perception. All it does in battle is to give you Critical Hit chance, which is still fickle, as there are no attacks that deal damage based on Perception. Furthermore, none of the Evolutionary Levels have a perk that boosts Perception to run off it. The only use for Perception is to find items and the hidden scientist's location in the final area (which only needs to be done once in an entire game), but once you obtain all the items and find the scientist, there's not much use for it.
• Earn Your Bad Ending: Most of the game's Downer Endings require you to fight the A.C.T. squad at the end, whereas all the happy endings have No Final Boss for You. In certain builds like Multicellular, this final boss fight can be particularly tough/tricky.
• Eldritch Abomination:
  • Evolve enough and you'll be able to evolve your parts into eldritch parts, giving insane stat boosts. Two endings can be obtained from doing so, one of which you turn into a massive eldritch spire that warps reality around it, and the second causes The End of the World as We Know It by turning into an all-consuming eldritch being.
  • The Hungering Flesh is the penultimate boss and it's a mass of flesh that seeks to consume and assimilate all in its path.
• Escaped from the Lab: A number of the game's endings has your organism escape from the confines of the lab and wreak havoc on the world.
• Evil Counterpart: The Corrupted Vermin is this to the Spiny Mouse, even being directly compared to it. While the Spiny Mouse "took only what it needed" due to starvation, the Corrupted Vermin is relentless, ending the final lines of its description with "not stop":
  Another of the same?
  No. The first took only what it needed.
  This one does not stop.
  The hunger does not stop.
  It cannot stop.
• Expy: A.C.T.F. soldiers are basically this game's version of SCP Foundation's Mobile Task Force soldiers.
• Flavor Text: The Handheld Transmitter is a "Curious, glowing thing." whose use is only unlocked after getting a Brain.
• Fun with Acronyms: A.C.T.F. stands for Anomaly Containment Task Force.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: When you first start you're a microscopic single-celled organism existing just to eat and grow, but as you progress you get stronger, bigger, and more encompassing towards the kinds of things you "eat". While you can choose to go a more peaceful path through the good endings, there are several more bad endings where you evolve into some form of monstrosity, ranging from a unicellular Blob Monster that exists only to consume all the way up to an Eldritch Abomination that assimilates the entire world.
• The Goomba: The very first enemy you face is a simple bacterium that only uses Feeble Hit, which deals half its power in attack damage.
• Guns Are Worthless: Two abilities you can unlock are Quick Shot and Precise Shot, both of which are Fixed Damage Attacks that deal 300 damage with the latter also being able to Critical Hit for twice the damage, but both require you to have 100+ MIND to work. Problem is, at the point where you can obtain the latter, the enemies have health high enough to shrug off the attack, and many of your other attacks/abilities can already outdamage both. The A.C.T.F. only uses Precise Shot before it gets three reinforcements, which is nothing big in terms of damage at that point and can be easily healed off.
• Gray Is Useless: Options that don't have their requirements met will be faded out, most are stat checks, but at least one checks for Reset Milestones: "Cognitive Bio-Interlink" from the "The Voyager" section.
• Healing Factor:
  • The second area's boss is a Hydra which uses the Recover ability that heals it for 2x its Fortitude.
  • The third area's boss is a Spiny Mouse which uses the Rapid Recovery ability that also heals it for 2x its Fortitude, but comes out twice as fast.
  • Corrupted enemies all come with Aberrant Regrowth, which heals them for 1% of their max HP per second for each stack. The player can also get this status via one of the skills in the skill tree.
• Heal Thyself: There are a few moves that heal the player character without any other effect, such as "First Aid", and "Recover".
• Hearts Are Health: The Life Meter is represented by a Heart Symbol with a EKG line coming from its center.
• Horror Hunger: Victims of the Voidrot have an insatiable urge to consume anything they see. The very first Voidrot enemy you encounter, the Corrupted Vermin, has this description:
  Another of the same?
  No. The first took only what it needed.
  This one does not stop.
  
  The hunger does not stop.
  
  It cannot stop.
• Increasingly Lethal Enemy: The final boss is a biocontaiment task force with 30k HP, 100 for all stats, and a Fixed Damage Attack that deals 300 and sometimes 600 damage to you, which is nothing much. However, as soon as it reaches 75% of its max HP, it will call in reinforcements. If pulled off, this not only heals the boss to full, but doubles its health and all its stats. This can be done thrice, giving the enemy a whopping 240k HP, and at three stacks they will spam Specialist Strike which not only heals them for half their max health, but also conveys a plethora of debuffs that deal damage over time based on their now-bloated stats. The fight thus turns into a pseudo-Time-Limit Boss where you need to burst it down before it can call in any reinforcements.
• Kill and Replace: In the Corrupted ending where you consume Daniel, you take his ID, shapeshift into him, and fool the A.C.T. forces into letting you through, then live in his place. The ending from Evelyn's narration has her note that Daniel came back, but his behavior is off and highly unsettling.
• Knight of Cerebus: The Corrupted Vermin in the Specimen Storage marks the point where the game and story take a darker turn, as its Horror Hunger and corrupted regeneration introduces the Voidrot corruption to the player and plot.
• Labcoat of Science and Medicine: In the end message for good endings, a "White coat" is the first sign that a Researcher appears.
• Life Drain:
  • The Amoeba's Engulf causes Damage Over Time based on the user's vitality, while also healing the user by that same amount over time.
  • The Blood Leech Swarm's Vampiric Siphon deals damage equal to twice the user's Power stat, and then heals the user for half the damage dealt.
• Liminal Being: The Mudskipper is described as such, fitting for a creature of both land and water:
  A creature of two worlds, it lives between the liminal space of shattered glass and shallow water. Not trapped, not free; A reflection.
• Lovecraftian Superpower: While your character initially appears to be an evolving organism, they also sport unexplained abilities to rebirth itself into a "Nova Chrysalis" and go back through time to become a stronger form, which is the basis of the Macrogame.
• Magikarp Power: When you first start the abilities you have and absorb from enemies are weak and you are just barely able to upgrade your stats enough to beat the first boss and reach the second area. Once you do you get access to the rebirth system that lets you mix-and-match an assortment of perks that make you stronger, but even then you have to gradually get further and further by rebirthing frequently to gain more perk points, alongside gaining new abilities and changing your moveset based on what stats you currently can develop. It'll take several rebirths and the occasional redistribution of perk points before you're able to reach even one of the endings, and it'll take even more grinding before you can afford enough perks to achieve every ending.
• Mighty Glacier:
  • The Mudskipper only uses two attacks in a sequential order: Prime Up, which makes its next physical attack within 5 seconds deal 2x damage, and Power Strike, which deals 3x its power in physical damage.
  • A.X.S.U. will initially attempt to inflict Heal Block on the player. Once that's done, it will use Prime Up to deal 2x damage on its next attack, followed by Precise Shot, which deals base 600 damage (normally 300, but its 200 Acumen means it will always crit for double damage) to you, resulting in 1200 damage being delivered.
  • The Hungering Flesh is the mighty glacier to end all mighty glaciers. Its only attack, Assimilate, comes out very slowly, but if it manages to pull it off, it's practically a straight-up One-Hit Kill. This makes it into a Time-Limit Boss.
• Motifs: Light and Darkness:
  • The game has a very sun-themed motif. The science labs belong to Solstice Industries, which Daniel joins in summer. The organism they're developing (aka you) is called NOVA. The Alternative Calendar's months are all named after Sun/Light deities from various mythologies, and the Voidrot always occurred during times when the sun was strongest. Finally, the good endings have the Arc Words "A new dawn awaits / Another dawn awaits".
  • Meanwhile, the Voidrot has a dark- and void-themed motif, it's speculated to be divine punishment for those who "rejected the light", and sufferers have an insatiable appetite like and endless void. Should you be Corrupted and Kill and Replace Daniel, the ending will have the Arc Words "Another dusk awaits".
• Muggles Do It Better: The first two opponents in the final area are an eldritch-corrupted soldier with 10k HP, and an all-consuming mass of eldritch flesh with 20k HP. The Final Boss on the other hand is not an eldritch horror, but a squad of non-corrupted, entirely human task force soldiers that initially start with 30k HP and low stats, but calls in reinforcements to heal to full and double its health and all its stats, eventually becoming a lethal 240k HP threat that stacks a very painful Damage Over Time on you. There's a reason why these guys are called on to handle anomalous threats.
• Multiple Endings: All six paths have two different endings to each of them, giving a total of twelve:
  • Unicellular — Don't save Daniel: You become an all-consuming Blob Monster that emerges from the Core disaster site and assimilates everything in its path after it breaks out of the facility. Containment attempts and conventional weaponry have failed due to its constant regeneration. Satellite imaging shows the vast, writhing front stretching over thirty miles, advancing steadily toward urban sectors, with its advance outpacing evacuation efforts. Citizens are urged to remain calm, follow evacuation directives, and avoid any direct contact with the entity at all costs.
  • Unicellular — Save Daniel: You become a beneficial and helpful Blob Monster called The Bloom, which actively helps to reduce radiation levels around the lab via an "uncertain mechanism of remediation" to eat the fallout. While Daniel's wife Evelyn asks him if it’s safe, he reassures her. It appears to be a rainbow blob, which Daniel's daughter Lily draws with a smile and a wave.
  • Multicellular — Don't save Daniel: You break out of the facility as a parasite that causes an unknown outbreak. Symptoms include extreme fatigue, muscle degradation, and neurological impairment. Preliminary investigation points to an unidentified parasitic organism, resistant to conventional sterilization and antibiotic protocols. Authorities investigate potential links to the Solstice Industries R&D facility, while civilians are urged to avoid unprocessed animal products.
  • Multicellular — Save Daniel: You become a Beneficial Disease that has infected Daniel's family in a mutualistic bond, who Daniel calls Nova. Nova appears to cure any disease, with Daniel's wife Evelyn noting that she never had a migraine nor any muscle aches since then, and that Lily's cold was gone in two hours. Solstice is furious they can’t isolate it in a lab.
  • Complex — Don't save Daniel: You kill the biocontainment task force and breaks out of the facility. Reports are made of a massive, unidentified, quadrupedal creature with extreme strength brutally attacking and killing those in its wake. While some claim it's a hoax, the disappearance of an armed response team set to investigate it prove otherwise.
  • Complex — Save Daniel: You become a creature that bonds with Daniel's family, nonviolently breaking out of all containment methods just to find their house. Lily names it "Novie" and it acts like a Big Friendly Dog. Even though Solstice still checks in monthly to record "Novie", they gave up on relocating it, as it doesn’t respond to anyone else but Daniel and Lily.
  • Human (?) — Don't save Daniel: You approach the biocontainment soldiers who see you as a human and take you into custody. Sources believe they are the sole survivor of the lab catastrophe, though officials have yet to comment on whether they pose a biological risk. Solstice Industries cites that the situation is under control.
  • Human (?) — Save Daniel: You become "Novelle", who Daniel introduces to his home. Novelle is a quiet, but hypercompetent maid and Mr. Fixit, able to get all chores and repairs done around the house, and appears to know what Lily wants and caters to her needs. Daniel even manages to get them a job at another Solstice Facility. Furthermore, Daniel manages to reconcile with his wife, going out with her.
  • Corrupted — Don't encounter Daniel: You kill the biocontainment task force and escape the facility. News reports of a brutal killer cannibal that kills everyone in its wake, with forensic research discovering that the biocontainment task force were partially consumed. Further reports indicate a trail of similarly mutilated bodies leading from the facility toward populated areas. Officials urge the public to remain indoors, lock all entry points, and report any sightings immediately.
  • Corrupted — Consume Daniel: You use Daniel's ID to fake your identity and escape the biocontainment soldiers. You then live in Daniel's place, while his wife watches on, unnerved about "Daniel's" odd behavior — not tired, gaunt, or scarred. "Daniel" begins to sharpen old knives in silence, asks about the neighbors' schedules and those who live alone. He then murders the neighbor Mrs. Kellis and buries her in the backyard, lying to his wife that she moved. He then takes his "daughter" Lily out to "look at where the ground is soft".
  • Eldritch — Don't evolve all parts to Eldritch tier: Your character transforms into an anomalous spire that extends over 70km above the ground, warping reality in a 12km radius around it.
  • Eldritch — Evolve all parts to Eldritch tier: The ending is presented as a global worldwide disaster report where all global communications have failed, civil, military, and corporate infrastructures are non-operational, and hostile biological and existential threats render further survival efforts untenable. Civilians are advised to remain indoors, prepare whatever supplies for the end, and avoid exposure to external phenomena.
• Mystical Plague: It's revealed that the Voidrot is eldritch in origin, which is why no standard medical treatments were able to cure or even slow it down.
• No Final Boss for You:
  • If you aren't corrupted and save the human scientist at the end, they will show their ID to the biocontaimnent soldiers (who would normally be the Final Boss) and take you in as a specimen. You then become friends with the scientist.
  • If you're human and choose to not save the scientist, the biocontaiment soldiers will see you as human enough, and take you into custody without any fight.
  • If you're Corrupted (but not Eldritch) and choose to devour the scientist and take his ID, you'll be able to disguise as him and convince the biocontaiment task force to let you through scot-free.
• Non-Malicious Monster: The Spiny Mouse is only trying to kill you because the lab it was in has been abandoned and the person that once fed it is now long gone, and thus its starvation drives it to attack you out of desperation for a meal.
• Not Completely Useless: The "Feeble Hit" move is weaker than your basic attack and initially seems worthless. However, you actually need to use this instead of Ciliary Sweep when fighting the Amoeba boss, as Ciliary Sweep runs off your dexterity stat which is much lower than your strength stat at that point.
• Plot Tailored to the Party:
  • The A.X.S.U. boss gives you the Suppression ability, which is vital against the next opponent in the Hollow Operative, as it not only shuts down its Aberrant Regrowth but also prevents its Specialist Strike from healing half its Max HP.
  • Inverted with the Nematocyst Jab and Toxin Dart obtained from the Hydra. One might try using them on the next opponent, the Oriental Cockroach... and it will use Renew to Anti-Debuff itself.
• The Power of Friendship: All the good endings are unlocked by rescuing Daniel the researcher in the final area, and avoiding evolving to the corrupted or eldritch stages (which will force you to eat him before confronting the final boss). In these endings, you'll become a benevolent entity who aids Daniel and his family's life in various ways depending on the form you ended the game with. If you don't rescue Daniel and fight the task force at the end, you'll become an all-consuming amoeba, deadly parasitic disease, or hostile unnatural lifeform if you're not "human", and get apprehended into custody if you're "human".
• Raising the Steaks: Animals are not immune to the Voidrot infection, and your first three Corrupted enemies are a rat, a leech swarm, and a salamander respectively.
• Random Effect Spell: The Aberrant Researcher's only move is "Experimental Treatment", which does one of four things with a 25% chance each: Heal the opponent for half the user's MIND stat, Nothing at all, Deal 2x MIND poison damage, or apply 3 stacks of Corrosion for 3 seconds (each stack makes the target lose 1% health per second and makes them take +0.1x more poison damage).
• Secret Art: The one enemy ability that you cannot copy at all is Reinforcements, used by the Final Boss. This makes logical sense since you're a lab experiment who doesn't have any reinforcements on their side.
• Sentry Gun: The A.X.S.U. boss is a turret machine made to kill any xenothreats that try to escape the lab. It scans you for biometric verification, makes a few whirs and clicks, followed by a shrill beep... and the machine reaches its conclusion. During combat, it will use Suppression to cause Anti-Regeneration, double its attack with Prime Up and follow up with Precise Shot to deal a huge 1200 damage to you.
• Situational Sword: The Resonance Blast is an extremely powerful attack that deals 10x your Mind stat in Pure Damage, but comes with several caveats. Firstly, you need at least 1000 Mind to use it and you cannot be Corrupted or Eldritch, which is only doable in a human path build. Secondly, it only works on Corrupted or Eldritch foes. Fortunately the non-corrupted Final Boss at the end is never fought at all if you're doing a human route.
• The Six Stats: Your character initially starts out with only Body, but progressively gains more stats. Each of these are based on a different organ that the player develops, affects a respective combat stat. Furthermore, five of the player's Evolutionary Levels is tailored around one of the six stats:
  • Body represents the character's vitality and fittingly affects the player's Vitality combat stat, max health, and also their Biomatter scavenging speed. It is used for attacks that run off Vitality. The organ based on this is the character's tissue. This is the key stat for a Unicellular character, which grows much faster with the Unchecked Expansion prestige upgrade.
  • Strength represents the character's strength and affects the player's Power combat stat. This is used for attacks that deal damage based on Power. The organ based on this is the character's limbs. This is the key stat for a Corrupted character, whose Blinding Wrath prestige upgrade gives them x3 Power when Corrupted.
  • Agility represents the character's speed and affects the player's Dexterity combat stat, the player's skill cooldowns in combat, as well as exploration speed. This is used for attacks that deal damage based on Dexterity. The organ based on this is the character's circulatory system. This is the key stat for a Complex character, whose Relic Runner prestige upgrade multiplies both Agility and Dexterity based on the number of items you have.
  • Constitution represents the character's fortitude and affects the player's Fortitude combat stat. This affects the player's AP regeneration in combat, mutagen collection speed, and is used for many attacks that deal poison damage. The organ based on this is the character's waste filtration (i.e. Liver). This is the key stat for a Multicellular character, whose Untapped Potential prestige upgrade makes their base stats all increased by held Mutagen, and further increases Fortitude by the root of held Mutagen.
  • Perception represents the character's ability to perceive things and affects the player's Acumen combat stat. This affects the player's critical chance in combat as well as item finding chance while scavenging. The organ based on this is the photosensory organ like eyes. Unlike the other stats, there isn't a path that relies on this.
  • Intelligence represents the character's intellect and affects the player's Mind combat stat. This affects archive decryption speed as well as Aberrant mass collection, and is used for many attacks that run on Mind, or require a minimum amount of Mind to use. The organ based on this is the character's nervous system/brain. This is the key stat for a Human (?) character, whose Cognitive Leap prestige upgrade increases Intelligence by 10x and Mind by 3x.
• Skippable Boss: Under normal circumstances you're forced to fight the A.X.S.U. turret machine due to registering you as a non-human threat. That is, unless you stay as a "Human(?)" before reaching it, since it registers you as a non-threat and lets you pass by unopposed. This is helpful, as it's one of only two non-corrupted enemies in the late areas besides the Final Boss, meaning it's immune to the Resonance Blast ability that's necessary to complete a "Human(?)" run. Of course, if you already managed to open the Door to Before for the final area, you won't even need to encounter it as a human as you can skip straight to the Cavern.
• Sliding Scale of Undead Regeneration: Healing, but progressive rotting. Those infected by the Voidrot are Technically Living Zombies whose bodies regenerate quickly, but require untold amounts of nutrition to do so, and subjects soon experience tissue decay and cell death. Despite this, they all have the same Healing Factor no matter how emaciated they are.
• Small Taxonomy Pools: One of the game's bosses is a Spiny Mouse, which is seldom seen in fiction. True to its regenerative abilities, it sports Rapid Recovery, a fast healing move.
• Sole Survivor:
  • The Hollow Operative boss is a dark version. He was one of six squad members sent into the core to destroy or neutralize it. Unfortunately, all of them started falling to eldritch influence, and one member made sure to Mercy Kill those who succumbed. His description then ends with "But what happens when there's no one left to help pull the trigger?"
  • In the Human ending where you don't save Daniel, you're described to be the sole survivor of the lab catastrophe.
• Stone Wall: The Tardigrade has absolutely no offensive capabilities, but it sports a giant amount of health at the point you first encounter it, and it uses Graze to constantly heal that over time. The fight thus becomes a DPS check to see if you're able to kill it before its regeneration makes it indestructible. The pre-fight description even mentions "...this may take a while".
• Synthetic Plague: In the bad ending for the Multicellular run, your lab-grown entity becomes a deadly, incurable plague that infects livestock and those who consume infected livestock.
• Technically Living Zombie: Those infected by the Voidrot gain an insatiable Horror Hunger that causes them to become hostile and attack anything in sight, and as said in "To Find a Cure", even eating things like linen and wall padding. They turn emaciated as their own body appears to burn through calories faster than it can be supplied. Either way, they're still considered alive, even if their state is a Fate Worse than Death.
• Theme Naming: The Archives reveal that an Alternative Calendar was used, where months are named after deities of the sun or light from various mythologies — Tapati, Mithra, Amaterasu, Lugh, and Ra.
• Time-Limit Boss: Penultimate boss the Hungering Flesh has only one attack that comes out extremely slowly. Said attack is to assimilate you, dealing over 20k damage, and your health at that point will likely be magnitudes less than this. This essentially puts you on a time limit to kill it before it one-shots you.
• Victor Gains Loser's Powers: Whenver you kill an opponent, you gain any new abilities they had, with a few exceptions (mainly gun-based moves, which are instead obtained by opening a weapons cache).
• Villain Protagonist: Your character doesn't initially start out as one, but can become one if they get Corrupted and beyond or don't save Daniel from the Safehouse while not being human. Doing so in any of these will lead to one of the bad endings where you escape from the lab and wreak havoc on the world, or if you're Corrupted and get Daniel's ID, take over his life.
• Volcanic Veins: The Gnarled Salamander that has been infected by the Voidrot is described with "Veins, once hidden, glow beneath its skin".
• Wake-Up Call Boss:
  • The first proper boss is a giant amoeba that will use Engulf on you, causing you to take Damage Over Time while also healing itself in the process. The game even tells you that it's challenging, and that you need to wisely consider your moveset before fighting it.
  • If players found the first boss easy (by using the correct moves to win), then the Hydra Vulgaris second boss would be this. Not only does it attack with poison to drain your health over time, but it also can heal itself, necessitating a proper strategy to beat it.
• Weapon of X-Slaying: The Resonance Blast deals 10x the user's Mind stat to enemies it hits, but only works on Corrupted enemies. It's also a Situational Sword, as it can only be used if the user's Mind is above 1000 and if they're not corrupted or eldritch. It also counts as "Pure" damage instead of physical damage, meaning that it won't get no-sold by the Hollow Operative's dodge stacks, which only works against physical damage, and will put him down in one shot. It won't one-shot the Hungering Flesh, however, requiring you to deal around 7400 or so damage first to put it in range of finishing it. Fortunately the non-corrupted Final Boss at the end is never fought at all if you're doing a human route.
• You Dirty Rat!:
  • Subverted by the Spiny Mouse, it's hostile to you only because the lab had been abandoned and it was no longer being fed, causing it to attack you in an act of starvation-driven desperation.
  • Played straight by the Corrupted Vermin, which is also attacking you out of hunger, but this one's hunger does not stop, and cannot stop.
• Zero-Effort Boss: If you manage to achieve an All-Consuming form, the final boss will become this. Almost any attack you make with the exception of the low-damage Feeble Hit or the gun attacks will one-shot the first stage's 30k HP. The only way to lose in this form is to not pick Necrotic Bloom (which will make you outheal the final form) and use Feeble Hit or the gun moves on the first three forms until they call in reinforcements, then let the final form whittle your health down with Specialist Strike's Damage Over Time debuffs.