Evaluating Thrive 1.0 Release Goals

Meta
1

With the release of version 1.0 in sight now that we are quickly approaching the end of the microbe stage roadmap, I think it would be a good time to re-evaluate what exactly we want the release of Thrive 1.0 to represent. The reason I am asking this question is this: I think that this major release is a unique opportunity that we will only get one chance to get right. The release of Thrive 1.0 will likely be the highest publicity event that we can predict beforehand, and its reception will likely determine how much future success Thrive will have in both its community and financially.

So, what do we want to show off when we release Thrive 1.0? The current plan that is that 1.0 is the completion of the microbe stage, and thus Thrive 1.0 is the release of a fully complete game, the Thrive microbe stage, with future expansion of the game with the completion of later stages occurring in the future.

NicktheNick had suggested on (Finishing the microbe stage roadmap - #15 by NickTheNick) before that speeding up the development by cutting features from the microbe stage roadmap to be able to move on to the next stages might help the game move on faster to developing the later stages that would attract more community members and provide better publicity for the game. This was decided against because having a complete microbe stage is important, as leaving the first stage insufficiently developed would have Thrive remain perpetually incomplete for the foreseeable future.

I would instead propose the opposite, which is to increase the amount of features Thrive 1.0 will release with. I think that the current roadmap for the microbe stage is already sufficient for a good final microbe stage; what I am proposing instead is adding in features for the later stages that are specifically for increasing the apparent level of polish the game will have. Specifically, I believe that having a more developed 3D organism editor as well as a visually complete planet generator would go a long way to making Thrive 1.0 optimally presentable. I have singled out the 3D organism editor and the Planet Generator as the two features that will increase Thrive’s perceived development the most, as they are the major features still remaining for Thrive to be visually complete. The 3D organism editor has been worked on relatively recently and I am feeling confident about developing the world generator, so I think there is a good chance that these features can be done in time if focused on.

The Microbe stage being complete plus visible progress in the later stages would set a good scene for Thrive’s success in the eyes of potentially new audiences reached, or even old members who left when progress was slow.

The release of version 1.0 is a unique opportunity that we should try to make the most of as it is the version that is most likely to have a good reception than any other release will. If we rush through it too quickly than we might not be able to take full advantage of the potential for wider audience, more engagement with current audience, attracting new devs, and helping financially. In short: version 1.0 will be the version with the most potential to build hype for the game, and we should try to fuel the fire as much as we can.

If Thrive’s current monetary situation is currently in a downwards trend then a good release of Thrive 1.0 is the most likely way to fix this. The better the 1.0 release, the more likely Thrive is to have financial success in the future. If the 1.0 release is not as successful as we want (need) it to be, then it might be significantly harder to fix the situation later as our best opportunity has gone by. So, we should plan that the release of 1.0 is as good as we can reasonably make it.

Not only can the 1.0 release be used to gain more community and monetary support, but it can also be used to gain more developers to help make the later stages. If we can fill in a few of the major gaps on the later stages that make it possible for new developers to work on the later stages, then we might get more interested developers joining that otherwise wouldn’t if the game released with only its current primarily 2D visuals.

Also, decoupling the release of the final microbe stage changes and the release of version 1.0 would allow us to have a larger gap to fix those hard to find bugs that pop up later as well as allowing a longer community feedback window for the final balancing phase. It would allow us to release version 1.0 as the most bug free version we can, as we don’t want to cause our release to be harmed by being known as buggy or not fun because we rushed the balancing phase.

However, I think that it would not be worth it to wait overly long on releasing Thrive 1.0 once microbe stage is finished. If it is determined that the additional features would take too long to add or the plan otherwise changes then we could revert to the current plan of releasing 1.0, though I would still recommend extending the final bug fixing phase. We don’t have to decide on this for a while longer I think. In any case, development would remain the same except for the decision of either updating the current patch map generator or postponing the planet customization until a later release.

As far as more concrete actions go, I think that perhaps merging the road maps for 0.8.x and 0.9.x into a longer 0.8.x would give us a whole major version (0.9.x) to just fix any bugs missed previously, and while waiting for bugs and balance changes to be reported we would add in the framework for the later stages that will enable the game to launch with a significant amount of momentum for version 1.0 release. We could also keep the same roadmap but extend the 0.9.x releases, though this might make the 0.9.x releases extend asymmetrically.

Finally, I will give some potential reasons not to go with this plan of extending the release of 1.0:

The biggest reason I can think of is if releasing earlier in the year will give us more attention than later. I only did a brief search, and I got conflicting information on when the best time to release a game is. Some suggested the summer break and winter break as best options, but others had completely different rationales or said that it doesn’t really matter. Perhaps one of you have a better idea for when Thrive sees the most interest during the year; perhaps some statistics need to be crunched.

If we would expect to have approximately the same results whether or not we add in the additional features for 1.0 then releasing earlier would be better, assuming we don’t rush the final bug testing and balancing phase. This might require polling the community to get an estimate for how much these features would affect the hype level of the resulting game.

Adding in these features could also backfire if not handled correctly. If a world generator and 3D organism editor make it into only the prototype stages, then we want to make sure that we don’t misrepresent the game by making it seem like those stages are really playable, as opposed to something to look forward to as the game continues development. We would have this problem anyhow though with the current 3D organism editor if it does continue progressing before 1.0 or if the world generator does end up in the release. In fact, a significant portion of the current art for the game also points towards the future stages, so we have to be careful about this anyhow.

1 Like
2

It’s a good thing to reflect over our roadmap, and I agree and disagree with some things here. This is a bit of rambly reply, but this is a very important topic, and it’s good to be open.

I think the important thing to keep in mind is that Thrive 1.0 more generally indicates the completion of the Microbe Stage. I personally think that the current roadmap is generally pretty adequate at giving us a solid cut-off line for calling the Microbe Stage “complete”.

Keep in mind that, atleast in my mind, a complete stage does mean “this part of the game is done and set in stone, and everything that could possibly be represented is represented in Thrive.” I don’t think such a thing is possible, given the scope and open-source nature of the project. Instead, by saying the Microbe Stage is “complete”, we are saying that the Microbe Stage:

  • Adequately represents the evolutionary pressures microbial life faces.
  • Offers robust gameplay which is sufficiently engaging and replayable, in a concise but unbloated manner.
  • And is presented and polished to a sufficient level, with no unacceptable graphical issues or bugs.

None of this is exclusive of additional features; it’s just that the roadmap is a very important tool for us to fight excessive scope creep, so I’m wary of altering it to be dependent on two features which require a lot of effort and could have uncertain timelines behind them. There will always be something to pick at, something we can improve, and some more work to be done. We just need to be able to organize our efforts into manageable and trackable milestones. And besides, I think the sentence that “Thrive has completed its first stage” will have an immense effect of dissolving a lot of the previous baggage the project has gotten; reaching 1.0 doesn’t mean too much outside of that context in my opinon.

I do think we should have a period of reflection as our road map winds down assessing whether or not Thrive has notable gaps in its gameplay experience. And make no mistake, I also occasionally advocate for adding a new mechanic, or reworking existing ones, because I anticipate future reflection to see certain gaps. I primarily advocate for slightly tweaking the gameplay of certain metabolic strategies, or surface area to volume ratios (I more often nag our programmers to add the latter as part of our road map). But I do so because I believe the value of implementing those features significantly strengthens our Microbe Stage, and is worth the additional work.

So do know that I am not necessarily anti-amending the road map; I just think that its primary function is to limit scope creep, and that scope creep is the #1 enemy in Thrive’s development (besides manpower of course). In a game representing a topic this extensive, we need to place immense focus on defining stopping points - because if we let ourselves, we could very easily lose momentum forward and hyper-focus on a mechanic which, in the future, proves to be a rather insignificant part of a Thrivian playthrough as a whole. Knowing that, I’d rather be more strict and restrictive when it comes to adding things to the roadmap.

If nothing else, I ask that I have three and only three genie wishes from hyyrylainen for features to add to the Microbe Stage in 0.9, no questions asked. /s

Also, though I don’t think we should bind 1.0 to them, I do agree with you when you say that the planet generator and the macroscopic creature editor are the features which draw the most attention to Thrive, and which currently represent our largest hurdles (procedural animation too, though that is a part of the editor; auto-evo too, though we’ve been making very good progress there). We are lucky to have you working on the planet generator with a clear vision, great expertise, and high energy. If we are able to find another volunteer capable of devoting similar attention to the other “big features”, Thrive would be in impeccable shape.

Having well fleshed out renditions of these features would be the most powerful marketing tools for our project. And even besides that point, making progress on these two features now, at a moment in time where Thrive has a decent web presence and its highest rate of development, would help make future development a lot more stable and guaranteed, even if funding and manpower falls off a cliff. I don’t know much about software management, but I anticipate that quality-checking and implementing these features would be easier on a team with atleast one full-time programmer on it - even if said programmer is not the one working on the planet generator, 3D editor, or procedural animation, having them as the root of the programming team offers a stability and base which makes every other feature better and more optimized.

It doesn’t even have to be actual programming work on these “mega-feature” in my opinion this far out to the actual stages where they are used: even having well-defined concepts surrounding the feature will atleast help volunteers think “oh okay, this whole thing is overwhelming but I atleast can do this part”, which is a very powerful tool over a long enough time horizon. TJWhale, the old game design team lead before Buckly, had a very powerful post a while ago arguing for implementing an engineering mindset behind the auto-evo simulation which I think played a very important role in ending up where we are now, with GameDungeon and Thim’s very impressive miches presenting a really unique and engaging evolution mechanic to expand upon (maybe we should contact him to share how far his project has gone).

I have previously tried to devote some attention to macroscopic editor mechanics, under the theory that defining one aspect of the macroscopic editor, then another, then another, then another, even this far out, will help volunteers now and in the future manage work on the feature better (Macroscopic Editor, Progression, and Principles - #30 by Deus). For example, understanding how our “torso” would work could help someone get started on that, which can then make work on the limbs easier, etc. I will say that there were some concerns about us not fully understanding exactly what is required of the macroscopic editor until we get to a point of needing the mechanic.

So - again - though I don’t think these “mega-features” should be binded to 1.0 for reasons I listed above, I do agree with you when you say that these features are significant to the success and appeal of Thrive. I don’t have much of a solution regarding how we can begin organizing around these features now, and don’t know if the current moment is the best time to do so. But I will say that if anyone thinks they would want to create prototypes for the editor, I’d be very willing to lend a game design perspective there to help you organize the project.

3 Likes
3

There’s a lot to unpack here so I kind of tried to address the most pressing issue at the start of my post before delving into the weeds and nitpicking a few points.

I agree with Deus here, we shouldn’t consider adding new items to the roadmap unless absolutely necessary (and so far only a few polishing items have been appended to the roadmap), because otherwise we are at a risk of forever slipping and never really managing to “complete” even one part of the game.

Additionally I think the marketing push will be much clearer if we purely focus on the message “microbe stage is complete, come see and join us for the road to multicellular.” Because otherwise would we like use screenshots of the planet and creatures for our announcement of microbe stage being complete? Or would we announce that we have these further visuals done but no gameplay and like say “BTW we also completed the microbe stage?” That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, so I think a major marketing push can focus on just a single heading image and one clear message, which I can’t imagine how you’d be able to fit microbe stage completion and planet visuals + creature visuals.

Not to mention that our resources are basically what they are, there’s no way to get more work to go into Thrive than 1 employee + whatever time people are volunteering. So unavoidably adding these to the roadmap would just push out the microbe stage completion. Unless we go with the approach that I continue microbe development at full speed while extra people work on these visual improvements. We will greatly appreciate any planet generator work anyone can put in. And of course improving the creature editing or even starting on the procedural animation system would also be huge helps for the future.

I think overall the best strategy is to aim to release the 1.0 microbe stage during the summer as during the school year I’ve definitely noticed that our RC public tests and streams get lower viewership than during the summer. Also the project financial situation is such that I absolute think that 1.0 needs to be at the latest in Q3 2025, preferably in Q2 so that we can use that as a major marketing push to ask for more support from the community. Then this is very uncertain but I’m kind of hoping that at most in like 18 months after 1.0 we could release 2.0 which would be then another huge marketing push with the planets being generated and having good enough 3D creature gameplay to no longer have the risk that marketing something with just the visuals done and no actual gameplay poses. This would ensure that even if the 1.0 marketing push is a bit lacklustre there would still be the big 2.0 that would hopefully then save the future of the project.

I think that’s enough of a summary of my opinion, and about as much as I can remember with a single readthrough of what I wanted to reply to. I’ll now reply to some maybe a bit too hyper specific points.

We have been saying for years that the first number in Thrive releases means the number of complete stages. So if we wait until these later features are complete before announcing the 1.0 update, it might actually end up being like 1.1 update or 1.2, because I expect these big features to take at least 3+ months after the microbe stage is complete. So we would end up releasing 1.0 without a marketing push waiting for pending features, which if done by volunteers can be quite volatile in when they actually get completed. Of course we could fudge the numbers a bit or intentionally hold back like one final microbe stage feature as long as needed but to me that seems pretty silly.

I also think that releasing the microbe stage 1.0 will be a big opportunity. So it might actually end up being the case that releasing 1.0, getting a boost from that and then getting to the planet and creature stuff would mean it would be done faster than withholding microbe completion and the major announcement. Though, of course this is pretty uncertain and I don’t give this like super good odds of happening.

Do you literally mean the editor or? Because in any marketing screenshots and videos as long as it looks visually good no one can tell if the editing functionality is actually really fiddly (like it currently is without any snapping or extra tools than moving, placing and deleting).

I touched on this already, but this is a bit of a risk as if we have visually impressive update to share, but no actual gameplay to back it that could be pretty bad. Like people would probably expect actually gameplay to be there as well, but then discover it is not it could be a bit of a negative PR hit as people might feel cheated. But if by the time 1.0 is out, we have improved visuals for these parts, they can easily be tacked on at the end of any outreach saying that “this is what the next stage of thrive looks like right now and we’ll only start to make it better.”

I agree, but in terms of like Youtube and general visibility I think aware stage is basically what we need to be in good shape to “steal” some audience from the evolution games that focus purely on that (and many of which seem to have a bigger following than us). So while microbe stage completion is an important milestone, I don’t see it as the golden opportunity to market Thrive.

I agree that we need to have 1.0 polished enough. And as such I think we can be feature complete mostly already in May or June 2025, so any game designers reading this should emotionally prepare for the effort of balancing the entire game in time for 1.0.

Again, “hoarding” the microbe stage to ourselves in order to wait a few months to polish it more and get some later stage things doesn’t seem like the best plan to me. Especially if I need to be the programmer to do the polishing, then I won’t be even able to help with the later game features that would then be holding back the microbe stage completion and releasing what we have.

My take on the roadmap is that after Christmas break I’ll focus at max speed on completing all the small roadmap items very quickly so that in like by 0.8.1 in February the roadmap will start to look pretty empty (though that’s also kind of the timeframe I’m thinking we could make the Mac release official and ask all the Mac gamers to buy Thrive on Steam). So in effect this would mean that while we are still in the 0.8.x era the roadmap would basically be devoid of anything except the last major features (like planet generator) and final balancing items.

Oh no, I think I already know what they would be :smiley: and they would delay microbe stage completion by at least 3 months.

I’ll end on this that I again completely agree on. It would be awesome if we can find volunteers to work on these features. And if all went perfectly well then these features would be completed within 6 months which is about what I estimate I could finish all the rest of the current microbe roadmap myself by focusing my work entirely on it.

So I guess in summary I would like to say that if we can find volunteers to work on these features in parallel while I work on the microbe stage and they’d be ready reasonably close to when the microbe stage is done in general these could very well be contained in the same update as the completed microbe stage announcement. But I don’t think we should put them on the roadmap which would require completing them before getting out of the microbe stage development era. Because ultimately there’s no extra resources we can manifest by putting something on the roadmap. But I think if there are people volunteering to make these features then everyone will greatly appreciate their efforts.

I think you missed a part of “doesn’t” here.

2 Likes
4

If that is the case, then that would be pretty strong support for not adding release blocking requirements to the roadmap. We should probably evaluate when exactly the best target date would be for the release of Thrive 1.0 once we get closer to its completion.

Perhaps a more limited reworking of the 1.0 roadmap would be a better fit. We could allocate a fixed amount of time at the end of the roadmap that we would dedicate solely to unforeseen bugfixes and balancing needs found by the community. This period could follow from a more expansive second release candidate for the 1.0 version. The second 1.0 release candidate would be conceptually between a typical version release candidate and a full version update. Perhaps it could be titled version 0.9.9 instead of a release candidate. While this extended period of community review occurs, ideally the development team would be fairly free to work on other things. If the development team is fairly busy fixing bugs and balancing then that would be an indicator that the microbe stage still requires more time to settle before the 1.0 release. Ideally, having a decently long period of time with no bugs reported with a widespread release would be a sign that we can safely release 1.0. This free time could be put to use on whatever later stage features would assist in making the release as presentable as possible while also not affecting the microbe stage itself. Perhaps this time could be spent differently, like focusing on making Thrive 1.0 announcement materials or creating more comprehensive Thrive 1.0 feature showcases. I am not sure how long that period of time should be, but I would guess it would be about a few weeks, not months or days.

This period of time should not be cut short if required to make it to a summer release, as it would be needed to have as polished a final product as we can make it. We could rely on quick bugfixing and balancing releases after 1.0 releases, but I think this would not be a good idea to rely on. We want the first impressions of 1.0 to be as good as possible.

If we are able to get some work done on the 3D organism editor, world generator, or other features but would still need a bit more time than a summer release would allow, then we could postpone that until after 1.0. If we would miss a summer release anyways due to microbe stage testing taking too long, then perhaps we could reevaluate how long we would wait to integrate those features into 1.0.

If we don’t have enough time to get the integration of these features into 1.0, I agree that having a solid theory foundation for the design of the macroscopic editor would at least give us a good starting point to go from after 1.0 releases. Having a solid plan would go a long way for attracting any new developers who have found the Thrive 1.0 release and are interested in developing the later stages. I consider this to be the most important conceptual area that still needs to be figured out, above the world generator which can continue to be approximated before the later stages are reached. Sometime after the release of 0.8 I am hoping to comment on that area as I have some thoughts on it, though I will remain focused on world generation development.

2 Likes
5

While I do plan to scrutinize balancing heavily and to invite such conversations when 0.9 is in full swing, it might not be necessary to have a notable delay for those releases to fit balancing in.

Besides the fact that balancing is inherently an ongoing process, the early multicellular is based entirely on microbial mechanics. Balancing will likely continue as we focus on multicellular systems, and we probably need to tweak numbers anyways as multicellular features flesh themselves out.

I think the things which I will devote the most attention to balancing, besides any glaring overpowered abilities, are growth rates and resource consumption rates. The early game, when there isn’t much to do, can drag on a bit, while the later game can have pretty thin margins even if you are a pretty successful organism.

1 Like
6

For the reason that I don’t think we should allow the release to be pushed back, I think we need to be basically feature complete in June already (or maybe even May) so that the final balancing and player feedback cycle can begin. Then we could be ready to push out the fixes, balance tweaks and last few features in August or early September. That’s as late as I think we should even consider pushing back microbe stage completion. A quick look on the roadmap, and there isn’t like anything else except the patch map generation and increased patch terrain that impact the overall game balance. So those (and accidental regressions) are basically the only things we need to be careful around the 1.0 release.

BTW you should check the new sulfur chunks in 0.8.0, because I think even though we, with @HexapodPhilosopher, nerfed their spawn rate and a bit of the contained compounds, they might still be like the easiest strategy once some player discovers them. And that really wasn’t the intention, just to make sulfur gameplay more interesting, I think, and adding more rocks floating around for more “terrain” in the patches.