Intelligent Design: An Evolutionary Sandbox News

There is nothing more I like more than some good graphs, and iocaio shows off some on this months first screenshot.



Here is an established group of plants by Mr_Twister. Enough collectors there?



And finally for this month, check out these massive herbivores created by walpurgisnacht ... those must have been genetically engineered right?

For a while Dave and I have been trying to figure out what we could do community wise with Intelligent Design. With our other game Cycle 28 we always try to post the monthly leader boards to encourage some friendly competition. That kind of thing doesn't fit with Intelligent Design since it's meant to be a relaxed experience.

Something I often do is look through the community screenshots of ID on steam. I know some people disagree but I genuinely love the look of this game, and clearly people have put the effort into taking great shots of their evolving worlds.

...so I thought I would try to set aside some time each month to pick out a couple of shots I really like and share them with you. I probably won't write too much, but just share these shots. Feel free to discuss them in the comments!



The first shot is by ablunk. This one caught my eye simply because of all the plants! Over 8000! ... and not a single carnivore - clearly a vegan world.



The next image by iocaio is just nice to look at. The green glow from the buildings, eggs and creatures on the floor, seeds flying in the background.



Finally for this week an image by The Ghost in the Trenches showing the results of some genetic modifications I think. Seeds so big and with so much drag they never fall to the ground... Is it a bug or a feature? I'll let you decide!

Over the past few weeks Dave has been playing through a new save on the new map, with me coaching him along the way. You can follow us on twitch to catch the streams live each week, and catch up by watching the archives below.

Let us know how you think Dave is doing! Any tips you can share with him?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jucUE3FgWeU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VR7WvM0h5-I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxcJ55olCTg

Patch Notes

• Population counters are now checked for error once per in game day. The time acceleration may be introducing slight errors which will grow over time on extreamly long runs. This sanity check should deal with those errors.
  
• Creatures can now no longer see things which are far above or below them, such as on the cliffs in the new map.
  

Our other game, Cycle 28 has made it to the final of the GDWC2018 fan favourite award. If you could support us by clicking the image below and voting for Cycle 28 we would really appreciate it.

If you haven't bought Cycle 28 you can get 20% off in the Pill Bug Interactive Collection.

I've just pushed a patch to the experimental update based on an idea from the discord community.

When a seed lands the slope of the landscape is checked, based on some genes I won't reveal, if the slope is too steep (like on the sides of the maps) the plant will not grow.

This should stop all the weird looking plants on the map edges and will also add some interesting evolutionary strategies for the plant genes!

Let us know what you think! The change only effects new plants, so existing plants in your game saves won't be effected.

Edit: This is now live on the main branch.