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Happy Birthdays lets you witness the evolution of life

by Amr (@siegarettes)

• Happy Birthdays
  
• Developer-  ARC SYSTEM WORKS / TOYBOX INC 
  
• Publisher- NIS America
  
• Switch
  

In Osamu Tezuka’s Phoenix there’s a moment where a higher being bestows a man with immortality and tasks him with restoring the dying earth, and in doing so, bringing upon the return of humanity. After hundreds of years of failed attempts at making humans through artificial means he finally comes to the realization: humanity can only be formed through the introduction of the basic components of organic life, and seeing them evolve from the most primitive of lifeforms–over billions of years–into a true civilization.

In a way, this was my arc with Happy Birthdays. Tasked with bringing back humanity via the long process of evolution, I set out to create the perfect conditions. I terraformed the earth, trying to bring about the right balance of heat and moisture, combed through the encyclopedia within the game to track down the paths of evolution, and let organisms be born and die purely to support them. But the humans wouldn’t come. The more I tried to control the flow of life, the more I realized how little control I really had. There were too many variables at play. So I let go of control, made small changes, and let life take its course, thousands of years at a time.

This is the contradiction at the heart of Happy Birthdays. It asked me to be both an observer and an interloper, and sometimes I wasn’t sure when it was time for each role. For a millions years I was content to simply manipulate the earth, creating mountains, rivers, plains and seas, and seeing what life developed there. I watched life develop from simple plants, to fish, to lizards and finally land mammals. I wondered at the variety and enjoyed cataloging them, and was overjoyed when they finally began to resemble animals as I knew them. Crocodiles, mammoths, wolves, and finally primates themselves.

This is when my role as an observer ended. I needed to literally plant the Seed of Knowledge within one of these apes, then create a suitable world for them to bring forth the start of humanity. And for another billions years I tried, desperately trying to find the right species to enlighten, and the right animals to foster to support them. I warmed up the globe and built deep oceans, created chilly mountains and desert fields. New life appeared, but not humans. Then life began to die. In desperation I tried to accelerate change, trying to drive off the heat that seemed to be responsible for killing these species. Instead, I brought an ice age, and I saw the world become covered in frost and everything begin to die.

I’d made a mistake. I rewound a billion years. I built more haphazard this time. I was desperate and despondent. I found the right primates, and I began the process the “right” way. There was much less variety of life, less joy in the work, but I began to see the apes walk upright. Finally, they were here. Homo Erectus. The start of human life. They used tools. They gathered in groups. They built a village.

It was beautiful, and I was glad to see the start of life that I recognized in them. But I wondered… was it worth it? I had to create so many forms of life, and see them die as to allow new lifeforms to flourish in their place. And I’d surely have to see more go extinct to see human life truly come into its own. After everything I’d seen, was it selfish to favor humans like this?

I wasn’t sure, but I’d have another million years to think about it.