Devblog #20: Let’s Try to Solve Evolution

EDITOR’S NOTE: Before we begin, we’re happy to announce that the release candidate for Thrive 0.4.2 is now available. Download and post your bugs/thoughts here, and while you’re at it, scream wildly into the void as your hype for the upcoming release consumes you here Now, back to regularly scheduled programming.

Hey guys, Nick here, and today we’ve got an update for you on one of the essential components of Thrive, evolution.

The oldest unanswered question of Thrive’s game design is: How will we create an evolution simulation that is both realistic and fun? It was one of the ideas that originally inspired the game, and it is one of the fundamental selling points of the first half of Thrive. Yet, it’s still a looming obstacle that we have just never been able to overcome.

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Mini Update #6: Gameplay Updates Pt. 1

Hey guys, Nick here, and welcome back to another Mini Update. It’s time for us to cover some of the upcoming gameplay changes that are going to be included with the next release. We’ve got a lot to cover, so we’ll split this into several parts. Today’s update will mostly cover gameplay changes to the compound system and features associated with it.

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Mini Update #5: Planetary Evolution

Hey guys, Nick here, and welcome back to another Mini Update. Today we’ve got a longer update as it’s a post from one of our recent discussions on the Microbe Stage that we felt would be interesting to share. Instead of talking about any technical aspects of the development this time, we’re instead going to focus on some of the science behind the game’s design. What’s the topic? Planetary evolution.

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Mini Update #2: Underwater Sensation Pt. 1

Hey guys, Nick here, and welcome to today’s Mini Update. This time we’re going to be talking about blur, and more specifically how making what you’re looking at harder to see will make it look nicer. Hopefully this isn’t saying anything about our artistic ability.

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Mini Update #1: Engine Switch and Compound Balancing

Hey guys, Nick here, and welcome to the first in our new series of mini updates!

For a while we’ve been discussing the idea of having smaller development updates like this. The idea is to have them between the devblogs for a chance to keep you guys up to date with what’s going on in the project in the very rare (okay maybe not that rare) periods where there is no big news. We’re going to try it out, and if all goes well we’ll stick with it.

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Devblog #5: Thrive vs Species

Evolution aficionados, get excited. It’s time for the simulation smackdown of the century, as two up and coming biological games go head-to-head in a battle of truly Darwinian proportions.

In the red corner – Thrive, an open-source project from Revolutionary Games aiming to show the player the wonders of life as they guide their species from the tidepool to the stars.

In the blue corner – Species: Artificial Life, Real Evolution, a single developer’s quest to simulate evolution by natural selection as accurately as possible, an effort already making waves in the gaming world.

Who will come out on top? Can this introduction get any more dramatic? Is this actually just a few people amicably asking each other questions about their different approaches to crafting an evolution-based game which will ultimately result in an overall increase in knowledge and understanding with no real aspect of competition?

Read on to find out!

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