For five entire months straight our developers have worked and toiled to bring about a massive rework in the functionality of Thrive’s background processes. A massive undertaking that has left nothing untouched, and everything entirely different. This is without a doubt a fundamental change in the underlying rules of reality in the world of Thrive; A brand new physics engine complete with better performance. Nothing will quite feel the same as it once did, but it’s still Thrive, and it can only get better.

In focusing on this grand refactoring, we regrettably have little to show on the gameplay side of things, but it will be smoother sailing from here on out.

As always, to get the newest version, either download the free launcher below, or purchase Thrive on Steam or Itch.io to support the game’s development.

Thrive 0.6.4

Our developers have worked hard to bring you an expanded Thrive experience. We’ve outlined the major changes in this devblog, but you can see the patch notes for a full list of features and bug fixes.

Performance Like Never Before

Having gone through a massive refactor behind the scenes, Thrive now runs at a greater speed than ever before. framerates will be higher, autoevo will be faster, and you may just be able to increase that entity cap in your settings. But that’s not all that has changed behind the scenes! The physics calculations of Thrive have been entirely reworked.

Players might notice a tangible sense of weight during gameplay now; Large heavy cells are able to easily bat aside small chunks and bacteria as they make their way through. Cells have an average density that determines how quickly they can turn, and how fast they are able to move. You can even drift a little as you decelerate instead of coming to a complete stop on command. And even the generation of hitboxes is entirely different now, with the hitbox being determined by the shape of the cell’s membrane rather than it’s internal parts.

These changes are huge, and while they may not bring anything substantially noticeable to the realm of gameplay, they lay a vital foundation for the future of Thrive going forward.

A Guide To Thrive

The Thriveopedia is ever closer to becoming as we originally envisioned; Now performing it’s role as a guide for players to consult during gameplay to achieve a greater understanding of the parts they have at their disposal. Now included in the latest release is comprehensive information relating to each part available in the microbe stage.

Each page will be filled out with everything a player could ever want to know about a part. It’s general stats, it’s processes, the customization options available to it, strategies on it’s use, and even information on how the part functions in real life!

Regrettably, not all of the organelle pages are fully filled out as of this release. So please look forward to more information becoming available to the Thriveopedia in each subsequent update!

New Part Customization

While they may be small, 0.6.4 does still bring some brand new features to the table. Players can now diversify their equipment with the brand new injectisome pilus mod, which exchanges some of it’s raw physical damage for toxic damage. This allows it’s user to bypass physical defenses with the pilus.

In addition, the vacuole has received a modification menu that allows players to specialize them for specific compounds. This greatly increases their overall storage value, but only for one compound.

Not to be left out of the fun, the chemoreceptor also has new customization options, with the ability to directly track nearby cells and not just loose compounds.

Other Notable Changes

• Added two new context specific microbe tracks that can play instead of the normal microbe ambiance when in those specific patch types.
• Fixed two very common multicellular crashes: InvalidOperationException: Sequence contains no matching element and ArgumentException: OrganelleTemplate can’t be placed at this location.
• When low performance is detected in the menu the game will now prompt the player to disable the 3D menu backgrounds.
• Improved the visuals of the organism statistics panel and added / updated related tooltip icons as well.
• Multicellular colonies now use absolute positioning of members set by the editor. This isn’t perfect (leaves gaps) but the problem with cells growing at the wrong positions randomly should be gone now.
• Membrane data generation now happens in a background thread to reduce stuttering happening while cells spawn.
• The AI will now avoid engulfing something it cannot digest, though they may still try occasionally. Depends on behavior values.
• There’s now a tutorial for the become multicellular button as many players seemed to not realize it was a button.

You can read the entire list of changes in our patch notes.

Looking Ahead

With the massive rework to Thrive’s underlying systems, much of our focus is going to be centered around fixing any and all emergent bugs as we can. Most importantly of all, recent updates to Godot 4 has made porting Thrive to this newest version more of a possibility, which may potentially take precedence in the near future.

Want to hear more? Come join us in our upcoming developer Thrivestream to ask us whatever you like, and celebrate the new release!

You can also share your thoughts and feelings on these latest changes on our community feedback thread.