Progress Update 12/4/2021

It's been a week since we released 0.5.6 now, and we have been having a blast looking at all of the fan content that's popped up after our release in stores. We've seen excellent reviews and feedback, entertaining videos and streams, and even some well-made mods. It is incredibly exciting to witness so many people discovering and enjoying Thrive in their own way!

However with so much sudden attention, Thrive has fallen under some intense scrutiny that has revealed to us some rather unfortunate flaws in our latest release. Problems such as auto-evo moving about as slow as real evolution, and the game being unable to launch through certain windows versions. We have been hard at work attempting to rectify these problems and release a corrective update so that everyone can experience Thrive at its fullest.

We are currently aiming to release the 0.5.6.1 patch update next week.

If you haven't already, check out Thrive on Steam and Itch.io!

Programming

• New DevBuild for our patrons:
  • Significantly sped up auto-evo
  • Some last tweaks for 0.5.6 that weren't in the previous build
  • Auto-evo results now react to language change
  • Dehydrated builds now ignore some file types, which should result in less dehydrated downloads per devbuild
  • Removed the X close button in the undo button tutorial as people were too happily skipping it
  • Fixed auto-evo prediction texts not updating on language change
  • Full mod info now includes internal name
  • Enabled autowrap on mod load caveat text
  • Switched to using NetAnalyzers package instead of the deprecated one we used
  • Updated translations

Graphics

• Progress on new ice chunk models for the ice shelf patch.

Gameplay

• Ongoing discussion of making auto-evo more accessible
• Conversation about the direction of early gameplay and compound distribution
• Continued planning for the early multicellular stage
• Created prototypes for signaling agents

Sound

• Experimented with audio for part placement.

Theory

• Discussed potential of allowing players to alternatively start the game in tide pools according to the warm little pond theory.

Outreach

• Nothing Substantial

Other

• We are looking into correcting the chinese pricing for Thrive on Steam