A lone spark of life. One fragile cell adrift in a vast, chaotic world.

Feed, grow, adapt, outmaneuver predators, survive viral invasions, and assemble new organelles that reshape your abilities and your destiny. You're learning the science the whole time, too immersed in survival to notice.

Play the free demo Wishlist on Steam Watch gameplay
Steam Next Fest, Oct 19 to 26 Free demo Full controller support Steam Deck ready 9 languages Single-player · Offline
Trailer

See it swim

Official trailer, 0:58. Watch on YouTube · Download the MP4.

Small cell. Big adventure.
The game

Three things a cell has to do

Start as a spark of life. Eat, hunt rivals, survive viruses, and craft new organelles to rule the chaotic waters until one cell becomes two. Every upgrade is real biology. You'll be learning the whole time and too busy to notice.

Tentacles sting a green paramecium and reel it toward the player cell
01 · Eat

Hunt and engulf

Chase down prey, wrap it in your membrane, and break it into protein, lipid and fiber. Every real organism you swallow is recorded in the Compendium.

Organelle crafting wheel with tentacles selected
02 · Evolve

Craft organelles

Spend what you harvest on a nucleus, mitochondria, flagella, lysosomes and more. Each one does in the game exactly what it does in a living cell.

Cytokinesis: the furrow closes as one cell becomes two
03 · Divide

Survive to mitosis

Outlast viruses, toxin clouds and hunter cells long enough to gather everything a cell needs, then split into the first multicellular organism.

New in demo v0.9.3

Plays on a controller.
Runs on Steam Deck.

Launch, play, craft, evolve and quit without touching a keyboard or mouse.

  • Left stick swims with real analog speed; triggers engulf and fire the endotoxin burst; face buttons dash, stun, whip and grapple.
  • Every menu is pad-driven: the crafting ring, skill tree, Compendium and Build Mode all use the right stick as a cursor.
  • Remap any action in Settings → Controls. Xbox and PlayStation glyphs, auto-detected.
  • Rumble on hits, shoves and every engulf. Unplug-safe: the game pauses if your pad disconnects.
  • Steam Deck: native 1280×800, fullscreen by default, no launcher, nothing to type.
Try it on your pad
The player cell with its nucleus and organelles, from the game
Build your cell
Features

Real biology, real stakes

◎

Compendium

Every creature is a real species · Paramecium, Noctiluca, diatoms, dinoflagellates · with the facts a biologist would want and the tips a hunter needs.

⌬

Biomes that gate you

Salt marsh, kelp forest, volcanic vents. Without a contractile vacuole the salinity bursts you; without peroxisomes the acid dissolves you. Evolve in, or stay out.

✦

Skill tree with three paths

Hunter, Gatherer or Drifter. Your choices bend the lineage toward arthropod, vertebrate or plant · convergent evolution, three endings.

☣

Viruses and hunters

Phages hijack your machinery, hunter cells stalk the dark, and a boss organism guards each chamber. Endotoxin bursts and a stun whip are your answer.

⚙

Build Mode

Place organelles by hand and watch them work. Ribosomes speed protein synthesis; more mitochondria, more stamina.

◈

One purchase, offline

Single-player. No accounts, no subscriptions, no in-app purchases. The demo is free and saves carry forward.

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Gameplay in motion

A closer look at life

Six moments from the microscopic world. Play a loop to explore the action.

Grapple and engulf

Lash out with tentacles, sting your prey and reel it in.

Download GIF

Hunt in the caves

Grab glowing cave prey in the dark.

Download GIF

Build a nucleus

Lipids line up into a double membrane and the pores lock in.

Download GIF

Divide in two

Mitosis, then the furrow closes: two cells in one shared membrane.

Download GIF

Learn as you play

Follow movement, feeding, and DNA prompts while exploring the water.

Download GIF

Craft your cell

Pick an organelle on the crafting wheel and watch your cell grow cilia.

Download GIF
A world within a drop
Educators

Cell biology you can play

Salty was built so that the mechanics are the lesson. Students don't read about osmosis; they burst.

  • Organelles and their functions, prokaryote vs eukaryote, endosymbiosis.
  • Osmoregulation, pH tolerance and environmental gating.
  • Viruses, phagocytosis and immune-style defenses.
  • Mitosis, stage by stage, as the game's climax.
  • A Compendium of real species with accurate facts, offline and ad-free.

Interested in classroom keys or a curriculum guide? Email us.

The Compendium showing a real microorganism and its biology
Salty at Steam Next Fest, October 19–26, 2026. Play the free demo.
Wishlist on SteamPlay the free demo
The studio

Garrack Gaming Studios

A one-person indie studio making science-grounded games, the kind where the mechanics come straight out of a biology textbook and still feel good on a controller.

Salty is our first title. It's built in Godot, tested by real players in our Discord, and shaped by their feedback with every update. Follow the Steam page to hear when the full game · with the multicellular chapters · arrives.

Follow on Steam Press kit
FAQ

Questions

Is Salty free?

The demo is free on Steam and covers the opening chapter, taking your cell from its first organelles through the Level 2 evolution. The full release carries the story on toward the multicellular phase, and if players want more we plan to keep expanding it from there. It will be a one-time purchase, no subscriptions and no in-app purchases.

Does it work on Steam Deck and with a controller?

Yes. Full controller support for Xbox and PlayStation pads with in-game rebinding and rumble, and it runs on Steam Deck at native 1280×800 with nothing to type.

How is Salty different from other evolution games?

Most evolution games rush past the microscope in a short prologue. Salty stays there. Every organelle, creature and mechanic is based on real cell biology, and the goal is to survive long enough to divide and become multicellular.

What age is it for?

Curious players aged 11 and up. It maps well to middle- and high-school biology: cell structure, organelles, osmosis, viruses and mitosis all appear as gameplay.

What languages are supported?

English, Simplified Chinese, Russian, Spanish, German, Brazilian Portuguese, Japanese, French and Korean. Voice-over is English only for now.

Where do I send feedback or bug reports?

The Discord is fastest. The demo also has a Report a Bug button on the main menu, or email support@garrackgaming.com.

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