Specimens

You are a researcher. Your subjects are colored rectangles. Your laboratory fits in your pocket.

Specimens is a single-player breeding simulator built on Mendelian genetics. Each specimen has a 14-gene genome with dominant and recessive alleles. You pair specimens, observe their offspring, and document what you discover.

GENETICS, ACCURATELY

Every offspring inherits one allele from each parent at every locus, exactly as Mendel described. Lower-ordinal alleles are dominant. Recessive traits hide in carriers across generations and re-emerge when two carriers meet. Standard mutations are rare and lean recessive. Ultra-rare third variants exist on certain genes and produce visually distinctive specimens that take real patience to breed.

FOURTEEN GENES

Seven structural (corners, fill, border, rotation, shadow, pattern, opacity), three for color (hue, saturation, depth), four for condition (lunar, weather, temporal, seasonal). The condition genes stay dormant unless the right environmental trigger fires.

REAL-WORLD CONDITIONS AFFECT BREEDING

Specimens are born under the actual moon phase, weather, time of day, and season at your location. Some traits only express when bred under specific conditions — a lunar specimen reveals its marking only when its parents bred during a full moon. The game respects the rhythm of real time. It is not a game played in bursts.

THE PEN

You manage a small pen — initially four slots, expandable to eight through milestones. Breeding takes real-world time, scaled to the rarity of the offspring. While a breed runs, you put the device down and come back later.

CATALYST

If a timer is in your way and you want to skip it, you can use a Catalyst — a consumable item. You receive three for free that regenerate each day. If you want more, you can buy packs. Catalysts skip a single breed's timer. They do not change the outcome, the genetics, or what you can do; the same specimens are reachable without them, just slower. Catalysts can't be sold, traded, or exchanged for anything outside the app.

WHAT'S NOT IN HERE
— No advertisements.
— No analytics or telemetry.
— No account required to play.
— No social features, leaderboards, or competitive pressure.
— No timed events, FOMO promotions, daily streaks, or login bonuses.
— No simulated gambling or loot boxes — every breeding outcome follows strict Mendelian rules from a seeded RNG.

ACHIEVEMENTS

If you sign in to Google Play Games, the app surfaces achievements as you reach in-game milestones. Sign-in is optional. The game's own Field Notes and Discovery Index track everything you've observed locally; nothing is sent to a server.

FOR WHOM

Specimens is for players who enjoy long-running, low-stress systems with genuine depth. It rewards patience and observation. It has no ads, no targeted purchases, and no tricks. It is not a game in a hurry.