The Universim News

Here at Crytivo, we may be a small organization but always work hard to make a big difference in the world. We want to offer our support to those affected by the Australian wildfires. During this month and the next, we will be donating 100% of net revenue from our online Crytivo Store and 30% from all our Steam sales. Profits from our games will be donated towards rebuilding lost homes, firefighters working overtime and environmental cleanup.

The outbreak of wildfires across the country of Australia has left a wave of destruction. So far these fires have burned millions of acres of land, reduced homes to ash and claimed the lives of nearly half a billion innocent animals. Over 2,000 people have lost their homes in the fires and over 20 have lost their lives as the survivors struggle to breathe as smoke continues to fill the sky.





Our hearts go out to everyone who has suffered from this disaster and to the heroes working tirelessly to help.

We hope this will inspire others to take action and help in any way they can.

Founder and CEO
Alex Koshelkov

What an odd word we have in the title, ha? It seemed like a distant dream, and, yet, here we are. Very soon, there will be nothing odd about that word, as we are proud to announce that we are officially transitioning into a Beta state in our next big update! This update will feature massive system reworks, which includes the new planet generation engine we’ve been teasing. This will enable planets to be slightly larger and contain more game objects than ever. Read more about that below!







Additionally, we redesigned and improved so many aspects of our good old friend, the in-game simulation engine Prometheus. As you know, this system is responsible for planet generation, managing life on the planet, controlling dynamic events, pathfinding, resource distribution/allocation, and far more. It’s crazy to think how much it has improved since its unveiling during the Kickstarter. The visual aspects and overall technology is leaps and bounds ahead of our initial goal, and we are very proud of the work we have done. Thank you for continuing to support us, chatting with us, and enabling us to make this colossal game. While it's true that The Universim took us longer then we thought to develop than anticipated, as you can see the end results are worth the wait.






The creation of a planet no longer takes the many millions of years it used to. We toned that “realistic” aspect back a bit to make the game more enjoyable. On average, it took over 2 minutes to generate and load a new planet, which could be frustrating. Now, this time has been cut in half while also improving the size, complexity, and density (object count) of the planet.






A new feature we are super excited about! The enhanced planet generation system now properly forms physical mountains that are an inherent part of the planet’s surface. Before, mountains were simple objects -- decorations, if you prefer. They were disconnected from everything. Now, mountains blend naturally into the planet’s systems, allowing you to build on them and send Nuggets over them on an epic journey. Someone get a burly, bearded Nugget a magical axe and take them on an emotional family excursion right this minute! However, special cases aside, many Nuggets and animals will still prefer to avoid slopes. They’re a lazy bunch.





It was quite an engineering feat to get all of this working, as you can imagine. To properly place mountains and allow for the various systems to play well with brand new height data wasn’t easy. The age-old issue of spherical worlds naturally makes all of this far more difficult than it would usually be. We needed proper culling, pathfinding, and terrain deformation to work seamlessly. Here’s the result!







So, to summarize, mountains are cool and we hope you like them.


We have almost tripled the amount of objects on the planet compared to our previous system (the Mother Planet you know has been reborn). However, when compared to our Kickstarter showcase, we have around fifty times more objects than when we started. That’s huge! To think we were struggling to render that simple planet back then. We have learned and overcome so much together!






If you have been following along with our development, you likely know of the classic “Standing Nuggets” bug that has been the single most reported issue of all time. It haunts our dreams. However, this was a symptom of our old pathfinding system’s shortcomings, and it proved almost impossible to eradicate. To fix it, we did what any rational dev would do: we threw it away and started work on something better. The new pathfinding system is far superior to the previous method, which should theoretically prevent any kind of pathing bug to cause a Nugget to malfunction. We really hope this has solved the Nugget Stranding issue, and any further hold-ups with the AI should come from other systems. All-in-all, such issues should be much easier to fix now. *Crossing fingers*





The updated pathfinding system will also allow us to have bridges and tunnels on the planet. These are currently in development and you can expect to play with them soon.


The real reason we redesigned and improved Prometheus was to help us with the design and implementation of other planets. We needed alien worlds to be completely awesome, giving you a proper incentive to conquer the stars. One extremely complex system we developed for this allows our designers to link the colors and visual properties of the planet with one another, enabling them to adjust them to their desired values and output stunning results. We haven’t shared any examples of this yet, which will prevent any spoilers for when you see the final product (it’s still a work in progress).



Every planet in the game will have varying environmental characteristics and conditions, which will affect how you play when you visit them. There will be lava and ice planets, planets without water, and planets where the time of day never changes. It is up to you to terraform these worlds to sustain life and create a successful colony. Planting trees will increase oxygen levels, while Thermogenerators will modify temperatures to comfortable values -- but such technology will require resources to function. You can either mine the planet itself for the resources or have them delivered through interplanetary trading.



We will share more about the Space Age in future updates. Be sure to drop us your thoughts and suggestions below and on Discord!

It’s enormously exciting to finally transition into beta. A lot of hard work, many tears, and way too much Red Bull has led up to this moment. In a few months, we will begin the final polishing phase for full release! There are over 500,000 people who have wishlisted the game on Steam, and so many awesome folks who have been giving us their support for years (that’s you). We are pushing ourselves to exceed all of your expectations and deliver something we will both love for years to come. Your kind words and positive feedback have always made us smile and given us the will to walk those extra miles toward our ultimate vision. If you are already enjoying what the game has to offer, please spend a moment of your time to drop us a review on Steam. It helps so much!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/352720/The_Universim/




Enter Our Giveaway Contest for a free copy of The Universim

1. Follow @Crytivo on Twitter
2. Like and Retweet This Tweet
3. Leave a comment
   

We will choose a random winner tonight. Tag your friend in comments for an extra key.



Once again, we wish you all a happy holiday!

All the best,
The Crytivo Crew

Our Labor of Love

The Universim is our baby, and we've been nurturing this beautiful little bundle of joy for years now. We're so happy with how it's shaping up. However, we're even prouder of the astounding community that has come together throughout development. Thank you for being there with us through everything! The Steam Autumn Sale is upon us, which means The Universim is currently 20% off for a limited time.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/352720/The_Universim/

It also marks the start of the awards season, and we are excited to announce that we've been nominated for the "Labor of Love 2019" award! If you believe we deserve it, please cast your vote for the game. We have a big update in the works right now that we can't wait to share with you. Thereafter, we're plunging right into the final content for full release! It's been one heck of a journey to the stars, and we're nearly there.

Here's what the Labor of Love Award is about:
"This game has been out for a while. The team is well past the first unveiling of their creative baby, but being the good parents they are, these devs continue to nurture and support their creation. This game, to this day, is still getting new content after all these years."

All our love,
The Crytivo Crew

When the air begins to smell like the first rains of the season within a majestic pine forest, complete with the faint aroma of a polar bear giving birth, that’s when you know a new patch is coming for The Universim. As always, our devs have been working tirelessly to ensure you have some new content to enjoy. We are excited to see so many new fans joining us as the latest updates have rolled out. Welcome!

Also, today we hosted a live stream to show off our latest Twitch integrations and it was a blast. Hundreds of fans tuned in to check out the latest features and throw their questions at Alex Koshelkov, the creator of The Universim. We got a lot of great ideas from your input and we had a really good time. If you missed out on the fun you can catch the recorded stream here

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

We are also so thankful for the positive Steam reviews you have all been leaving to show your love for the game. It helps us so much, and it’s an excellent motivator for the team! More importantly, every positive review we receive gives our developers exactly 1 minute to see their families before they go back in the cage. If you love The Universim and touching reunions, please leave us a review here.



From this point on, we will be spending a lot more time on the overall quality of The Universim, revisiting and reworking systems that aren’t intuitive enough or really tank the fun factor. Please let us know which systems you’d like us to take a look at! We have a few on our list already, but your feedback is crucial to find out where the biggest problems are hiding (or even tiny things you’d like addressed).

We are well aware of the most annoying issue at the moment, the infamous “Nuggets doing nothing” AI bug. This happens when a Nugget’s pathfinding system can’t find an endpoint, which causes the system to hang. We are already working on a solution and we hope to have it out in our next BIG update.

Let’s move on to what’s new!



When the sound of buzzing approaches from the wild, you will know true fear. They do not come for blood, no. They come for something far more precious. They want your food! A swarm of hangry locusts will occasionally invade your civilization. Thankfully, you can fight them off with your Creator Powers. At the moment, this attack will be considered a random disaster like any other, but later on locust swarms will be triggered by climate change. Increasing temperatures, reduced air quality, and overall planetary pollution will drive locusts toward your civilization in search of new food sources.





Based on your feedback, we have decided to merge Schools and Universities together. There will now only be Educated and Uneducated Nuggets. Educated Nuggets are required for high-level buildings like Factories, Space Control Centers, and so on. Uneducated Nuggets can no longer be assigned to these buildings. As a result of this change, buildings will no longer catch on fire because an under-qualified Nugget made an oops. We will continue to improve this system as we go, so please let us know your thoughts and suggestions on Discord or down below!





Your civilization’s progress comes with a deadly cost. As Nuggets create fancier technology that requires more resources and energy, Mother Planet takes a serious hit. As Factories rise up, the air quality plummets, and trees are ripped down to feed the ravenous belly of industry. Nuggets need a helping hand to guide them toward a more sustainable future. We’d prefer someone wiser, but you, Creator, will have to do.



When oxygen levels drop low enough, a new quest will become available that might just reveal the only way to save the planet. Doing so will not only improve conditions for your civilization, it will also earn you new believers. Keep an eye out!




Beep beep! The city just got a whole lot noisier. Police Cars, Fire Trucks, Government Limos, Science Trucks, Ambulances, and Engineer Trucks have been added to the game. Nuggets in the Modern Age who are assigned to certain jobs will now drive some sort of vehicle. We probably should have taught them how, but they’ll learn fast enough.





The latest Windmill tech has arrived! It’s now at least an acceptable percentage better than the old one. As a bonus feature, they’re quieter, meaning Nuggets can finally enjoy home entertainment without the need for noise-cancelling headphones.





Great news! Kinetic Generators now burn even more calories than ever before. That statement is both true and a great addition to the recruitment posters. This also means they generate more electricity. Unfortunately, some Nuggets’ hearts can’t handle the increased intensity, but at least those old enough to have retired can enjoy uninterrupted daytime television.





We’ve added a new panel to help streamers keep track of chat members who have created Nuggets in their game. This panel will notify you when a chat member enters the birth queue, donates bits, commits a crime, and is born or dies. A chat member’s action point balance is displayed beneath their portrait, and you can click on a Nugget’s portrait to fly to their position. You can always hide this panel by pausing the game and unticking Twitch->show Nugget info panel.


The twitch nugget info panel

This panel is the big new Twitch feature this month, but we’ve added a number of smaller improvements.

We’ve added the #Invent command, which allows a chat member to spend action points to complete your current research item.

We’ve changed the way #Explode works, so now chat members can target a specific building type to blow up. For example, if they type #Explode Archive their Nugget will grab a bomb and run towards the streamer’s Archive, blowing themselves up when they get near it. If they type #Explode without a building modifier, then the Nugget will target a building at random. This change gives you time to pick up the bomber and throw them elsewhere if you are quick enough.

Now chat members can define the gender of their Nugget Avatar with a gender modifier, e.g. #CreateNugget Male or #CreateNugget Female.

We’ve improved the behaviour of our integration when used in very large streams. Twitch has a message rate-limit, which is 100 messages per 30 seconds for mods/streamers. To circumvent this rate limitation, if our system detects a large volume of messages it will batch them together into a single message, separating each message with the 📨 emoji. Messages can only be 500 characters long, so we will batch them until we’ve used up as many characters as possible, without truncating a message. On top of this, we’ve added a buffer to ensure that messages above 100/30 seconds will wait until there is enough free space to send themselves.


Message batching only happens when chat load is high

We’ve also fixed many Twitch-related bugs. The most notable bug could occur if you loaded a game and then enabled Twitch. This could cause a variety of issues including chat members being unable to issue commands or create Nuggets. We’ve also fixed a bug that prevented chat member bit donations from being recognized by the game. Now all bit donations should be accurately recorded so long as you are connected to Twitch. We also fixed several other smaller bugs.


Bit donations now work correctly

• Fixed certain event messages had some words cut off at the end
  
• Fixed an issue where the construction menu did not display all the resources on the resource panel
  
• Fixed an issue where the building cloud panel was missing new resources
  
• Fixed an issue where Satellites were removing too much oxygen when flying
  
• Fixed an issue where the quest panel displayed the incorrect number of pages
  
• Fixed an issue with multiple sounds that were extremely loud (windstorm, thunder, etc.)
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented packs of animals from being spawned
  
• Fixed an issue with displaying long numbers for water and electricity. Now, once you reach the millions, it will display “1m”, etc.
  
• Fixed the sacrifice icon above the Temple. Previously, text on the icon was overlapping.
  
• Fixed a bug where the University increased crime dramatically
  
• Fixed an issue where small parks had incorrect seating areas
  
• Fixed an issue where news messages were disappearing
  
• Fixed an issue where dead Nuggets were not unregistered properly, causing an error to appear and break the game
  
• Fixed an issue where an infection message from other sources was triggering an infection from drinking message
  
• Fixed multiple audio issues in the game where certain sounds would be dropped
  
• Fixed an issue where dead animals were clipping through the ground
  
• Fixed an issue where Bits donations did not work
  
• Fixed an issue where the dotted representation of distance in the Cosmodrome incorrectly displayed the prediction for the travel distance
  
• Fixed an issue where news messages text and event text was not scrolling
  
• Fixed an issue where the trickle effect power could have been used on pause without any creator point cost
  
• Fixed an issue where in some cases Nugget status icon were always visible on the screen with the ESC menu open
  
• Fixed an issue with shifts that prevented Nuggets from constructing buildings, freezing them
  
• Fixed an issue where Nuggets created without hair in clone center would cause AI problems
  
• Fixed an issue where multiple modern buildings were missing lights during night time
  
• Multiple missing localization fixes
  

• Pressing ESC during intro scene now skips the intro scene immediately
  
• Save button was added to the ESC menu, but you still need to build an Archive to save the game.
  
• Construction panel received major changes. All building categories were reworked and reorganized in order to provide a better experience.
  
• Nuggets are more likely to become believers due to high happiness. You can also lose believers if your civilization remains unhappy for a long period of time
  
• Batteries were removed from large buildings. Now, similar to Pumps and Reservoirs, in order to store excess electricity, you will need to build batteries.
  
• Schools and Universities got merged. Now schools will be upgraded into Universities.
  
• Reworked Education System. You will no longer be able to assign Uneducated Nuggets to buildings that require higher education. The Nugget panel will also be sorted based on their education level when you click on the assignment slot.
  
• Disasters due to education were removed.
  
• Wind system was tweaked and improved once again. Now wind won’t stay in critical conditions (extremely strong or none at all) for longer than 10 game minutes.
  
• Using the alarm will cause Nuggets to rush toward the bunker without actually waiting to finish other tasks.
  
• Nuggets will now run to Bunkers instead of just walking there
  
• Increased angle tolerance for solar panels. They should now produce electricity 100% more efficiently. However, it still depends on where you place your solar panels. On the planet’s "poles", they might generate less output.
  
• 
  

• Locust Swarm
  
• Occupation Vehicles
  
• Nuggets Monks
  
• Windmills
  
• Kinetic Generators
  
• Solar Panels Updated
  

We have redesigned the Construction Menu buttons and restructured the various categories. Buildings are now placed in more suitable categories that better represent their function. This may take a little while to get used to, but we hope you’ll eventually find it far more intuitive than before. However, newcomers will certainly be less confused.

That’s it for now! We have more awesome stuff coming your way in the next couple of patches. If you’ve been following us on Twitter or keeping track on Discord, you’ve likely seen the cool things we have going on in the background. We like throwing a few teasers up on our social channels, so don’t miss out! As always, leave your thoughts and feedback on Discord and down below. If you’re enjoying the game, don’t forget to leave a review on Steam. Have fun with the new stuff!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/352720/The_Universim/

With love,
The Crytivo Crew

Hello everyone!
We are glad to announce that we are starting our “Dev Stream” on Steam and Twitch. If you would like to find out what is coming in the upcoming patch or maybe you would like to ask about any future plans for the Universim, don’t hesitate to join our stream and drop us your questions. We will do our best to answer as many as possible.

After Stream, let us know if you liked this format, so we can do it more often and be closer to you !=)

What our stream on:
Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/crytivo
Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/352720/The_Universim/

Thank you for all your support and feedback!

Sincerely,
Crytivo Crew