Ecosystem News

Hey folks!

We've just released a small Open Beta which brings some performance improvements to the game. As always. please be sure to back up your saves before swapping to the beta!


Patch Notes

Performance improvements due to reworking all Coral and some Misc food source level-of-detail meshes.

Performance improvements due to reworking the minimap to be more efficient when there are large numbers of plants in an environment.

Fix: Changing the diet on the evolutionary parameters menu prior to spawning a stored or online creature does not actually change the diet.

Fix: Editor-made creatures could display an incorrect diet in the evolutionary parameters panel if their food type was changed in the editor.

Fix: Some text overlaps in graphics menu in English and German.

Just a very small post to let you know that the games demo now supports our newly added Japanese language following it's addition when we took the game to Tokyo Game Show.

The new update for the demo should be ready to download now :)

From the 81 game titles participating in the Selected Indie 80, TGS2023 nominated and announced the eight finalists who will compete at SOWN2023, a pitch event for indie game developers.

The finalist presentations will take place at the TGS studio of Makuhari Messe on Sep. 22 (Fri.), Day 2 of TGS2023. The event will also be live-streamed as a TGS official program. The winners of the seven awards, including the Audience Award Grand Prix, will be announced following the final judge.

You can see all eight finalists at this link.

The whole thing will be livestreamed from 16:00 JST on Friday 22nd September:

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Hello!

After an extended open beta we're now ready to release the Combat Update onto the main branch of the game!

You can see the new update in action in the trailer above!

This update adds a whole new combat layer to the simulation which should change how the game plays in some interesting ways.

Previously the main strategy for success in a creature was speed, if it could swim fast, then it was likely to succeed and flourish in the ecosystem. But now all creatures will develop a range of combat statistics, and will need to adapt to survive attacks from predators and apex predators.

Some of these are under the hood stats, such as bite strength and poison resistance, but others are visual too such as a puffing up in a threatening behaviour, using electrical attacks to stun enemies, or growing poisonous spikes on their body.

Patch Notes:
FEATURES

Combat Simulation: Combat is heavily physics-based and includes new traits (and new uses of existing ones) that can be factors in a species' evolutionary future.

• Biting does piercing damage, based on bite force quotient, size, and total creature momentum.
  
• Striking with limbs does slashing or blunt damage based on the momentum of the strike.
  
• If an attack throws a target's joint out of position, this can cause the limb to become nonfunctional, dizzy the creature, impair its vision, cause bleeding, and several other types of statuses.
  
• Creatures can also evolve different types of venoms, which impart different negative effects, as well as resistances to these effects.
  
• Creatures can evolve thicker skin in places and thicker skulls, as well as spikes and carapaces, which defend against certain types of attacks.
  
• All new combat stats are subject to mutation and mating, and can be changed in the editor.
  
• Multiple creatures can all participate in the same fight, allowing for predators to engage in group tactics.
  
• Combat can be induced between any two creatures in the game by selecting a creature, clicking the 'Force Combat' button in the Interaction menu, and then clicking a target.
  

Thank you everyone for your continued help testing the combat update! We have one last patch (hopefully!) before we look at launching this onto the main branch.

Changelog:

• Add visualizations for the following traits: thick skin/protective fat, carapaces, and spikes.
  
• Health bars, damage/status text, and particle effects now fade correctly with distance.
  
• Show current status effects on the creature selection display.
  
• Fix: the body part menus in the combat stats display reorder as creatures move the body parts they are pointing at, making it difficult to read.
  
• Fix: offscreen status effects (text and particles) can appear in incorrect places and move erratically.
  
• Fix: damage and statuses can sometimes pop up at the same location and overlap.
  
• Fix: when a currently selected creature is stunned in combat, it can prompt the revive button to appear.
  
• Fix: when a creature is stunned in combat, and it was being viewed with the neurology or follow camera, those camera views end.