What’s this? Three Devblogs in just over three weeks? Madness!
Throughout the next few weeks we’ll be holding several AMAs (Ask Me Anythings) on our subreddit, one for each main developer. Read on to find out more about the AMAs, what else has been going on in Thrive’s development, and what on Earth the image above means.
Developer AMAs
Who really are we? What sort of people are you trusting to make this game? Who would be crazy enough to believe in something so ambitious?
Now’s your chance to find out. A few of our main developers will be holding Ask Me Anythings in the Thrive subreddit – you can ask about anything you want (within reason). As well as finding out who we are personally (because we’re all narcissistic Belgium-holes), you can ask about what we’re working on within development and our general thoughts about the game. These are our own unadulterated opinions here, something we don’t tend to cover within the official Thrive outreach.
If you’d rather not use Reddit, ask your question in this thread on our community forums instead, though you’ll have to specify which developer you’re addressing.
Have fun!
Miscellaneous Updates
Along with the main event, here’s a rundown of what’s been going on recently in and out of Thrive’s development.
Compound Clouds
If you haven’t already seen, TheCreator has been making incredible progress towards getting compound clouds into the game. Until now, we’ve had to deal with entities emitting discrete packets of compounds, which is neither realistic nor at all representative of how we want the finished system to function. Compound clouds (coloured to suit each compound) will instead billow out into the environment for microbes to collect, diffusing subject to a fluid dynamics simulation.
Most of the work here is done, but you can follow the remainder here. Compound clouds – along with performance improvements, basic text guidance and several other small features – are all upcoming for Thrive 0.3.2. Watch this space!
CPA Prototypes
In Devblog #4 we mentioned tjwhale’s CPA (Compounds, Population-dynamics, Auto-evo) prototype taking shape. We’re proud to announce some great results, although right now they aren’t in an easily readable format.
The graph essentially shows an ecosystem’s compound levels changing over time as microbes, bacteria and environmental processes combine and split compounds in accordance with organic chemistry. A full CPA system is still a long way off yet, but we’re making great strides towards finally seeing Thrive’s major simulation realised.
Other News
Remember our dilapidated old Facebook page? Good news! We’ve a couple more folks helping out there now, hopefully yielding more regular updates. If you can’t keep up with Thrive news elsewhere, check the page every now and then for minor updates on development.
Is Thrive doomed to fail? Is it impossible? We aren’t wholly sure, but Oliveriver recently wrote an article on the subject, including a detailed history of Thrive. If you’re up for reading another overly extensive blog post, go check it out.
That’s all for this Devblog. Rest assured more are on their way!
