A couple of weeks ago I watched EEK3, a digital showcase for indie games with that Haunted PS1 aesthetic, complete with its own virtual showfloor. Among the games that caught my eye was Cellular Harvest, which is about an auditor sent to an alien planet to document its lifeforms. It’s out now, I’ve played it, and it’s good.

The backstory is that in the future we seed worlds with life, then come back much later to figure out if they’re worth harvesting for consumer goods. Maybe this weird slug’s shell can be ground down to make something that’ll get the grout of your tiles. Did you know shellac is made from a resin secreted by bugs? Carmine dye comes from insects as well, but rather than a resin we can just scrape off trees it’s made by boiling cochineal bugs. It’s still used to make food look red, just casually