Some exciting developments this week as we have successfully implemented an unlocking system for parts in Thrive. This highly anticipated feature provides a greater sense of progress in the game by gradually introducing new options to the player as they evolve. The idea behind our system of unlocks is to only introduce parts at a time when they are needed or appropriate, thus eliminating any potential confusion or decision paralysis on the part of new players.

Note that there may potentially be some bugs associated with it’s implementation that we will make sure to hunt down, and that the conditions behind unlocks are potentially subject to change if needed.

We’ve also introduced a new music theme that players can encounter in the hydrothermal vents biome! We hope that players encounter this majestic new piece naturally, but if you are too excited to wait, you can listen to it now in the video below.

Programming

• New DevBuild for our patrons:
  • Added part unlock system. Some organelles are now locked until the player fulfills certain conditions
  • Improved visuals of patch map lines going to unexplored patches.
  • Added a new microbe stage music track that is exclusive to the vents biome
  • Added explicit check for available CPU features and making the game exit cleanly if the current CPU is not new enough
  • Improved the handling of native library load not succeeding and the game needing to close (this shouldn’t be a hard crash anymore)
  • Fixed big iron chunks having their collision models rotated differently than the visual modes (this caused the visuals to now be rotated differently than before until someone can remake the model)
  • Fixed a crash when accessing incorrect cell colony member index due to one missing “=” character in the code
  • Fixed fossilize buttons not updating their state when a species was fossilized, now the buttons correctly show the species as being fossilized
  • Fixed the 3D environment colour leaking into the cell editor in multicellular editor (the background is now disabled while in the cell editor and enabled when returning)
  • Made the benchmark get progressively more intensive to ensure it should always eventually end
  • Added safety checks in editor enter button state apply to ensure the player hasn’t died during the one frame it takes for the state change to apply after it is triggered
  • Added code to force all cells into normal mode when they are engulfed to make sure engulfed cells can’t be in weird states
  • Fixed a few problems in the setup instructions (.NET 8, gold linker)
  • Added some safety check code to hopefully help tracking down a few issues
  • Updated translations

Graphics

• Corrected the collision of large iron chunks.

Gameplay

• Lead Programmer’s response to specialization discussions.
• Organelle Unlocks are now implemented!

Sound

• A new music track has been completed and implemented into Thrive!

Theory

• Nothing Substantial

Outreach

• Nothing Substantial

Other

• Nothing Substantial