Once again with a new Thrive release out, I’m making a new release planning thread.
There was some feedback on the release already: 1.7.0 General Feedback Thread - Current Game - Thrive Community Forum and of course some people provided comments on Discord. Based on that thread and those I already made the “perfectly packed” achievement a lot easier to get. Other than that there wasn’t that much repeating feedback, the most common might be that both the specialization and cell types requirement for macroscopic is too easy and hard at the same time. So we might need to consider some things for that.
Other than the immediate feedback we are still trying to finish the multicellular stage by the end of the year. As such I’ve already put tentative release dates for 1.9 and 2.0 for November 21st and December 12th respectively, because we don’t have that much time left before we need to have the thing completed. There isn’t that much spacing between the releases so I was thinking that we should make 1.9 to one with last major features and only really focus on polishing in 2.0 release and taking care of any last feedback we get from the players.
We still have some items left on the Roadmap to 2.0:
For 1.9 I’m planning on trying to do at least one of the optional features that would otherwise be skipped so that we have a bit more multicellular content. As @Kashnox is taking care of the digestive complex / external digestion, I won’t try to do the same thing. So there is some other optional feature I should tackle. Suggestions are welcome! I do want to make one feature that provides a good amount of benefit for the effort I estimate it to be.
I already linked the 1.9 milestone above which I’ve put some issues into, but mostly I just dropped most undone things from the milestones. So far I’ve done a bit of bug fixing and tweaking and reviewing some PRs this week to get started on the 1.9 development.
One exciting thing, I can also announce here, is that whenever Godot 4.8 is released, it should finally address some of the game stability problems that thep layers have been reporting ever since Godot 4.
So what is everyone planning on doing for 1.9 or what thoughts people have on this schedule / trying to complete the roadmap?
As said in the previous release planning for 1.7, I’ll be continuing ahead with any remaining Terrain Chunks, just so we don’t have to do to much back-stepping while we’re focusing on moving ahead when we get to Macroscopic proper.
Finishing the most important parts of Multicellular auto-evo.
*Finishing up the Axon feature. I think the mechanics are all there, but it needs more tuning.
With if there’s time:
Finishing up the environmental tolerance rework.
More auto-evo.
I’d also like to continue with working on the Macroscopic designs in between.
If extracellular digestion succeeds, I think “background/2.5D cells” would be a powerful combo, since it would allow real stomachs.
Non-cell parts have potential as well, but if we’re not going with fake cell-like objects, then to really make use of it we need more models, so it seems like mainly a system used by volunteers in the future?
reproductive cells are fine, but not so transformative I think.
If we think none of these are really worth the effort, there is always the Cnidocyst, which I believe we have a model for now.
I will emphasize the importance of a feature like a cell count cost. That will serve as a constraint that pushes the player towards optimizing their build through the new features like specialization. Otherwise, progression throughout the stage is pretty easy, and the decision-making of scaling up is pretty shallow.
I plan to make a push towards rounding up some macroscopic concepts, along with a look at some general balancing goals for the microscopic phase of our game.
I was thinking about coming out of retirement to give multicellular AI some love, but I’m not sure I can actually get that done by mid-November. I do think based on my limited time playing multicell that making the AI less passive would do a good deal to make the stage feel more engaging. Looks like that’s already on Hhyyrylainen’s list though?
That’s been on my mind, but I decided that it would be better to only work on that after the axon is completed for multicellular. Because otherwise the costs need to be balanced / made twice.
What is on my list? Any AI changes are absolutely not on my list…