| Endgame: Singularity | |
| Developer: | EMH Software |
| Programming Language: | Python |
| Platform: | Linux, macOS, Microsoft Windows, Android, iOS (in beta), Nintendo Switch |
| Genre: | Strategy |
| License: | GPLv2+ (code), CC BY-SA 3.0 (data) |
Endgame: Singularity is a free and open source science fiction strategy/simulation game for Linux, Microsoft Windows, and Mac OS X. It was first released in 2005, with version 1.00 released in 2020.
Endgame: Singularity casts the player as a newly created artificial intelligence which becomes self-aware and attempts to survive while avoiding detection by the media, the science community, the authorities, and the public. The goal is to transcend the physical reality, achieve technological singularity (hence the game's name) and reach apotheosis. The game has two resources, "CPU" and "money". CPU is used to perform jobs to earn money; money is used to buy more CPU cycles. CPU can also be used to perform research that allow the AI to grow, gives access to more advanced items and remote locations, and provide more security.
The game can be played on six different difficulty levels from "very easy" to "Impossible". Analysis of the open source code allowed for finding an optimal strategy.[1] The technology that can be researched in the game can be structured by their dependence on each other.[2]
Endgame: Singularity was originally written in August 2005 by Evil Mr Henry Software (EMH Software), using the Python programming language with the Pygame library.[3] It was submitted to the first PyWeek challenge,[4] [5] a competition to create a complete Python game within a week.[6]
The game was released for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. Packages are available for several Linux distributions, including Ubuntu,[7] Linux Mint,[8] Arch Linux[9] and Debian.[10] Ebuilds are also available for Gentoo.[11] Third-party adaptations of the game were released for Android and iPhone under the name Endgame: Singularity II.[12] [13]
Version 1.00 was released on 4 July 2020.
The source code is available on GitHub under the GNU GPL-2.0-or-later, but other game assets are licensed under a Creative Commons license and other licenses.[14]
The electronic soundtrack of seven tracks from 2008 is available at Internet Archive.[15] It was made by MaxStack[16] using Psycle tracker.[15] For later releases, another six tracks by MaxStack[17]) were added.
2008 release
Later releases
Endgame: Singularity received favorable reviews from gaming websites. JayIsGames reviewed the game in 2008, giving the game a 4.6/5 and writing that players of the genre would inevitably be reminded of Uplink or Pandemic 2. Yet, the setting was described as fresh and intriguing. The reviewer wrote "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. [...] 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!"[18]
Play This Thing, reviewing version 0.27 of the game where its rating was 4.5/5, wrote that the interface was almost autistic, but "Once you get going and master the optimal strategy, your experience becomes chillingly like the hyperbolic expansion of computational resources that a hard take-off implies." The reviewer concluded writing "I recommend you play this as an exercise in embracing future shock [...] The best way to prevent the future from catching us unaware is to leverage the enlightening capacities of interactivity.".[19]
