Organelle Unlocks

Gameplay
41

I really like the second option because:

  • It doesn’t clutter the menus with a bunch of undiscovered icons
  • It clearly shows the player which category the undiscovered things belong in
  • It can have that added number to also show how many undiscovered parts there are
  • It fulfils the purpose of reducing the initial options for new players
3 Likes
42

I like option 2

1 Like
43

There’s now an open issue for this:

as this is planned for 0.6.1

1 Like
44

Just a quick poll to see how folks think unlocks should be applied.

How should part unlocks be saved in the game?
  • Part unlocks should be save-specific.
  • Part unlocks should be unlocked across all saves.
  • Some parts should be save-specific, others across all saves.

0 voters

Note that if we ever want to have unlocks for features such as special planet generation options or LAWK, then we would need a system for saving unlock status outside of regular saves regardless.

45

I’m not fully following what’s your point here. If we have LAWK specific unlocks then it only makes more sense that the organelle unlock state is saved in the world object (the same place where the world settings are stored). (and of course the world object is part of a save).

46

I was referring to locking the toggle option for LAWK until reaching a milestone when playing the game. Either by obtaining an achievement or just beating the game or something.

I was just saying that if we want to do something like that, we would need some form of game-wide save-file even if we didn’t want organelle unlocks to be a part of that.

Sorry for the misunderstanding.

47

Ah, I understood now. And I agree that basically we should have a way to store game-wide info (not save specific) for example to only unlock the freebuild editors for each stage as the player reaches them.

I don’t think organelle unlocks should tie into that at all. I can’t really think of any game where you’d unlock stuff so that starting a new save, doesn’t actually start a fully new game where you can unlock all the stuff again. We’d need a separate button somewhere to nuke the game data entirely in addition to removing saves, and I’m not much in favour of having such a dangerous button.

1 Like
48

Games expanding in features and complexity is actually a fairly common tactic, though typically seen in session-based or roguelike style games.

It’s basically a way to encourage players to continue playing, and keeps the experience fresh and exciting.

This could work for Thrive I think, as the game already has a format that encourages starting various different games to evolve differently in. but I don’t really think it’s exactly necessary.

49

The few roguelikes I’ve played all had 3 save slots to pick from. So it’s not the same as having global game state that cannot be reset by starting a new game or 2 people sharing the same computer couldn’t enjoy the same game.

I guess live service games and always online games that just let you have one player profile are closer to the idea that you just progress in the game and it is permanent.

50

I realize that I’m coming in very late to this conversation, but I’m iffy on the whole motivation behind player progression between saves. Based on let’s play videos, players don’t tend to add every organelle on any single playthrough, and seem to want to come back to the game mostly to try out a different build. Do we feel the need to require that behavior? We don’t arrange our parts in any kind of leveled or tiered setup, so it’s not like the player is unlocking better stuff, just more options. Do we want people to “grind” Thrive, and brag about their Thrive levels?

We already have a way to keep players coming back: new releases every quarter. I just don’t think we have enough content that gating it off is going to keep people wanting to come back more than it risks a player not getting to use the organelle they would really like then dipping out early.

Now I can see unlocks working within a save, representing something something evolution, although even then depending on how the implementation works I could see that restricting creativity for people that want the challenge of doing something really weird from the start.

5 Likes
51

I think you might be overestimating how difficult we currently have unlocks-to-be conceptualized since I can’t see them creating much of a grind to progress. If you look at this thread and scroll down a bit to the section titled “Unlocks” in the OP, you can see the unlock conditions we have, including proposals for unlocking organelles in a way that isn’t endosymbiosis: Upgrades, Unlocks, & Endosymbiosis Master Thread

If you were aware of these unlock conditions and I’ve actually just spent a few sentences being condescending just now then I sincerely apologize.

I see unlocks as serving a few purposes…

  1. Boosting replayability. It might take a bit longer for the player to unlock their desired part in a certain playthrough than another based on luck, strategy, the environment, etc.; this can boost replayability and depth, since the player would have to pivot their strategy until then.
  2. Prevents new players from being overwhelmed at the beginning. If we introduce unlock conditions and base these unlock conditions on phenomena related to the part itself, players will have a more intuitive understanding of exactly when each part is useful.

The second point isn’t really relevant here because theoretically a player with multiple saves has more experience than a player with one. But I think the first one is really diminished by having parts be available across all saves. The strategy-aspects of having the player consider what parts are available to them in the current environment are an interesting dynamic to have in an evolution simulator, and can loosely reflect the fact that, for many groups of organisms, certain metabolic strategies are out of reach in a minimally obstructive way. We definitely do not have to be as demanding or rigorous as evolution is in only allowing mutations to occur on previously existing features, but I think it is a tiny bit uncanny that a photosynthetic organism living on the seafloor could just place down a thermoplast, no questions asked.

There’s also the fact that endosymbiosis would basically be useless in basically every new world if unlocks are applied to every save. Unlocks are also meant to work as a fallback for a player who is unlucky with endosymbiosis; if we allow the player to maintain unlocks throughout saves, then no one would ever realistically utilize endosymbiosis.

2 Likes
52

It seems everyone is unanimously in favor of part unlocks being save specific, nice. You’ve all made great points in regards to avoiding permanently unlocking parts across saves.

Sorry if I left my intention a bit unclear, I definitely should have elaborated; I would have normally put this out as a simple question in our group chat to entertain for a bit, but figured it would just be easier to make a simple poll to see how supportive people would be of the idea.

I did not intend to make it out to be as if I were attempting to push a new plan or design or anything.
Apologies for the confusion. it will not happen again.

Many of those unlock conditions were infact originally devised as a starting point for discussion in a post earlier in this very thread. I appreciate the reminder though, thank you.