While reading some posts about why style the grafics should have i noticed we could include something. We can add emotion and not only science.

I remember trying out a game which had only the goal to be like a piece of art. And it starts out with you being a sperm so it actually has a alike setting to this project. http://store.steampowered.com/app/31500/ (its COIL and freely downloadable via Steam, it takes about 15min to play the whole thing from start to end and the only control is mouse movement without the buttons)

It could be one of our goals to give the player the feeling that his creature (or lets say cell because thats what we are working on) starts out weak and alone and thrives (like the name of the game would suggest) and the gameplay gets more dynamic as you play and also a bit more chaotic. THRIVE should be the motto here.

To be a little more concrete (for cell stage):
At the beginning you start out with your cell in the middle of the screen which is almost empty. It has to feel like floating and lonely. Like you are the only one of your kind floating alone through the ocean. Your cell has move around a little bit so it actually feels like a living creature. And the backround has to float and look watery. (a few particals have to be floating around to show that the fluids are moving) And first when you move a bit out of the screen the normal gameplay begins.

Tutorial here-

One cell apears of a random early assmilation type and you somehow get informed how you can assmilate it.
When you start assimilating the cells the movement has to become alot faster and like fighting. In "combat" the cells would stop moving like they are swimming or floating. They have to change directions fast and randomly and the animation of the cells themselves have to be chaotic. After you have assimalted a cells the game gets slower again. After this you are "set free".

You then start exploring the world and not just randomly eating everything. Spore is a bad example here because the only thing you can do in cell stage is eating. Some areas seem empty and lifeless and some cells rush by very fast and others just float. And in other areas like a bacteria colony are like a city in anarchy and alot of action is happening. In these areas only things that dont move extremly fast are dead. Some cells build clusters and interact, others rush through them. It should also look a bit more colorful in these areas.

Later in the game when you start glueing your cells together it should also be a bit chaotic. Your cells start interacting and it should feel like they are working together like the parts of a machine. The should move together like a simple creature would. You should also have the feeling like you have achieved something. As if you creature is thriving.

And the a bit later the next stage of the game starts...... you are a small creature, the only one of you kind floating alone in the ocean. And the only thing you have is a world to conquer. (All stages should be built much the same)

I hope somebody likes my idea. It also adds some room for a tutorial and makes it feel less like a simulation but more like a game. Its not a must but it sure would be a cool "addition feature" of the game if we left some room for emotion. And as always i am open for critics.

Tenebrarums aware stage gameplay concept also has many of the same elements (like final objective of making fire or spear) but not exactly the way i have in mind. But it fits to my concept aswell.

I like the idea, but right now we don't need to focus on this.

Could we have an intro movie when you start a microbe game (because I wanna make one and it could be a nice start with a nice intro) ?

like for example 2 planets colliding with eachother (like earth and unknown-planet a lot of time ago (how the moon was created)) and in the collision the first microbe is born (the basic parts of life could have come from planet no. 2 and been shakened together), also known as you, all alone in a seamingly dead/lifeless stormy timepool... (some of what's left of planet no. 2 latere becomes a moon)
but that where just an example idea, but I would like to make something like that to have in the beggining of the microbe phase.
and it does'nt need to take that much space cause it will only be an already rendered movie (=no realtime rendering) and this could work even if your planets all will look different cause you'll just explain it as that your planet looked like in the movie before but after the collision and millions of years of time the planet has changed.

how can someone get emotive with a microbe?

As Sico said, we don't need to focus on that right now...

To have something cinematic/emotive in a game, we first need to create the game itself, right?