I’ve been thinking about this a lot.
I think we could drastically reduce the number of features we want to implement before shifting the focus off of the Microbe Stage. I know we are constantly thinking about what features to implement next, but we really ought to pat ourselves on the back because we now have quite a decently fleshed out Microbe Stage, something that seemed very unlikely at this project’s inception.
Additionally, I think there is huge value in having more content in the later stages. People are fundamentally more interested in macroscopic biology than they are in microscopic. Macroscopic biology is also better understood scientifically, has more interesting and complex mechanics that govern it, is more audiovisually immersive, and can provide for more interesting gameplay. We can also get better footage from later stage gameplay to use to market the game. It’s hard to sell this game with just microbial footage. Having an interesting macroscopic game can help us grow our team, and some of those devs can then go back and help fill out more Microbe content. Lastly, the beauty of Thrive is that the stages synergize so well. Adding content to later stages will inherently make Microbe more fun because it serves as the buildup to any later stage content.
As such, these are the following features I would say are absolutely necessary, after which we can shift focus to Multicellular:
- Fix framerate performance. For obvious reasons. It prevents us from adding more entities and adding more CPU/GPU-using features.
- Fix auto-evo performance. Unless we want load times to the editor to reach 5-10 minutes each time. I think this one is much easier to solve, we just need to reduce the total number of species per world.
- Upgrades/crossgrades/unlocks. In later stages, we will need an ability for simpler organs/parts to unlock more complex organs (such as gills evolving into lungs). So as a foundation for that, we need to have an upgrade/crossgrade/unlock system implemented which can carry over into the Aware stage.
- Endosymbiosis. Because becoming a eukaryote is a necessary step to becoming multicellular, we shouldn’t have a placeholder system in place to simulate this (which we do have currently). Additionally, this should help us greatly in balancing the Nucleus by giving us more natural restrictions to place on obtaining it, instead of the crushing Osmoregulation and Mutation Point costs we’ve assigned to it currently to prevent all cells from evolving it.
- That’s it. I think every other feature would be nice to have implemented before we shift focus, but is not necessary. To clarify, when I say “shift focus”, what I mean is that we move the focus of the majority of our efforts to the Multicellular stage, but we still continue to add content to previous stages if we deem it important enough or if individual devs really want to.
Let me know what you think about this. I think the main goal of such a bare list is that, as I said above, having more content in the macroscopic stage will make Thrive fundamentally more fun, and draw in more players and developers, who we can then use to help fill out earlier-game content. If you’re attending the meeting on Sunday, I think it would be a good chance to discuss this thread and designing our future roadmap.