# Cell Zoo - Physarium — Living Art on Your Device > Real-time cellular automata simulator with interactive alien organisms and AR. (iPhone/iPad app by Aleksander Allen.) - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/cell-zoo-physarium/id6761283791 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`) - Developer: [Aleksander Allen](https://appshunter.io/developer/1848492528) - Category: Games, Photo & Video, Casual, Simulation - Price: Free with in-app purchases - Rating: 3.70/5 from 3 App Store ratings - Age rating: 4+ - Requires: iOS 26.0 · 7 MB - Languages: American English - Released: 2026-03-28 - Data updated: 2026-08-11 - Monetization: free - User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/cell-zoo-physarium/id6761283791/reviews.md ## What is Cell Zoo? The most beautiful cellular automata simulator on iOS. Watch alien organisms evolve in real time. Touch them, breed them, teach them to sing. Place them on your desk in AR. Cell Zoo is a pocket terrarium for mathematical life. TEN LIVING WORLDS Slime molds that solve mazes. Continuous creatures that swim, split, and breathe. Chemistry that paints leopard spots and coral. Electromagnetic waves, self-assembling DNA, even your own words dissolving into life. Every world runs real math at up to 120 frames per second, and none of them behaves the way you expect. IT GROWS INTO YOUR PHOTOS Hand the colony a picture and watch it grow into the bright shapes — your face, your handwriting, your dog. A living sketch, not a copy. IT LISTENS. IT SINGS. Turn on Hearing and the colony moves to your music: bass makes it surge, treble makes it shimmer. Turn on Voice and the simulation sings back — a generative soundtrack drawn from the colony's own rhythms, never the same twice. A NEW CREATURE EVERY DAY Hatch the Daily Specimen each morning. Creatures you keep sync across your devices with iCloud. SHARE WHAT YOU GROW Send any creature by link. It hatches on your friend's device exactly as you made it — same genes, same colors, same behavior. BREED THEM (Premium) Cross two creatures and hatch the offspring. Mutate genomes. Pit colonies against each other in the arena and carry the winner's line forward. 30+ RENDER MODES (Premium) Photoreal protoplasm, holographic diffraction, infrared, liquid metal, bioluminescent deep-sea glow, aurora, soap film. Every mode is a handcrafted Metal shader. AR MODE (Premium) Grow a colony on your table, floor, or wall. In 3D, a living structure floats in your room — walk around it. Walk through it. TUNE EVERYTHING Sensor angles, diffusion rates, decay, species counts — every slider changes behavior live, and all of them are free. Capture the results in photo mode with pro exposure and cinematic filters. Built native with Metal: 120Hz ProMotion, HDR bloom, MetalFX upscaling. No accounts, no ads, no analytics. Premium is a single one-time purchase. Terms: https://cellzoo.app/#terms ## Key features - Real-time organism evolution - Interactive touch controls - Augmented Reality (AR) mode - Multiple living systems (Physarum, Lenia, Gray-Scott, Particle Life) - Extensive parameter tuning - GPU-accelerated simulations ## Pricing and in-app purchases Base price: Free. **One-time purchases** | Purchase | Price | Type | | --- | --- | --- | | Lifetime Premium | $3.99 | one-time | ## Frequently asked questions about Cell Zoo ### What are the living systems in Cell Zoo? Cell Zoo features four distinct living systems: Physarum (slime mold), Lenia (mathematical life), Gray-Scott (reaction-diffusion chemistry), and Particle Life (emergent ecosystems). Each system offers unique visual behaviors and interactions. ### Can I use Cell Zoo offline? The core simulation features of Cell Zoo are designed to run locally on your device, allowing for offline use. However, features like AR mode may require camera access and could be affected by device capabilities. ### Does Cell Zoo have multiplayer? Cell Zoo is primarily a single-player experience focused on individual exploration and creation. There is no multiplayer functionality described for interacting with other users' simulations. ### How does Cell Zoo handle ads? Cell Zoo is ad-free. The developers have stated that the application contains no advertisements, ensuring an uninterrupted user experience. ### What are the premium features in Cell Zoo? Premium features include over 30 render modes, AR Mode for placing simulations in your environment, Sound Reactive mode that pulses with music, and Pro Photo Mode for enhanced screenshot capture. ### How often is Cell Zoo updated? The latest version of Cell Zoo is 1.4, which was last updated on June 1, 2026. This indicates a recent update, suggesting ongoing development and support. ### What is the age rating for Cell Zoo? Cell Zoo has an age rating of 4+. This means it is considered suitable for children aged 4 and older, with no mature content. ### Can I control the behavior of organisms in Cell Zoo? Yes, you can fine-tune dozens of parameters in Cell Zoo, including sensor angles, diffusion rates, decay, and species counts. These adjustments allow you to significantly alter the behavior and patterns of the simulations in real-time. ## Version history (last 5 releases) ### 2.1 — 2026-08-11 What's New in 2.1 COLONY VOICE LEARNS TO IMPROVISE The soundtrack now emerges from what's actually on screen. Each world seeds its own key and musical theme from the live colony, and when your colony surges, the drums and bass punch through. ALSO • Performance and polish improvements throughout. What's New in 2.0.1 Stopped purchasing screen from appearing after purchase What's New in 2.0.0 SEE IT COME ALIVE — LIVE VISION Point your camera at anything, or hand the colony a photo, and watch it grow into the image, cell by cell. Your face, your room, a houseplant — rendered in living slime. HEAR YOUR COLONY — COLONY VOICE The simulation now sings. Colony Voice turns the colony's own rhythms into a synthesizer, so every world has a generative voice that's never quite the same twice. A NEW SPECIMEN EVERY DAY Creature of the Day drops a fresh specimen to hatch each morning. Grew one you love? Share it — send anyone a creature by link and it hatches on their device, exactly as you made it. YOUR LIBRARY, EVERYWHERE Saved creatures now sync over iCloud — hatch on your phone, pick it up on your iPad. (Premium) ALSO • One unified control panel — every knob in one place. • Sound reactivity now auto-levels to any room, so the colony moves to a whisper or a full speaker. • Smoother rendering with less hitching, even with large colonies. ### 2.0 — 2026-07-13 What's New in 2.0.0 SEE IT COME ALIVE — LIVE VISION Point your camera at anything, or hand the colony a photo, and watch it grow into the image, cell by cell. Your face, your room, a houseplant — rendered in living slime. HEAR YOUR COLONY — COLONY VOICE The simulation now sings. Colony Voice turns the colony's own rhythms into a synthesizer, so every world has a generative voice that's never quite the same twice. A NEW SPECIMEN EVERY DAY Creature of the Day drops a fresh specimen to hatch each morning. Grew one you love? Share it — send anyone a creature by link and it ⏺ hatches on their device, exactly as you made it. YOUR LIBRARY, EVERYWHERE Saved creatures now sync over iCloud — hatch on your phone, pick it up on your iPad. (Premium) ALSO • One unified control panel — every knob in one place. • Sound reactivity now auto-levels to any room, so the colony moves to a whisper or a full speaker. • Smoother rendering with less hitching, even with large colonies. ### 1.4 — 2026-06-01 A new way in, and a new world to lose yourself in. • Enclosures — browse every simulation as a living preview. Each one runs in miniature, so you see exactly what you're stepping into before you open it. • Hail Mary — a new enclosure where glowing blooms drift and divide, hunted by a restless predator. Watch a whole food web find its balance. • Adversarium — the predator–prey arena, retuned: faster, hungrier, and now living up to its name. • A new color studio — pour and mix your own palettes with the liquid picker, and your creatures keep their colors across devices. • A warmer welcome and a cleaner, calmer path through the app. Plus the usual quiet work underneath: smoother frames, fewer hitches. ### 1.3 — 2026-05-20 - NEW Taumeba\Dots Experiment available in the Model Selector - in app purchase robustness improvements ### 1.2.0 — 2026-04-07 What's New in Cell Zoo 1.3 - UI updates - Video Capture — Record up to 30 seconds of your simulation as real-time H.265 video. Zero-copy Metal→encoder pipeline for smooth capture without frame drops. - SmoothLife Multi-Species — Run 1-3 competing species in SmoothLife with cross-species repulsion and territorial dynamics. - Anti-Flicker Protection — Intelligent temporal smoothing prevents rapid strobing during evolution. Seizure-inducing patterns are automatically detected and rejected. - Cross-Species Interactions — All multi-species simulations (Physarum, Gray-Scott, Lenia, SmoothLife) now feature species repulsion and territorial boundaries. - Evolution Improvements — Extinct populations automatically re-seed. Flickering candidates are hard-vetoed. Smoother parameter blending between generations. - Performance — Half-precision GPU compute, optimized memory access patterns, reduced encoder overhead. Faster and more power-efficient. - Bug Fixes — Fixed video export, creature library screenshots, Gray-Scott multi-species spawning, AR 3D texture crash. ## More apps by Aleksander Allen - [IdeAI](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/ideai/id6754496063) - [Chorus Reader](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/chorus-reader/id6759882177) - [ComBoard AAC](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/comboard-aac/id6782740525) All apps by Aleksander Allen: https://appshunter.io/developer/1848492528 --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-08-11.*