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Post by Oliveriver on Dec 3, 2015 17:21:37 GMT
(admittedly decent) piano playing Another pianist! There are literally dozens of us.
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Post by Oliveriver on Dec 1, 2015 17:13:00 GMT
Any level of detail you want, really. There aren't set rules about what to post here (providing you're abiding by the FAQ guidelines and etiquette of course).
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Post by Oliveriver on Nov 28, 2015 12:54:00 GMT
I've added the new section here: thrivegame.freeforums.net/board/26/introductionsWe can change its location if necessary. I've already moved an introduction thread I remembered from elsewhere so it isn't quite so barren. If anybody who's already a member here wants to post an introductory greeting thread, go ahead. I might also make a casual conversation thread and sticky it within that board, because let's face it: the shoutbox isn't really the best for that sort of thing. While I was at it I separated Forum games from the Other Creativity category so it's easier to find.
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Post by Oliveriver on Nov 24, 2015 19:37:05 GMT
Saving and recording for an app is a lot more difficult than you make it sound. Yes, we'll keep the old versions around for posterity's sake, but why we'd want to convert platforms I don't understand. I don't even think it's possible. The engine is set up to run on computers, and making it for mobiles would mean building it all over again from the ground up, quite a useless thing to do with an old version once we have a finished game.
That's the main logistical issue with making any mobile version - it'd involve making an entirely new game, not just porting over what we have already. That's what Nanu wants to do, and I don't wish him any ill and hope he succeeds, but I just see it as an unnecessary struggle for something that's not all that useful.
EDIT: Ninja'd by Nick. Is this my first ninja on this new forum? Cool.
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Post by Oliveriver on Nov 24, 2015 18:55:02 GMT
Someone was actually working on a mobile version of Thrive, though I don't remember who it was exactly... You're thinking of Nanu. He said he was working on a Thrive Pocket Edition. I believe I'm the voice of unwanted dissent among the team on this, but I'm not really in favour of a mobile version. Partially as it would divert work and attention away from the main game (as Redwatt50 already mentioned), but mostly because it kind of misses the game's point. The average mobile isn't going to have the processing power to simulate populations and calculate the changes made to them in anywhere near the scale we want, which makes it nigh on impossible to include evolution, the game's main selling point and the entire reason for its existence. I'm aware of things like Cell Lab, but they're not Thrive. In my opinion, it would be difficult to make a game about cell evolution on mobile without ending up closer to Cell Lab than Thrive, and then it's a scaling back of the system we want, ignoring all the work towards CPA that's gone previously. Add to this the fact that a mobile version might even gain more recognition than the PC version, invalidating all the work that's gone into it and resulting in a dialed-back concept far from what was intended. I realise a lot of people disagree with me on this, so I won't argue about it. I just think that a mobile version of Thrive wouldn't be Thrive, so what's the point in making it?
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Post by Oliveriver on Nov 22, 2015 18:14:46 GMT
This thread obviously belongs in Meta, so (ta da) here it now is.
I propose either a subforum within Meta or a new board under General.
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Post by Oliveriver on Nov 21, 2015 14:44:46 GMT
will there actually be an update system for the game itself where new versions will be downloaded automatically like Team Fortress 2? Almost certainly - the main bulk of the game is the engine, which won't be changing much at all between successive versions. If we can't get auto-updates running (like most Steam games), the next best thing would be to have people download the full game first, then an add-on package each time a new version is released, including scripts or art assets which don't take up so much space.
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Post by Oliveriver on Nov 13, 2015 18:41:31 GMT
Applying physics to avalanches is out of the question due to processing constraints, but that doesn't rule them out entirely. It depends how much they add to gameplay value. I'm personally of the opinion that it wouldn't be a lot, but I'm sure there are some who disagree.
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Post by Oliveriver on Nov 9, 2015 17:14:40 GMT
Now that a few visual bugs in 0.3.0 have been addressed, it's probably a good idea to start collecting gameplay footage to include in the upcoming trailer. Record yourself playing the game (not necessarily with commentary, but you can if you want), upload it to YouTube and reply here, and the trailer-design-people-monkeys can use your footage to create an awesome preview for the final release. Preferably these should be high-quality screen recordings of nothing but the game, and if possible in 16:9 format so there aren't black bars on the video. See here for a great example of the type of thing we want: www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRdJoA-SAOk
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Post by Oliveriver on Nov 9, 2015 16:59:39 GMT
Just tried out the new version... OK, I'm going to be brutally honest here. The gameplay is confusing, not just in a "So much stuff to look at! What do I do?" sense, as it is in a "What the heck is the game DOING?" sense. Straight up my biggest gripe with the game is the way compounds seem to be stored, or more appropriately, jettisoned away from you no matter what you do. I tried to go through and play once with the plain default cell and then using one beefed up in the editor. The first time, it started out OK (besides the same oxygen spawner sitting there spawning glucose, what is it with that anyway?), but *quickly* turned bad. My cell started hoarding oxygen and pretty much jettisoned everything else, save for some glucose for ATP production. It got to the point where I had around 4 oxygen molecules, and apparently anything more than that was too much for my lone vacuole, so it got rid of ANY CO2, ammonia, amino acids, and it even got rid of my REPRODUCTASE. I thought, "Hey, maybe it'll work properly if I use the editor beforehand?" Wrong. I put in two more vacuoles, another mitochondria, and two more flagella, just to overall improve my cell, and I must say, when I started playing with it my hopes were pushed high. When I started, I had like 60 oxygen, 30 glucose, and tens of ammonia and CO2 - Sweet! I swam around quickly just picking everything up, and in a few minutes I had around 150-200 ATP and four reproductase. Then the same thing happened as the first time. I noticed that my cell was spewing out all of my CO2, ammonia, and amino acids, and then noticed that it HAD been doing that the whole time. Another few minutes, and all I had was around 30 oxygen and everything else was on a pipeline from IN to OUT in a second or two. My final breaking point was when it got rid of my four reproductase, which hadn't increased after that little minute or so grace period after starting. TL;DR - Despite the obvious upgrades visually, the gameplay made me want to NOT play, because something or other makes pretty much everything but oxygen just go straight out the back end of my cell. As far as I know, we have no idea why this is happening and it's certainly not a planned feature. If you're angry because you think it's intentional, it's not. If you're angry because it's a gamebreaking bug... TheCreator could you take a look at it, pretty please? The compound display is temporary right now. Doing that might work for the short term, but in the long term we're replacing the whole thing with coloured radar charts linked to the colours of each respective compound and storage space within your vacuoles.
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Post by Oliveriver on Nov 4, 2015 20:40:18 GMT
A couple of minor things I forgot to mention:
- I like the new font for the compounds list, it's much more readable for large blocks of text. Could we get that for the help panel and tooltips too? - Weren't we going to rescale the compounds panel via the layout file? - I don't seem to be able to skip the opening cutscene. Not sure if it's a bug or just got overlooked.
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Post by Oliveriver on Nov 3, 2015 17:56:14 GMT
One other quick thing - the font size seems bigger in full screen mode. Either that or the main menu buttons are smaller. I've noticed this with 0.2.4 too on my new PC, which suggests it's a monitor size issue.
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Post by Oliveriver on Nov 3, 2015 17:45:10 GMT
So that we have a full list of bugs here, I'll post what I put in the Slack chat. A couple of things I've already noticed: - It started in windowed mode, but expanding it to full screen stopped the main menu buttons from working - A lot of the other cells were jittering around - Not necessarily a problem for the release candidate, but there's no application shortcut within the folder - In windowed mode, the video was stretched to fill the screen making it distorted - Sound from the environment kept playing for a second or two over sound in the editor Other than that, YAY ACTUAL CELL SHAPED CELLS! Also TheCreator you might want to post this to the subreddit too, although not as an announcement.
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Post by Oliveriver on Oct 26, 2015 14:33:32 GMT
No, but it could help defend against it. The size of cells you can engulf is determined by the size of your engulfing edge (an organelle you place along your microbe's periphery for a certain number of hexes), so having spare cytoplasm could make you resistant to shorter engulfing edges.
Now that I think about it, you couldn't obtain new mitochondria, chloroplasts, thermoplasts or luminous organelles from the environment without spare cytoplasm, because you wouldn't have room for them.
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Post by Oliveriver on Oct 26, 2015 9:23:16 GMT
Hmm, I thought we were still having cytoplasm as a way to create the shape before you add organelles on top.
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Post by Oliveriver on Oct 25, 2015 12:15:49 GMT
I've created a tik.io chat room for Thrive here: tlk.io/thrivegameUnfortunately for some reason it won't embed properly. Or more accurately, it will, but it then proceeds to make the entire site run massively slowly. As far as I can tell, you choose a nickname, and as long as you keep the same cache, it'll retain that nickname for you. Alternatively, you can log in with Twitter and have a permanent account. I propose we use the RG Twitter account as the admin, although I don't know who has access to it. Private messaging is possible, although I haven't tested it (because I'm the only one on it, duh). Since it won't embed, a nice alternative would be to have a link in the header to the chat page itself, possibly even invisible to members who aren't logged in. This would also reduce spam, though not prevent it entirely. I don't have admin permissions to create links in the header - I believe only Moopli does.
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Post by Oliveriver on Oct 15, 2015 18:21:00 GMT
It's planned for now as a way for the player to look back on their creation and rise to prominence, but everything post-microbe is speculative right now anyway.
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Post by Oliveriver on Oct 15, 2015 17:05:51 GMT
1. Yep, AI evolution is definitely planned. It's like the most important feature we have.
2. Possibly, but it should already be possible to mess with the difficulty settings enough for any ability level. If that's not enough, you could always challenge yourself by trying to survive as a crocodile on a icecap.
3. For the moment, no. Multiplayer could work, but we don't have a good solution for it at the moment. That's not to say we're averse to the idea, but we'll focus on the singleplayer mode first.
4. Castes are planned but not fleshed out very much, so kind of.
5. Definitely, but only once you've created a post-Ascension species (i.e. you can't edit your planet before you start playing the first time, but once you've finished the game once you can do so for every subsequent playthrough).
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Post by Oliveriver on Oct 14, 2015 17:18:53 GMT
Unfortunately it isn't right now, because we're still looking for Mac-based programmers to port it.
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Post by Oliveriver on Oct 7, 2015 16:46:33 GMT
Ok, I found a few more which might work. I quickly tested the first on here, but it didn't load for some reason. Other than that it's likely the best choice we have. tlk.io/
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