Everything that Spore could have been? A full evolution sim, Thrive, has a big new release out bringing in some brand new game mechanics. Read the full article here:
Everything that Spore could have been? A full evolution sim, Thrive, has a big new release out bringing in some brand new game mechanics.
Read the full article here: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2026/08/open-source-evolution-simulation-thrive-brings-multicellular-stage-advancements/
The time has finally come for Thrive 1.6, the third major update to the Multicellular Stage! So how come it's called 1.6? Three months have passed since the last major update, and a lot has been added in that time. So much, in fact, that everything in our roadmap planned up to ve
The time has finally come for Thrive 1.6, the third major update to the Multicellular Stage! So how come it's called 1.6? Three months have passed since the last major update, and a lot has been added in that time. So much, in fact, that everything in our roadmap planned up to version 1.6 was completed.
Included in this update are two new reproduction modes, Sexual Reproduction and Mass budding, both in different way playing with the mechanics for having different cell types in one species. We also have the new Actomyosin Organelle that lets you create "muscle cells" which allow for large, yet fast and nimble Multicellular organisms. Stretching the membranes of individual cells makes Multicellular creations look much more cohesive, and auto-evo is now creating new AI Multicellular species! All in all, the Multicellular Stage is now much closer to what we expect its final form to be.
We would also like to remind people that our second community art contest is ongoing. Art from this contest is to be used as Thrive loading screens and/or Juuzo Lenz's Thrive-inspired speculative evolution series. The winner of the first contest was added to the game in this update. Art of all levels and diversity of quality is welcome!
The namesake of this blogpost is one of the updates to our reproduction system: the addition of Sexual reproduction. When you choose this option, you will no longer be able to go directly to the editor when fully grown. Instead, you will have to launch a gamete cell and have it merge with the gamete cell of another member of your species in order to open the editor. As a reward for your efforts, you will receive a 20% discount on all MP costs in the editor. Initially, you can select any one of your cell types to be used as a gamete, but you also have the option to switch to anisogamy, where you can design two different gamete cell types. At that point you can also decide which of the two "sexes" you want to play as yourself.
As finding a mate can be challenging, we included some functions to make it easier. If you also have Signalling Agent available, you can use a command to call a mate towards you. With the right difficulty settings (enabled on Normal), this will spawn one in and point them out to you if none exists yet.
But that's not the only new option in this menu. Another addition is Mass Budding, which simply allows you to start the next generation with multiple cells instead of only one. A slider allows you to control exactly how many cells you want to start with, following the same order as the growth order you can set in the editor. This way, you no longer need to make sure your first cell can survive on its own. Of course, there is a cost to this. The larger the bud you want to start of with is, the more resources you will have to gather before you can reproduce.
Finally, the already existing reproduction mode Sporulation received an update to how its selected cell type works. Instead of using one of your normal celltypes, upon first selecting the sporulation reproduction mode you are now prompted to select one of your existing cell types to have it's design copied to a new and exclusive spore cell type. This cell type can then only be edited from the reproduction tab and cannot be placed in your normal body design. It is likely we will want to apply this same system to sexual reproduction later on.
Actomyosin
A new Multicellular Stage organelle, Actomyosin allows you to create a type of "muscle cells". In exchange for their significant size and an ATP cost, these greatly improve both the movement speed and turning speed of your species. As you can only place one Actomyosin per cell, the only ways to improve the speed you get per cell are to improve their specialization, and/or place them adjacent to other cells of the same type. The tuning on this new feature is quite strong right now, so it is an ideal way to keep your large multicellular species mobile!
The design of the organelle represents an arrangement of actin and myosin proteins found in "simpler" types of muscle cells, similar to what we still see in smooth muscle tissue (used for example to make your blood vessels and digestive system constrict). These actin and myosin fibres actively slide past each other using energy from ATP, causing cells, and on a larger scale whole tissues, to contract. We represented this sliding method of contraction in the organelle's model and animations as well.
Actomyosin is also the first organelle that comes with membrane type restrictions: As constricting while pulling on things outside the cell is rather difficult when the cell has a rigid cell wall, Actomyosin can only be placed in cells with Normal or Double membranes. This is the first of what we hope will be a larger array of differences between membrane types, creating both clearly different groups of life and offering more meaningful choices to players.
Multicellular membrane stretching
A quite consistent complaint about the Multicellular Stage has been that creatures often end up look like a disconnected swarm of cells than a real cohesive body made of cells. There have been a lot of different ideas on how to solve this in the past, but one of them is bearing fruit: membranes of cells that are close enough together will now stretch out towards each other. This makes things look a lot more cohesive. The effect is particularly noticeable when you have cell types of different sizes and/or shapes, because these can usually not be placed close together.
This is also not just a cosmetic change. The stretched membranes have collision as usual, so things will bounce off of them. In particular this should reduce occurrences of another common complaint: small cells slipping through the gaps in between cells and getting stuck inside you.
We're quite happy with how this has improved the body of multicellular species, but it's likely we'll continue experimenting with the exactly shape of the membranes generated.
Multicellular auto-evo
Finally, our evolution systems are now working on Multicellular species. This means that other multicellular species will now be mutating, migrating and diverging right along with you. Your own multicellular species' population will now also depend on auto-evo's evaluation of its performance. The mutations added so far cover: adjustment of environmental tolerances, changing of behaviour, creation and placement of new cell types to add new organelles to, and removing organelles from existing cell types. There are still some obvious things missing from this list.
For example, the system will not yet be adding organelles to existing cell types. Another missing feature is for AI species to become multicellular on their own, so for now the player will always be the first, and all AI multicellular species will be descended from that species. There are also some limitations on how auto-evo decides what is effective. For example, it will decide a pilus you place on the front of a cell is useful, even if that cell is at the back of our species. These and many other areas will be added to and improved upon in future updates.
Additional Features
More enhancements to auto-evo, such as more behaviours changed and more advanced predation calculations
Updated the in-game art-gallery with new and old models, in a better categorisation
Re-divided loading screen art between the Stages
Added the winner of the first loading screen art contest, "Motherly Love" by Trappist-1e, as a Macroscopic Stage loading screen
Added environmental tolerance effects and a few other things to Organelle tooltips
Membrane type is now the same for all cell types in one species
AI microbes now use Signalling Agents
Specialization and Cell adjacency bonuses were made stronger
Endosymbiosis now also works for Multicellular species
Reproducing now has a hotkey
You can now change in settings how fast the "speed up" button goes
Visuals for membranes were updated, especially Carbonate
Updated our secret easter egg biome with new terrain
Made the search bar in the Thriveopedia also search page content and tags
Updated to Godot 4.7.2
A full list of changes is available at the end of this post.
What’s Next
With this update the Multicellular Stage has taken a big leap towards being a complete experience. As the 1.6 designation indicates (in the way we number our releases), with this we're over half way in our implementation of what we consider the "core required features" for the Multicellular Stage. With that in mind, we are still confident as well in the completion of the Multicellular Stage around the end of this year.
Considering the size of this update and some earlier reports, we anticipate having to spend some time after release fixing up bugs. Looking at our Release Roadmap, after that we will likely likely work on features such as mechanics for nerve cells and then adding size-related costs to Multicellular species (which is meant to make using specialization and adjacency more important). We will also have to evaluate whether there is enough time for optional mechanics like "non-cell parts" (things like shells).
Join us a bit later today for our developer Thrivestream where we'll celebrate the release on the stream, but also answer the usual question of what's coming in the next releases. You can visit our feedback thread to give your thoughts on this release.
Added sexual reproduction option for multicellular microbes
Using sexual reproduction gives a 20% MP discount when it is used to enter the editor
Added mass budding reproduction mode for the multicellular stage
Added auto-evo for multicellular species: they can mutate and split. They don't appear naturally yet so they can only split from the player.
Implemented membranes stretching towards other colony members to make gaps between colony cells smaller
Fixed colony rotation math giving a buff from colony member count
Added actomyosin organelle as a key buff to multicellular movement and rotation speed
Updated to Godot 4.7.2 (this causes issues with Vulkan on some computers)
Changing membrane in multicellular now costs 100 MP and makes all cell types switch to the new membrane type at once
Changing membrane types is now prevented in macroscopic
The microbe AI now uses signalling agents to send commands in certain situations
Buffed specialization and adjacency bonuses
Time per generation is now 50 myr instead of 100. Only the display changed, game speed is the same as before.
Added stored compound conservation when using mass budding to make it more viable to spawn with big colonies
Reworked the GUI for spore cell type picking and customizing
Enabled endosymbiosis for multicellular
Added a hotkey for the editor button and a button prompt that appears the first time the button becomes available
Reworked the microbe colony compound sharing logic to fix one more corner case
Added an option to change the alternative speed mode in the game to go up to 5x speed if the CPU is fast enough
Updated membranes with new textures and shader changes
Added tolerance and a few other stats to the organelle tooltips
Added an extra explanation in the oxygen tolerance slider tooltip that organelles are needed to get higher level of adaptation
Changed tolerance warning text to give the minimum needed change to become tolerant rather than the change the preferred value would need
Made digestion finish immediately if there is only toxin left to digest which is not useful as it only causes damage
Detached colony members now try to re-parent to a nearby still existing member rather than always totally exiting the colony when their connecting cell was removed
Updated germination action icon
Doubled lifetime of radioactive chunks
Implemented fossilisation for multicellular species
Tweaked predator and behaviour handling in auto-evo
Added more random rotation to terrain chunks and tweaked their spawning
Added a new chunk model to the banana biome and a new terrain shape
Reduced minimum selectable GUI scale to 60%
Made the MP bar show one more decimal to avoid confusing rounding scenarios
Made save list items only load their data when about to become visible rather than all loading immediately
Fixed slime jet movement speed being framerate dependent. And slightly altered the intended thrust amount.
Fixed specialization not applying to gameplay flagella
Fixed MP multiplier from difficulty not applying to reproduction modes
Fixed major problem with migrations using the same miche tree as mutation generation concurrently which likely was able to cause random errors and slight weirdness in auto-evo
Fixed external organelle positions not updating to match their physical positions when a cell grew
Fixed physics collision ignoring stopping working if an entity tried to ignore multiple other objects
Fixed cell layout reset not reapplying all species properties on divide. This should fix AI cells with a nucleus but small scale.
Fixed the reproduction options not fully restoring after loading a save
Fixed a bug with loading a multicellular stage save where a chemoreceptor was pointing to its own species and was part of a world history record with changes
Fixed loading saves where microbe chemoreceptor references form a cycle between species
Fixed loading saves where auto-evo had failed and it now shows a special error message
Fixed stage-based guidance lines not coming from the player cell
Fixed NaN compound chunks spawning on invalid species member dying
Fixed moving a cell in multicellular not updating the specialization display
Fixed growth progress not being correctly displayed when using sporulation
Fixed scroll bar backgrounds not being rounded
Remade myofibril texture
Implemented a cheat to slow or speed up time
Adjusted intercellular matrix generation
Added a bunch of missing models to the art gallery
Added the winning artwork from the first art contest as a loading screen
If loading a save fails the integrity of the save file is checked and if it is detected as corrupted, then a special message is shown
Made the search bar in the Thriveopedia also search page content and tags
Added multicellular body plan corruption checks on exiting the editor
Added pagination to patch notes views
Added actual used renderer detection and showing new possible values
Made guidance lines (tutorial, chemoreceptor) smoothly update their target positions
Added a hotkey for fast-forwarding the credits
Removed Windows-style new lines from our error dialog to avoid double line changes from appearing
Implemented a new console command "edit" to go directly to the editor at any time
Replaced the previous graph processing library with onet hat still implements the Sugiyama algorithm but is licensed in a better way
Added a safety check against invalid data in colonies when building intercellular matrix graphics
Entity debug labels now display active signalling command
Added support for multicast debug console commands
Added a prototype sky renderer into the game files
Added preregistration of all of our ECS components to make entity creation thread-safe
Added extra physics data safeguards in our code
Improved auto-evo general failure message in the editor by pointing out the game logs
The game news feed now uses HTTPS to load more securely
Reimplemented our 2D spinners as shaders rather than rotating nodes as those were hard to make in Godot 4
Added a popup warning window when achievements couldn't be loaded
Made achievements writing use a temporary file to make data corruption less likely
Added a code safety check before resetting intercellular matrix data on colony disband
Removed protoplasm definition and Thriveopedia page
Updated some code to use a new collection initializer syntax
Fixed the slightly confusing way the fossilisation dialog was internally constructed
Slightly tweaked when world queued actions are triggered for future safety
Added code tests for all reproduction types to verify progress calculation is correct with them
Added caching for simple collision shapes
Fixed a unit test that was intermittently failing in CI
Updated our code style instructions
Fixed our component access safety checking mode and fixed some missing access markings in game systems
Fixed a bunch of code warnings found by new static analysis tools
Configured some new code check warnings and fixed some older code for them
Added a code comment explaining ModifiableEditorCells
Added a CI check to ensure no missing ".cs.uid" files
Improved generation of the license text and unified between the game and our helper scripts
Steam: added a top level license file on export
Switched to a custom-patched physics engine version that fixes an entity disappearing bug as a temporary measure
Some time has passed once again and it is time for a new Thrive release seen. As usual we have a public test build available today and the release is in one week so that we can fix all the problems everyone is sure to find with the test build. You will find a lot of major changes
Some time has passed once again and it is time for a new Thrive release seen. As usual we have a public test build available today and the release is in one week so that we can fix all the problems everyone is sure to find with the test build. You will find a lot of major changes if you play this new version as is visible from the version number jump. We have new multicellular reproduction modes and improvements to previous ones, colony membranes now stretch towards colony members making gaps smaller, and we have initial auto-evo implementation for the multicellular stage! Besides the highlight features there are of course again a very long list of smaller changes and bugfixes, but we won't spoil those yet, they will be covered by the devblog coming out at the same time as the release.
Before anyone plays the new build, a word of warning to users of slightly older GPUs: due to a Godot Engine update, some cards that previously worked fine with Vulkan are now detected as unsupported. So if you have such a GPU you'll need to force the OpenGL safety mode on (can be done in the Thrive Launcher). We are hoping that Godot 4.8 resolves this situation, but it is not out yet so we cannot update this Thrive release to use that.
To access the beta build, right click Thrive in the Steam client and in the properties select "beta" as the beta version to play.
Please provide any feedback you have on this test build. We are especially interested in any auto-evo run failures and in general how the performance of auto-evo is in multicellular. We are aware of some minor bugs in the membrane stretch system already and will try to fix them next week. Also loading an older save with mass budding size of 1 can give an error upon entering the editor.
News in the land of Thrive music! Recently we compiled a new full soundtrack containing music for every Thrive Stage, so we decided to update the soundtrack on Steam accordingly. Previously, it only contained the soundtrack for the completed Microbe Stage. A few previously missin
News in the land of Thrive music!
Recently we compiled a new full soundtrack containing music for every Thrive Stage, so we decided to update the soundtrack on Steam accordingly. Previously, it only contained the soundtrack for the completed Microbe Stage. A few previously missing Microbe Stage tracks have also been included. The soundtrack is now over 4 hours long in total runtime.
All proceeds go towards supporting the continued development of Thrive. So if you are interested in listening to the Thrive soundtrack whenever you like, or just want to support Thrive even more, consider purchasing the soundtrack!
It's already time for the second major update of the Multicellular Stage! In the last update, we first introduced the Cell Specialization system. This has now been greatly improved upon by refinement of its calculation, expansion of its effects, and the addition of an adjacency b
It's already time for the second major update of the Multicellular Stage! In the last update, we first introduced the Cell Specialization system. This has now been greatly improved upon by refinement of its calculation, expansion of its effects, and the addition of an adjacency bonus for cells of the same type. We also have an entirely new feature exclusive to the Multicellular Stage in Sporulation, our first new reproduction mode. The Multicellular Stage has also benefited from smaller improvements, such as a shortening of the time required to reproduce.
There have also been many other significant changes to the game, such as a major update to the auto-evo system that makes it run more than twice as fast *and* produce better species. This is without mentioning balance changes to toxins, oxygen resistance, and all the membrane types. We also made improvements to difficulty settings and UI functions, such as the process panel and new scrolling tooltips.
Multicellular development is well underway now, and that is even with some development time still going towards supporting systems. As such, we're still confident that we'll be able to finish Multicellular Stage development this year. Which is to say, you can look forward to even more in the next update!
Read on for more details, or play the new version now.
The Cell Specialization system has received significant upgrades. Most importantly, there is now a Cell Type Adjacency effect on Specialization. For each cell of the same type adjacent to a cell, it receives a boost to the bonuses it gets from specialization. This makes it very useful to place cells of the same type together as much as possible, which is something we want to encourage also for the conversion to tissues and organs in the later transition to the Macroscopic Stage. This adjacency bonus acts as a multiplier on the Cell Specialization bonus, so it is not as impactful if the cells aren't that specialized to begin with.
The effects of the Specialization bonus have also been greatly expanded. Up until now, only process speeds were boosted, but now it also boosts pretty much everything else a cell's organelles can provide: storage, movement speed, rotation speed, environmental tolerances, etc. This, for example, now makes it more worth it to make dedicated cells for movement via flagella, or specifically for producing and firing toxins. Finally, the calculation for cell specialization has changed, making a sharper evaluation of how specialized the cell is. In particular, reducing the number of different organelle types in the cell now has a big impact.
Spore Reproduction
We've finally added the first new multicellular reproduction mode! "Sporulation" lets you select any cell type (even ones not part of your normal body plan at all) to spawn in as when you leave the editor (or tragically die and re-spawn). You can then use a new ability to convert that cell into the normal first cell in your body plan at will and grow from there. This allows you to, for example, create a highly mobile spore to quickly find a good spot to start growing in.
For the future, we're also looking at letting you germinate the spore into multiple starting cells instead of just one if it is large enough or has enough storage. This is of course also just the start of new reproduction options, so expect more in future updates.
The Toxin Reckoning
The most consistent topic of feedback recently has been concerns over toxin organelle dominance, and particularly players being hunted down by enormous swarms of small toxin-shooting cells. So, we've spent some time reigning in the toxins a bit from several angles.
Firstly, toxin production speed and damage have both been reduced by about 20% and the minimum time between shots has been increased by 10%. The AI has also been adjusted to try and build up more toxins (based on their Focus behaviour setting) before firing, which should reduce the "bullet hell" feeling.
There have also been some changes on the defensive side. For Multicellular Species in particular, toxins that hit any of your cells now have their damage distributed over all of the cells in your body plan. This means you are much less likely to lose individual cells to toxin attacks unless you are being hit with enough toxins to kill the whole organism. The damage taken from engulfed toxic prey has also been altered so that a higher max HP helps protect against it. Lastly, while membrane types have been rebalanced in general, the Double Membrane in particular has been made into an anti-toxin specialist. This makes it particularly good at engulfing toxic prey.
Additional Features
- Overhauled auto-evo structure to make it much faster and to generate better species - Improved the performance of the compound clouds by up to 100% - Limited max oxygen tolerance on the slider greatly to force higher tolerance values only to be available through adding organelles that grant tolerance bonuses to oxygen - Created pages in the Thriveopedia for each species in the game and made clicking on a species take you to that page - Added a very easy difficulty - Tweaked multicellular reproduction speed - Changed the osmoregulation difficulty slider to a general energy slider which now affects almost everything handling ATP - Too tall tooltips now slowly scroll up and down to show all of their contents - Updated to Godot 4.6.2 - Changed game balancing - Tweaked the visuals of the process panel
A full list of changes is available at the end of this post.
What’s Next
The previous release was still relatively light on changes and entirely new features for the Multicellular Stage as it was mixed with a lot of work on background systems and some refinements on Microbe Stage features. However, with features like the expanded specialization, adjacency and new reproduction modes, we're definitely getting into developing the main body of the Multicellular Stage now.
As has been previously said, our current development focus is to finish the Multicellular Stage this year. As the stage makes extensive use of the Microbe Stage systems, with our progress so far we are still confident we will reach that goal.
Looking at our Release Roadmap, we've actually already completed part of what was scheduled for release 1.2. In the coming period, work will initially like focus on features like more reproduction modes and making membrane type uniform across all cell types.
Join us a bit later today for our developer Thrivestream where we'll celebrate the release on the stream, but also answer the usual question of what's coming in the next releases. You can visit our feedback thread to give your thoughts on this release or comment below.
In multicellular, cell positions next to cells of the same type now give extra specialization bonus for those cells
Cell adjacency bonuses are shown in the multicellular editor on hovering a cell
Added spore reproduction mode
Overhauled auto-evo structure to make it much faster and to generate better species
Improved the performance of the compound clouds by up to 100%
Expanded cell specialization effects to movement, tolerances, toxins and various other cell functions
Limited max oxygen tolerance on the slider greatly to force higher tolerance values only to be available through adding organelles that grant tolerance bonuses to oxygen
Created pages in the Thriveopedia for each species in the game and made clicking on a species take you to that page
Added a very easy difficulty
Tweaked multicellular reproduction speed
Doubled the engulf size of targets that are attached to something, for example by being in a colony
Changed the osmoregulation difficulty slider to a general energy slider which now affects almost everything handling ATP
Too tall tooltips now slowly scroll up and down to show all of their contents
Updated to Godot 4.6.2
Implemented the option to change compound cloud resolutions to allow the player to pick between quality and faster CPU calculation speed
Fixed balance regression for chloroplasts
Buffed glucose output of the chemoplast to make it a proper upgrade again (some previous game balancing cycle had not adjusted it correctly)
Auto-evo migrations now prefer targeting empty patches and won't be generated for a patch that already had the migrating species in it
Tweaked the visuals of the process panel
Eukaryotic variants of organelles now count towards the same specialization than prokaryotic variants of the same organelle
Overhauled the calculation done for cell specialization. It is now based on Simpson's Diversity Index calculation.
Rebalanced photosynthesis and membrane stats
Toxin damage is now distributed among all colony members to make toxins less effective against big multicellular colonies
Engulfed toxin damage is now a flat damage rather than a percentage of max health
Tweaked toxin balance by reducing damage and generation speed and slightly increased max cooldown between shots
Tweaked the threshold for AI to consider it having enough toxin to shoot
Rebalanced the double membrane type
AI cells can now eject toxic prey when they take damage based on their behaviour values and how much health they have left
Added display of metaball hierarchy as lines to the macroscopic editor
Playing music track state is now saved and loaded from saves. This makes music tracks resume their previously saved position when playing category is next changed after loading a save.
Added a tutorial for the specialization feature both in the microbe and the multicellular stages
Added loading screen tips about specialization
Added multicellular-specific tips to the loading screen
Increased separation force in the cell division animation for large cells so that the animation keeps working later into the game
It's now possible to control the cell rotation with a controller input method or with keyboard keys with custom keybindings. Note that resuming mouse look requires swapping between input methods or reloading a save.
Microbes and cell colonies now use their actual radii to check against terrain collisions when spawning to ensure they don't clip into terrain when picking spawn locations.
The microbe AI now uses closest colony member distance to determine when to turn on engulf mode
Added a feature to make some organelles incompatible with certain membranes. For example, myofibril can't be now used with wall type cells.
Adjusted lighting in the macroscopic editor
Screen filters now affect Godot-inbuilt popups and tooltips
Fixed the ATP bar flickering when near full ATP. It is now back to the pre-ECS behaviour of staying totally full when a cell has sufficient ATP production.
Fixed ATP production bar showing incorrect numbers for compound usage
Fixed freebuild status flag not being remembered everywhere after loading a save which caused excess warnings about achievements no longer being viable
Fixed process panel summing environmental compounds from multiple cells in a colony
Fixed major bug with death being unable to unbind multicellular colonies which could cause old cells that are stuck to the colony
Fixed colony lead cell leaving a colony not disbanding the entire colony. This was the assumption elsewhere in the code so this small bug had quite far-reaching effects all over the game.
Fixed storage filling time warnings appearing for compounds where the availability doesn't change if it is night or not
Fixed microbe colony members not being able to receive radiation from rocks
Fixed tooltips being in the wrong position for one frame when initially becoming visible
Fixed the nitroplast not being scientifically accurate (it no longer uses oxygen)
Fixed a bug in the multicellular editor allowing it to move cells to overlap each other
Fixed context-specific tracks being able to play multiple times in a row when there were non-context specific tracks that could have been played instead
Fixed multicellular growth not resuming correctly if the main cell got engulfed and then ejected
Fixed non-useful compounds being added to tally of colony compounds when distributing them, which could otherwise trigger an infinite compound amount bug
Fixed engulfing animated organelles like cilia causing an error in target endosome size calculation
Fixed flagellum push direction calculation when placed exactly at 0, 0 coordinates
Fixed pilus physical position being offset from the graphical model in some cells (all cells use now more accurate math)
Fixed cell preview graphics not updating when doing or undoing an organelle move action
Fixed signalling agents staying on if they were removed in the editor
Fixed cell colour change animation not resetting to default colour after ending
Fixed the cell colour base change animation being able to be overridden after exiting the editor sometimes leading to an unexpected colour becoming stuck
Fixed compressed environment panel font getting stuck after loading a save
Fixed tolerance slider padding elements being able to eat mouse events, which made using the sliders sometimes more fiddly than necessary
Fixed multicellular species regrowing all cells as duplicates after spawning in
Fixed the extinction screen not using population amount suffixes
Fixed the "devoured" text not always showing when dying to engulfing
Fixed the screen overlay effects not applying to our popup windows or custom tooltips
Fixed the pause menu being able to open during the ascension and credits
Fixed the button requesting screen record permission on Mac being way too wide and causing one part of the editor GUI to become really wide.
Fixed organelle upgrades creating an action when leaving everything at the default values and then confirming
Fixed editor errors caused by organelle suggestion runs if an organelle was moved while one was still in progress
Fixed multicellular slime jets queueing force when not moving and being able to use it all at once
Fixed the options menu applying a lot of duplicate settings updates on opening it, now the bulk settings change doesn't trigger changes
Fixed the confirm button in the editor not reacting to language change
Fixed Thriveopedia pages missing h4 level headings and put in the missing content for all pages
Updated Thriveopedia pages to use Godot 4 bullet point lists rather than our previous manual approach that was hacked together
Made failure to emit compounds due to membrane not being ready yet not an error, and tweaked some code to retry later in that case
Updated banana biome currents and added radioactive chunks
When a text field is focused it now gets text input priority over our gameplay keybindings. This hopefully fixes text input with very uncommon keyboard layouts.
Changed our thread barriers on ARM (Mac) to use a more efficient WFE instruction than just a pure yield
Tab change button prompts are now less visible when at that end of the tab bar
Added exporting auto-evo time and memory metrics from the auto-evo exploring tool
Added exporting of overall world generation time statistics for auto-evo exploring tool
Added more code safety check against invalid state colonies in the movement system
Added more safety code for microbe colony rotation calculation which could in rare cases lead to a game crash before this improvement
Adjusted the code for detecting and using smaller primary icon when a keybinding uses visuals made of two separate icons
Tweaked the cloud benchmark to ramp up the stress after a bit
Implemented a general physics force system and updated the division animation to use it
Added console commands for managing the in-game jukebox
Fixed some output interleaving and scrolling problems in the console
Fixed incorrect native library calls when the return type was a boolean
Refactored the code for the Jukebox to avoid temporary memory allocations
Adjusted some comments related to StrainAffected component in the code
Improved memory allocations caused by GUI bar updates
Optimized the updating code for the process panel
Improved efficiency of the code distributing compounds between colony members
Slightly updated code for how recursive engulfing ejections are performed which should make those a bit more reliable
Adjusted cloud system assumed runtime cost in the code
Fixed physics debug draw to work also on Windows and Mac and with computers that don't have AVX instructions (previously it only worked on Linux)
Fixed physics debug draw not working in certain later game saves. Note that debug draw is only available in debug versions of the game and not in release versions.
Added an editor config file trying to mark Godot-generated files as generated
Updated our pull request template to emphasise gameplay testing
Updated code analysis packages
Fixed various new code warnings from newer check tools
Cleaned up our codebase by extracting bacteria scale as a constant
Renamed AbsorptionRatio to AbsorptionRate in our code
Updated Arch dependencies
Updated Karambolo.PO to version 1.13.0
Updated YamlDotNet from 16.3.0 to 18.0.0
Updated System.IO.Hashing from 10.0.5 to 10.0.8
Updated other dependency nuget packages
Fixed our automatic checks trying to rebuild on Windows for InspectCode which did not work due to file locking
Updated code checking tools
Improved our CI running pipeline
Updated gdUnit4 version to actually have our CI system be able to run it again
The next Thrive release is almost here, so it is time to do the usual early public testing to catch issues before they reach the stable release. The major features in this release is the greatly expanded specialization system that now extends to cell placement in the multicellula
The next Thrive release is almost here, so it is time to do the usual early public testing to catch issues before they reach the stable release. The major features in this release is the greatly expanded specialization system that now extends to cell placement in the multicellular and there’s tutorials explaining the feature now. And the second big thing is that multicellular growth has been adjusted and there’s a first new reproduction mode: spores. With it you can make a special spore cell type and choose to when to start growing. Of course there are also the variety of usual fixes and improvements to various things. Most interesting of those is probably the performance improvements to the compound clouds which now have double the previous performance and even a half simulation fidelity mode which should make lower end computers much happier.
To access the beta build, right click Thrive in the Steam client and in the properties select "beta" as the beta version to play.
Please provide any feedback you have on this test build. We are especially interested in hearing about the feel of toxins and multicellular growth speed.
This is a quick patch to fix a few problems when exiting the editor in the multicellular stage with certain cell layouts. And this release also improves auto-evo memory efficiency a lot. You can find the major updates recently done to Thrive in our previous devblog. For this rele
This is a quick patch to fix a few problems when exiting the editor in the multicellular stage with certain cell layouts. And this release also improves auto-evo memory efficiency a lot.
You can find the major updates recently done to Thrive in our previous devblog. For this release the patch notes:
Patch Notes
Adjusted the new cell layout algorithm to prevent stuck conditions
Switched auto-evo to use cache keys for species to not keep temporary species around as long. This cuts required memory for auto-evo in half.
Added a colony cell growth animation
Converted species tolerance calculation result into a struct to save on some temporary memory allocations
Fixed engulfing ejection animation not playing when the entity died, now the ejection animation plays and anything engulfed should properly exit the dying cell
Fixed a very rare case of organelles not going to final positions in single centering operation by always performing a second operation
Fixed the water currents sometimes triggering the microbe movement ripple effect. As a downside some slow cells or swimming against extreme currents no longer triggers the effect at all.
Fixed the emergency ejection from dead engulfer entities not working which lead to ghost cells. Now such cells should be able to resume normal gameplay.
It's finally time for the first major update of the Multicellular Stage development process! We have a new cell specialisation feature allowing you to really take advantage of the multiple cell types you can make for your Multicellular species. Additionally, you can now control t
It's finally time for the first major update of the Multicellular Stage development process! We have a new cell specialisation feature allowing you to really take advantage of the multiple cell types you can make for your Multicellular species. Additionally, you can now control the growth order of cells, giving you far greater control over the course of life as a Multicellular organism. There are also several smaller additions and improvements to the stage, making it overall more fun to play and building a foundation for future development.
Though our work is focused on the multicellular Stage, we also have some more general changes, such as a new environmental tolerances UI, updates to water currents and bigger pieces of ice in the ice sheet patch. That's not mentioning the many bug fixes, balance changes and and performance improvements.
This is just the first step of Multicellular Stage development, and a lot of time near the start of the year was spent on maintenance and the fixing of issues from the 1.0 release. Which is to say, we can hopefully show you even more progress in the next update!
Read on for more details, or play the new version now.
As development is now focused on the Multicellular Stage, it is no longer marked as a prototype and the "you are entering prototypes" warning has been moved to the Macroscopic Stage. With that, there have been quite a few additions and improvements to the Stage. Similarly to how you can set the duplication order of cell parts in the Microbe Stage, you can now set the growth order of cells in the Multicellular Stage. Significantly, the first cell in your selected growth order is also the "core" cell of your organism which the rest of the cells turn around.
Another improvement is in the algorithm that translates the multicellular editor design into the actual in-game multicellular colony shape. The latter now visually matches much better with the design you actually made. Unfortunately, there is still the fundamental problem that your multicellular design is made up of perfect hexagons on a hexagonal grid, while the cells you make can have pretty much any shape and size. So most likely there are always going to be designs that cannot be translated to a real physical shape with good accuracy.
There's also a variety of other changes to start making the Multicellular into a more complete and fun experience. Firstly, the environmental tolerances system now functions for Multicellular species. You can set the tolerance sliders in the tab in the main editor. The effects on tolerances from cell parts are averaged across all cells.
Smaller changes include turning speed being increased for all colonies (which includes Multicellular species) and growth speed being increased in Multicellular. We hope these change make the stage more enjoyable to play. Finally, we felt the transition from a colony at the end of the Microbe stage to a single cell in the Multicellular stage felt odd, so you now start off with a species design made up of 3 of your starting cell type.
Cell Specialisation
One new Multicellular Stage feature of significance is cell specialisation. Now, cells will get a bonus to process speeds based on how much of the cell is made up of just one type of organelle. So the more focused in function a cell is, the more powerful and easier to fuel with ATP it becomes.
The intention here is that you create separate cell types for separate functions and processes that you want to perform in the species as a whole. This is similar to how in real life you see different cell types focused on photosynthesis, storage, movement, etc. This is expected to form the basis for other mechanics in the Multicellular Stage.
Technically this feature is not Multicellular Stage-exclusive, it applies to single-cell microbes as well. But obviously, those have to balance cell specialisation bonuses with needing to fit all the functions you want to have in one cell. The Multicellular Stage then allows you to break this limitation, allowing you to have many different functions while still maximising the cell specialisation bonus. We hope this demonstrates what may be a very real advantage multicellular species have over single-celled species.
New Tolerances GUI
This new UI was first created quite some time ago, but the effort eventually stalled out. Recently, another contributor picked it up, and pulled the feature over the finish line. Not only are the visuals new, but it is also easier to use. In particular, Pressure tolerance is easier to manage, and modifier numbers are clearly shown. You can also clearly see the offset effects on the sliders caused by organelles in your cell(s).
Additional Features
Updated to Godot Engine 4.6
Added an option to change the GUI scale (mostly meant for reducing the scale)
Initial multicellular body plan now consists of 3 cells
Updated biome current settings to have much more varied currents across different patches
Multicellular freebuild now starts with the world oxygenated and the starting patch is on the surface
Fixed realism bug with ATP transferring between the cells of a colony (and in multicellular)
Fixed straight edges appearing in compound clouds
Improved compound cloud performance by adjusting the math
Made balance changes to various patch events
General balancing and other improvements to auto-evo
Multicellular growth rate is now not limited to the same value as in the microbe stage, instead it is multiple times higher like it was supposed to be set originally
A full list of changes is at the end of this post
What’s Next
With this release of Thrive we are moving officially into the Multicellular Stage development as planned. So while our main focus will be to finish the multicellular stage this year, there will still be some Microbe Stage improvements as well when volunteers make them. As the Multicellular Stage uses quite many Microbe Stage mechanics, we think we can finish it this year and many of the improvements for the stage will also help the Microbe Stage. This release was a bit of a gentle easing into the Multicellular stage, but for the next release we plan to get into the features that will make Multicellular feel special.
Join us a bit later today for our developer Thrivestream where we'll celebrate the release on the stream, but also answer the usual question of what's coming in the next releases. You can visit our feedback thread to give your thoughts on this release or comment below.
Implemented tolerances for the multicellular stage
Implemented selecting growth order and the bud cell in the multicellular editor
Added microbe and cell type specialization that grants a bonus for cells that mostly consist of a single organelle type
Made the specialization feature show average specialization in the multicellular editor
Updated to Godot Engine 4.6
Added an option to change the GUI scale (mostly meant for reducing the scale)
Initial multicellular body plan now consists of 3 cells
Marked multicellular as no longer a prototype
Moved the game win condition to the multicellular stage from microbe
Updated biome current settings to have much more varied currents across different patches
Water current strengths have been increased to make the max effect more noticeable
Multicellular freebuild now starts with the world oxygenated and the starting patch is on the surface
Fixed initial microbe tolerances not being always calculated correctly when starting directly in the multicellular stage
Fixed realism bug with ATP transferring between the cells of a colony (and in multicellular)
Created a new cell layout algorithm for multicellular that tries to preserve cell positions more closely
The process panel now shows all processes in a microbe colony
Fixed straight edges appearing in compound clouds
Improved compound cloud performance by adjusting the math
Improved compound cloud performance with world shift coordinate caching
Added big ice snowflakes to the ice shelf
Buffed multicellular and colony rotation speeds
Buffed meteor impact events by adding a rare new bigger size
Made balance changes to various patch events
General balancing and other improvements to auto-evo
Reduced migration sizes in auto-evo
Multicellular growth rate is now not limited to the same value as in the microbe stage, instead it is multiple times higher like it was supposed to be set originally
Enabled organelle unlocks for the multicellular stage
Improved multicellular MP calculation by tracking which type each cell type was split from to allow better changes detection
Added 2 new macroscopic music tracks
Forced any species splitting from the player to pick a new colour before it was only likely to happen or the new colour may have been quite similar
The hover panel now displays other cell's health
Added a tooltip for the run auto-evo during gameplay option as some people misunderstood what it did
Improved auto-evo performance by implementing custom species score key hashes
Improved auto-evo performance by removing useless data caches and improving cache lookup efficiency
Microbe initial compounds now take specific storage capacities into account
Microbe AI in control of colonies, where just other members of the colony can engulf, is able to now use engulfing
Added slight randomness to microbe AI think interval
Made sure AI cells cannot look for mucilage thinking it is useful
The option to show ATP balance without external resources now allows compounds that the cell itself can generate
Added a debug console to the game (default hotkey is F10)
Added a console command to directly load any scene or stage, there's also a command history and a few utility commands
Implemented editor cheats for the multicellular editor
Disabled evolutionary tree rebuild if it is not required to make saves with a long history load much faster
Small GUI tweaks to organelle popup menu and the microbe HUD
Small tweaks to the Thriveopedia GUI and a fix to the side panel collapse animation
Stopped species with 0 focus from always thinking they could fire toxins (even if they had none)
Added a safety check in eject engulfed object to address a bug report but it is unknown what the effect of this is as the original problem is very rare
Fixed not being able to place even a single part when mutation cost difficulty setting was set too high. Now each edit costs always at
st 100 MP.
Fixed not being able to properly control mucocyst state in multicellular colonies with different kinds of cells
Fixed incorrect organelle position calculations for rotated multicellular cells which was able to cause various different errors in the editor
Fixed the save list items continuing to load in the background even after closing the menu. Now they cancel the load once that menu is
osed. This should fix a problem where loading a stage waited for a long time before starting due to the load queue being full.
Fixed vacuole tolerance bonus effect not being calculated correctly
Fixed multiple places in the GUI with too long text in some languages
Fixed incorrect tooltip on temperature symbol in the planet configuration screen
Fixed the cell statistics panel in multicellular editor referring to the organism as a whole
Fixed weird connection lines appearing in multicellular colonies that were spawned fully grown
Fixed auto-evo prediction not predicting any energy gain from miches that were empty originally
Fixed MP calculation error when using symmetry mode and the hover hexes overlapped
Fixed not updating the species details text if the species was visually the same in the evolutionary tree
Fixed loading saves with custom auto-evo configuration
Fixed the heat accumulation bar not being anchored to the bottom right of the game window
Fixed an error in the editor caused by a few operations trying to trigger too early
Fixed population indicator circles not being correctly centered on the patch icons (instead they were in the top left)
Fixed the multicellular editor not updating editor hover positions which was incorrect but didn't cause visible bugs yet with the MP system
Prevented root metaball deletion in macroscopic and fixed a debug check error when deleting many other metaballs
Fixed macroscopic editor allowing deleting an in-use cell type
Fixed changing selected stage in the main menu Thriveopedia triggering an error
Fixed duplicate texture name where they only differed by case
Removed the option to disable the prototypes on new game
Suppressed popup error about missing monitors, which could be caused by configuring the game for a specific monitor and then removing the monitor
Added ignoring for more release mode signal disconnect errors so that they aren't reported as the recent reports have not been useful at all about them
In languages that want to customize percentage format, the percentage symbol is now hidden from the MP bar(as it is pending a bigger improvement to make placement of the percentage symbol more flexible)
Fixed a desync between water current visuals and simulation
Fixed a bug in the direct multicellular stage starter causing an error when trying to use it
Adjusted auto-evo tolerance change debug code to not trigger in situations where perfect adaptation was reduced
Added safety check code for the cheapest possible organelle
Added automatic check against files being added in the future that differ only by case
Improved the hashing algorithm for shape caching to fix conflicts
Improved efficiency of our input manager registration
Updated to .NET 10
Fixed some new code warnings caused by the C# update
Fixed new null propagation warnings in the code
Updated copyright year to 2026 in the code
Updated translations failed check to no longer mention Babel, which was a tool we last used multiple years ago
Fixed our SimpleBarrier implementation
Improved the code for the SimpleBarrier class by increasing its memory padding
Changed our thread short wait for ARM to use a C# command to request that the current thread doesn't eat as much CPU time, though this operation may not be implemented for all CPUs so we likely need to do further changes related to this.
Switched to our SimpleBarrier and re-enabled ThreadLocal data for slight performance optimization
Some code improvements
Improved some code comments and fixed a few problems
Added some missing periods to our README file
Added developer documentation for the console
Updated the visual studio code setup instructions
Updated gdUnit to 6.1.1
Updated System.IO.Hashing from 10.0.1 to 10.0.3
Updated Microsoft.CodeAnalysis.NetAnalyzers from 10.0.101 to 10.0.102
It will be time soon to release 1.0.1, which marks the official start of the multicellular development era. But for now it is time for the customary public test build. Here are some of the things you can expect to see if you give the test build a go: controlling multicellular gro
It will be time soon to release 1.0.1, which marks the official start of the multicellular development era. But for now it is time for the customary public test build. Here are some of the things you can expect to see if you give the test build a go: controlling multicellular growth order, tolerances in multicellular and new GUI for that, various balancing changes and other smaller improvements for the multicellular stage.
To access the beta build, right click Thrive in the Steam client and select the "beta" as the version to play in the properties window.
Please provide any feedback you have on this test build. We are especially interested in hearing about the game feel with the new currents.
Thrive is an open source evolution sim that plans to add many different stages of life with the microbe stage now considered actually ready. Read the full article here:
Thrive is an open source evolution sim that plans to add many different stages of life with the microbe stage now considered actually ready.
Read the full article here: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2025/12/evolution-sim-thrive-hits-the-1-0-release-completing-the-microbe-stage/
Welcome all to this very special devblog celebrating the release of Thrive version 1.0! This release marks the completion of the Microbe Stage, the first stage of the 9 planned. The Microbe stage will continue to be supported with balancing and bug fix updates, and volunteers are
Welcome all to this very special devblog celebrating the release of Thrive version 1.0! This release marks the completion of the Microbe Stage, the first stage of the 9 planned. The Microbe stage will continue to be supported with balancing and bug fix updates, and volunteers are welcome to continue to make contributions to it. But our main development efforts will now focus on our second stage, Multicellular.
In the time since version 0.9.0, we've mainly been focused on fixes, adjustments and balancing to make this release the best it could be. But that still included some more notable features. This includes: new map events to mix up compound amounts, a visualisation of your population on the patch map, a slight re-work of the functioning of the pilus and more of each species' characteristics being taken into account by our auto-evo system. Graphically, a big bug was fixed that made all our release versions less bright than intended, and improvements to the visuals of the terrain chunks.
Read on for more details, or play the new version now.
Reflecting on the Journey
As those who have been with us the longest know, Thrive’s development has gone through cycles of stagnation, highs, lows - and ultimately - grit. For a significant portion of our project’s history, there was uncertainty on whether we would reach this point in the first place.
The earliest times of Thrive’s history are before the time of even most of the current developers, but it was an era where competing visions and ideas met intense manpower limitations. Thrive’s scope grew to an otherworldly size, a wishlist of a game aiming to represent something as wonderful as the endless forms of life.
From this point, development was refined until a more centralized development team was organized. From this first generation of development onwards, the fundamentals of Thrive’s Microbe Stage were hammered out. And after several years and successive development generations, it became obvious that Thrive as a game can genuinely be fun and true to its goal as a scientifically accurate evolution simulator. Numerous eras of development have passed, each with their own contributors, challenges, and successes.
What can be said is that the current development team stands on the shoulders of giants. And that everything is possible only through the support of our beloved community. Without you, the reader, Thrive could have easily fizzled out years ago. And now - through collaboration, community, and the efforts of hundreds of volunteers, working towards an often-times impossibly distant horizon - we welcome a feature-complete Microbe Stage.
Terrain Visual Improvements
The terrain chunks have been given baked-in ambient occlusion maps, which gives them more visual depth. Some chunks have also been made appropriately shiny. For example the chunk of pyrite on the right, also known as fool's gold.
New Events
Several new patch events have been added. Runoff in coastal patches and upwellings in ocean patches increase the the amounts of a selection of compounds. Dilution, on the other hand, reduces the amount of compounds available. This makes the world more dynamic, as compounds you are relying on may suddenly become less common, even as other opportunities suddenly arise.
Additional Features
Overhaul of the MP calculation system, eliminating many bugs and exploits.
Added player population visualization dots on the map.
Auto-evo now considers the usage, collection and production of Ammonia and Phosphate.
Ammonia levels are now dynamic, consumed by life, and produced by species with the right parts.
Thermosynthesis has been re-implemented as producing glucose instead of ATP, making it a much more viable energy source.
Auto-evo now evolves and calculates for many more things, such as different toxin types, turning speed, sprinting speed and health.
Added graphics preset options.
The pilus has been reworked and now deals continuous damage on contact.
Microbe movement speed now impacts how loud the movement sound is for the cell
See the full patch notes at the end of this post.
What’s Next
As said before, this release concludes the main development of the Microbe Stage. Finally, we can look to the future, and are shifting focus to the Multicellular Stage. The good news is that the next Stage makes use of a lot of the same mechanics that the Microbe Stage does. With that, we hope that total development on the Multicellular Stage will only take one year. Which would mean that in about one year, we would be announcing the release of 2.0, and the beginning of development on the Macroscopic Stage. Let's work to make that happen!
A bit different from the usual, our developer Thrivestream will be on Saturday instead of today on the release day. We'll celebrate the release on the stream, but also answer the usual question of what's coming in the next releases. You can visit our feedback thread to give your thoughts on this release or comment below.
Fixed a massive error with the game being much darker than intended. This went unnoticed for a long time as the game looked normal when debugging, but much darker only in a release version.
Made some terrain chunks shiny
Fixed fun screen filter effects not working at all
Fixed microbe background particles never being freed thus they kept stacking infinitely
Fixed major problem with dying on easy mode giving population rather than taking it away
Player species spawn rate now immediately updates instead of only updating after the next editor cycle
The food chain tab is now centered on opening and can be dragged around better
Fixed preview microbe data checks being incorrect, which caused errors in the multicellular editor
Fixed a rare error when trying to generate small worlds that prevented specific seeds from working
Fixed a bug in the logic for making rotating an organelle free, now it should correctly detect organelles rotated in-place and make that free
Fixed population indicator circles using a low resolution texture
Fixed the banana chunks not appearing in the banana biome
Added extra error checking to the feature for continuing as another species on extinction so that it cannot suggest picking the current species again to play as
Fixed error in multicellular on editor exit when cell layout repositioning caused new cell overlaps. This slightly alters all organelle repositioning logic, even for the microbe stage.
Fixed errors triggered in multicellular editor in certain cases when the cell editor was not initialized
Fixed the button in the options menu for showing tutorials in the current playthrough not always updating correctly
Fixed warnings about the extinction box GUI anchors
Background task errors are now forwarded to the GUI unhandled errors popup
Optimized the museum species list refresh to only update deleted or added items instead of all
Tweaked the prototype stage world environments to make sure that they aren't just a single change away from a release mode brightness bug
Made MP amount update after duplicating a cell type in case there was some inconsistency
Adjusted a few comments and tweaked the now unused save upgrader to do some issue clean up
Updated some of our setup instructions related to Visual Studio Code
To prepare for the 1.0.0 (microbe stage completion) release, this is the second of the smaller releases leading up to it. Hopefully this will be a lot more stable than 0.9.1 was, but please keep testing and reporting any issues with this release so that we can fix the remaining p
To prepare for the 1.0.0 (microbe stage completion) release, this is the second of the smaller releases leading up to it. Hopefully this will be a lot more stable than 0.9.1 was, but please keep testing and reporting any issues with this release so that we can fix the remaining problems in time for 1.0. This release is mostly continuing with the fixes that didn't make it into the previous patch. In terms of new features we mostly have just upgrades to auto-evo, which now finally takes multiple new factors into account. Besides that we got a pilus rebalance and improvements to the terrain visuals.
We are less than 2 weeks away now from the full Microbe Stage release so things in Thrive are very exciting right now.
Not totally related to this release, but we got an interview with a Spore developer! You can watch it here:
Added ambient occlusion textures for terrain chunks to improve their visuals
Added suppression for the error popup opening in some non-serious cases
Added graphics preset options
Rebalanced pilus damage and made it deal continuous damage on collision persisting
Pilus damage sound now scales with the amount of damage dealt
Added more collision safety checks everywhere collisions are recorded as 0.9.1.1 only added that safety for pilus collisions
Fixed scene preload errors when moving between the later game prototypes
Fixed GUI jiggle in the evolutionary tree by turning off GUI element snapping. Please report if you notice any text blurriness or other problems after this change.
Fixed multiple NaN auto-evo result problems
Fixed the industrial stage not working due to accidentally left in duplicate pause menu instance
Added turning speed to auto-evo calculations and it can now place cilia
Improved efficiency of auto-evo to offset the cost from new features added to it
Auto-evo now has much better slime jet and sprinting related calculations
Auto-evo now takes binding and signalling agents into account
Auto-evo calculations now take cell max health into account
Fixed a save load error when multiple recently expelled entities were dead already
Fixed environment tolerance sliders just not moving if not enough MP for the desired change. Now the sliders jump as far towards the desired change as there is MP left.
Fixed too long text in the build commit hash being able to break the options menu
Auto-evo prediction in the editor now always waits for the previous run to complete to solve errors on slower computers where a further edit may have been done before the previous calculation finished which lead to an unhandled error
Microbe movement speed now impacts how loud the movement sound is for the cell
Added an option to select on which monitor Thrive is on with it defaulting to auto to keep the old behaviour
Adjustment the map life indicator amount based on species size
Fixed duplicate focus borders around the build date of the game in the settings menu
This is a small bugfix release to address the most pressing problems after the 0.9.1 release, which has been our most unstable version in a long while. This release should hopefully fix the prevalent crashing problem in 0.9.1 that was caused by the new division animation. And thi
This is a small bugfix release to address the most pressing problems after the 0.9.1 release, which has been our most unstable version in a long while. This release should hopefully fix the prevalent crashing problem in 0.9.1 that was caused by the new division animation. And this also addresses many MP calculation related problems that should now make the microbe stage fully playable and the prototypes mostly working (we haven't had enough testing time to fully verify). There's also some balance changes included that we felt were small and important enough to put out now to get more feedback on them.
Patch notes
Fixed microbe division animation trying to apply for detached physics bodies. This is likely the cause of the flood of crash reports we received.
Fixed various cases of the new MP system not working correctly
Fixed the new MP system to work correctly for multiple cell type edits in multicellular and macroscopic
Buffed prokaryotic toxin generation amount
Buffed iron and chemosynthesis
All multicellular species' hex layouts can now be previewed in the tooltips instead of just species that have been edited in the editor
Fixed error on switching patch in the multicellular editor
Fixed auto-evo calculating NaN energy gains for species (when a patch was empty of ammonia)
Fixed cells spinning around when they thought they were taking hydrogen sulfide damage but actually weren't
Fixed cell editor light level trying to apply too soon leading to major editor errors
Fixed MP multiplier difficulty setting not working with the new MP system
Fixed saving in wide locales with certain length strings
Fixed saving not working when there is a cell remove action in the edit history of multicellular
Fixed a case where the pilus collision system may have tried to access a dead entity
Suppressed already connected signal error popup (this is a years old engine bug)
Updated some code dependencies and added some testing helper code
To prepare for the 1.0.0 (microbe stage completion) release, we are making a few smaller releases to get more player feedback on the changes we are making. The biggest changes in this release are that all the reported save loading issues should be fixed now. And the remaining MP
To prepare for the 1.0.0 (microbe stage completion) release, we are making a few smaller releases to get more player feedback on the changes we are making. The biggest changes in this release are that all the reported save loading issues should be fixed now. And the remaining MP calculation system is totally redone, again, which should now result in there not being any MP refund exploits. However, due to the tight release schedule there has not been much testing at all so please continue reporting any MP related problems. There's also of course new gameplay features like new patch events and map visuals as well as multiple auto-evo and balance improvements.
You can share your feedback on the release in the comments below or on our forums here: https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/0-9-1-general-feedback-thread/8756
Patch Notes
Reimplemented the MP calculation system (again)
Added player population visualization dots on the map
Added a few new patch event types that affect compound amounts
Amount of ammonia in patches now dynamically changes based on consumption and production
Switched Thermosynthesis to produce glucose rather than ATP directly
There's a different intro cutscene now when starting with the panspermia starting location
Added a new GUI error popup that opens when the game runs into an unhandled error to make sure players can more accurately report these and not continue playing for a while without realizing which can lead to very strange bug symptoms
Auto-evo can now evolve toxin upgrades and they have an impact on the calculation now
Auto-evo now takes reproduction cost into account
Implemented a simple cell division animation based on physics pushing the new cell out
Buffed hydregonosome by 20% to make it a good upgrade again
Increased auto-evo strength on the player species in all difficulties
Instant kill protection against damage is now a disableable difficulty option
Stopped the player death timer when engulfed if the player has stored toxin as the player might be able to escape thanks to it
Endosymbiosis GUI is now grouped based on whether the species are present in the current patch or not
Added a sound effect for binding mode so that it finally has a unique sound rather than sharing the engulf mode sound
Tweaked the engulfing sound to make it loop better
The pause menu is now a singleton and the Thriveopedia as well to reduce allocations on scene change which might help with the random scene load bug
Made global glaciation trigger slightly earlier
Improved the microbe AI handling of escaping damaging hydrogen sulfide
Partial mod support should be now usable, which had been broken since the Godot 4 upgrade. Harmony using mods don't work on Linux but they should work on Windows now.
Removed inbuilt Harmony mod support as it was not working
Fixed code mod loading not working ever since we switched to Godot 4
Fixed loading saves where there are fired toxins
Fixed fog of war and a few other settings resetting in custom difficulty on loading a save
Fixed a case where sunlight was not properly restored after an event ended
Fixed compound storage durations display not correctly taking special storage space into account
Fixed major bug with auto-evo tolerance changes not actually working at all
Fixed distance checks being mathematically wrong in the terrain system and added sliding terrain around when it doesn't fit to result in much tighter packing being possible
Fixed the no longer eligible for achievements text appearing in freebuild as those games are not eligible anyway
Fixed changing worlds in the auto-evo exploring tool not working correctly for the displayed map
Reduced logging for Steam achievements sync
Fixed some dependency updates in Arch that broke some build tools
Fixed our setup instructions referring to the wrong Godot version
Updated AngleSharp to 1.3.1
Updated gdUnit4 C# package to 5.1.0-rc3
Updated code checking tools version
Updated BenchmarkDotNet from 0.15.5 to 0.15.6
Updated gdUnit4 to 6.0.1 and fixed our microbe hash tests
Updated test SDK version
Updated System.Text.Json from 9.0.9 to 9.0.10
Updated System.IO.Hashing from 9.0.9 to 9.0.10
Updated many other C# dependencies and checking tools
Here is a small patch release to fix the most reported problems after the 0.9.0 release. This fixes multiple saving problems and multiple infinite MP exploits, but there are still some non-optimal MP refund behaviour in this release and probably some more complex edits can still
Here is a small patch release to fix the most reported problems after the 0.9.0 release. This fixes multiple saving problems and multiple infinite MP exploits, but there are still some non-optimal MP refund behaviour in this release and probably some more complex edits can still lead to too large MP refunds. To fully fix the MP calculation system more time is needed than what was available for this quick patch.
Read the previous update for details on the new major features that 0.9.0 added.
Patch Notes
Fixed loading a save where endosymbiosis was started or completed
Fixed 3 reported ways to exploit the microbe editor to get infinite MP
Fixed loading a save made in the multicellular editor where the player had a grown colony before entering the editor
Added a new system where known compatible save versions can be marked and those can be loaded without any warning popup
Giving evolution a little bit more visual flair, Thrive is a scientific open source sim about surviving and growing as a tiny creature. Read the full article here:
Giving evolution a little bit more visual flair, Thrive is a scientific open source sim about surviving and growing as a tiny creature.
Read the full article here: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2025/11/open-source-evolution-sim-thrive-adds-graphics-improvements-and-more-planet-customization/
Welcome all to Thrive 0.9.0! Characterized by improvements to visuals, the environment, and gameplay polish, Thrive has begun its rapid race towards the completion of the Microbe Stage with some significant headway. Read more about these changes in the text below, including detai
Welcome all to Thrive 0.9.0! Characterized by improvements to visuals, the environment, and gameplay polish, Thrive has begun its rapid race towards the completion of the Microbe Stage with some significant headway. Read more about these changes in the text below, including details about terrain, current visual overhauls, metabolism changes, save-system polishing, and more!
Read on for more details, or play the new version now.
A long-awaited feature, procedural terrain is now present in Thrive! With in-game material now expanded beyond compound-emitting chunks, players will now be present with more dynamic and filled environments.
Terrain serves as a way to increase the visual richness of Thrive, as well as a way to break up the monotony of vast microscopic spaces. Players will now have to navigate through immense, unmovable minerals. A variety of minerals and terrain is present dependent on the patch you inhabit; terrain characteristics also vary between patches, with certain patches being more expansive, and other patches being more cagey.
A greater variety of minerals will be included in future updates, as well as greater diversity in the shape of procedural terrain. Terrain will be tweaked to be more clustered instead of isolated. Even now however, we hope that the playerbase will enjoy the much needed diversity in their environments and movement.
Graphics Improvements
Long-time fans might know that graphics programming is a frequent bottleneck for the development team. Long-time fans might also be very happy to know that some rather significant graphical improvements to the Microbe Stage are heading their way!
To start: currents. Currents have received some significant love this update: particle effects associated with currents vary in depth, and a new stream visual has been implemented, creating a much more solid visual effect. Current paths are also now much less jagged and more natural, creating more meandering and smoothed trails instead of the occasionally erratic currents from the prior release cycle. Some smaller tweaks have also been implemented.
Ambient reflection has been strengthened and is dynamic to each patch, creating a subtle color effect on all items within a patch. Chunks, cells, and terrain all look to be within the same environment, as opposed to having a color effect which might not gel well with the patch you inhabit.
It can be difficult to explain the effects of graphics tweaks, but we hope that fans will enjoy the improved visual presentation in 0.9. Overall, Thrive’s environment feels much more like a drop of water in a ginormous ocean as opposed to just being an extremely flat environment.
Even if the more subtle effects might be missed by some, we hope you don’t miss the gigantic rocks!
Metabolism, Balancing, and Gameplay Polish Tweaks
Major overhauls to various metabolisms are included in this update in an effort to better differentiate strategy and playstyles for different parts. The most significant and immediately noticeable change revolves around hydrogen sulfide, which will now damage a cell without a chemosynthesizing part.
Other tweaks also have significant effects. Iron remains a powerful source of ATP, but is burned much more quickly, encouraging proximity to iron chunks and careful planning of trips between stones. Photosynthesizing parts are now denser and slow players down more, reducing the effectiveness of predator-plant builds. Oxygen now builds up more slowly, and aerobic respiration is slightly less powerful, making the transition towards metabolosomes and mitochondria require more planning. And radiotrophy is now much more efficient, allowing it to be a more rewarding metabolic strategy.
Auto-Evo also got some much needed love this update. Notable changes include some special handling of endosymbiont species to ensure they don’t go extinct in the middle of a conversion, and the proper implementation of both chemoreceptors and enzymes into Auto-Evo. As with other parts of the simulation, Auto-Evo will continue to be refined and expanded upon in future updates.
More tweaks have also been made this release cycle. Balancing is a continuous process, so more changes will likely be coming soon. In the meantime however, we would really appreciate feedback on current changes. Players might experience a more difficult Thrive, but hopefully, a more replayable and in-depth experience.
New Saving System
Over the past month, a large amount of manpower went into a saving overhaul. Saving needed to be built up from scratch again this release cycle, which caused our two-week delay and drew some attention away from more visually-distinct features. Thankfully, progress here went well, and our system is in a much more cohesive and polished state.
Saving might not be the most exciting topic, but work here still significantly strengthens the base of Thrive for future releases. Expect an overall better system, at least once we work out the initial bugs, which there might be some left. Besides the saving being much faster, there isn't much visible change, but rest assured that the new system was primarily aimed at making future Thrive development easier. The old saving system was an extremely complex beast due to the way we had to extend the JSON system with customizations and weird overrides everywhere that were extremely hard to tweak if something went wrong. With this new system our programmers should have a much easier time to maintain save compatibility and adding new features that require saving.
As an added bonus: saving now also works in the Multicellular Editor! And autosaving has been enabled for the prototypes that support saving. We hope this makes up for the fact that prior saves won’t work.
Also as part of this change the fossil format was updated to use the new data format.
Additional Features
Planet Statistics Panel has now been implemented during planet customization, as well as greater customization options related to compounds.
Switched to Arch ECS library, which did not improve maximum game performance like hoped, but did improve the game simulation efficiency.
Switched the species fossilisation system over to the new binary save format. This also means that old fossil files are no longer loadable.
Updated to Godot 4.5
Updated the Jolt Physics engine
Made hydrogen sulfide decay speed up with the presence of oxygen
Added a popup asking the player if they want to load a previous auto save if they die too many times in a row
Changed the whole underlying remaining MP calculations system to make sure tolerance sliders no longer get stuck when at 0 MP
Switched the game to default to only showing new tutorials rather than all. The option to replay all tutorials still exists but must be selected now when starting a new game.
A full list of changes is at the end of this post.
What’s Next
As hard as it is to wrap our heads around, the Microbe Stage is nearing feature completion. Though future updates may - and likely, will - include tweaks to the Microbe Stage. Reaching the big version 1.0 means that from that point onwards, the main focus of the team (and our full-time programmer) will be on the Multicellular Stage. It is hard to overstate how monumental reaching this milestone is for Thrive.
Earlier this year, we said that we anticipate 1.0 by the end of this year. Currently, we still feel pretty confident in this goal, and are actively targeting the completion of the Microbe Stage in the last few weeks of 2025. There are still a decent number of items on the roadmap remaining which represent big step ups in different facets of Thrive; however, the majority of work for the rest of Microbe Stage development will be focused on polishing items, as well as tweaks to ensure that our first stage is a really solid base to build the rest of our game on.
The development team has some ideas about potential outreach and community engagement opportunities in the next two months as we approach 1.0 (though manpower is limited, so we won’t promise anything now). Although we have our own efforts, we would still really appreciate it if community members had any suggestions on potential activities. We would also really appreciate any sort of promotion as we finish the Microbe Stage - tell your friends about Thrive, as well as anyone else who might be interested!
Until then: remember to join us for our developer Thrivestream later today, where we’ll cover the changes in this release and answer any questions you might have about the future of development. We'll also answer the usual question of what's coming in the next releases. You can visit our feedback thread or comment below to give your thoughts on this update.
Added microbe terrain. More complex terrain configurations are not yet all made and many patch-specific terrain types are still missing.
Added more planet customization options to the new game settings and a preview of planet stats
Reimplemented saving using a new custom binary format. This makes all previous saves incompatible.
Saving is now possible in the multicellular editor
Added a new currents trail effect in surface patches
Tweaked and improved the water currents
Enabled specular highlights effect for microbe membranes
Added ambient light reflections to game objects
Made balance changes to oxygen and co2 generation
Debuffed iron and oxygen metabolism
Switched to Arch ECS library, which did not improve maximum game performance like hoped, but did improve the game simulation efficiency.
Updated to Godot 4.5
Updated the Jolt Physics engine
Hydrogen sulfide clouds now deal damage to microbes that cannot metabolise them
Made hydrogen sulfide decay speed up with the presence of oxygen
The button to eject engulfed objects now works in a cell colony and in multicellular stage
Added an achievements view to the pause menu
Switched the species fossilisation system over to the new binary save format. This also means that old fossil files are no longer loadable.
Added a new tutorial that tells the player about adding the binding agents to guide them towards the next stage
Adjusted engulfing tutorial to not be able to point to relatively very small targets
Added a popup asking the player if they want to load a previous auto save if they die too many times in a row
Made editor tabs show themselves as a safety fallback if tutorial is not active but the tabs are still hidden. This condition could be triggered when the tutorial was sequence broken.
Changed the whole underlying remaining MP calculations system to make sure tolerance sliders no longer get stuck when at 0 MP
Tolerance edits to separate sliders no longer combine into a single undo step
The temperature miche in auto-evo now penalizes sessility
Added a miche for endosymbiosis target to stay in. This makes endosymbiosis much easier as the target species stays alive.
Auto-evo now has bonus calculations from the chemoreceptor
Fixed auto-evo not using actual available enzymes in digestibility calculations and instead accidentally assuming lysosomes provided all possible enzymes
Improved visual water currents syncing to the simulation
Fast speed mode is now automatically disabled if the available CPU power is not enough to keep up with the fast speed
Switched the game to default to only showing new tutorials rather than all. The option to replay all tutorials still exists but must be selected now when starting a new game.
Changed quick save and auto save limits to 100 (up from 50)
Slow currents pushing a cell now no longer trigger the movement ripple effect
Added a workaround for player becoming extinct due to being removed from the current patch populations due to another bug (that has not not been discovered yet)
Added tolerance values to the species fossilisation dialog
Fixed bug with other behaviour sliders moving when moving multiple different sliders in a row
Fixed the hydrogenosome not being available through endosymbiosis like it should have been configured to be available
Fixed disk cache not using background threads to save like it was supposed to. This hopefully fixes the random lag spikes that persisted a while after they started.
Fixed the checkbox to only show new tutorials not working correctly after a save was loaded (and all tutorials got enabled even when selected not to)
Fixed GUI focus jumping a lot when resolving a key rebinding conflict
Fixed the Yum achievement not triggering for chunks
Fixed ice chunks not playing the dissolve animation
Fixed GDExtension build flags and fixed Mac crashing
Fixed the wrong patch being highlighted in the patch map that is shown on extinction when going extinct in multiple patches in a row
Fixed microbe backgrounds being very dark in OpenGL mode when blur is enabled
Fixed museum species card delete buttons not reacting to mouse hover and fixed duplicate click event when clicking it
Fixed code workaround for shuffling 2 item bags, which shouldn't have a gameplay impact as there was a workaround previously
Added a custom git mergedriver for .po files which should make working on Thrive a bit nicer to automate translation file update conflicts
Updated our import files for Godot 4.5 with automatically added properties
Updated some asset import settings Godot wanted to change automatically
After a bit of a delay, Thrive 0.9.0 is nearing a state it can be released in. Usually we put out a Release Candidate build, however this time the build is being just called a beta, because it is in much rougher shape than usual, but we are putting it out anyway as we don’t want
After a bit of a delay, Thrive 0.9.0 is nearing a state it can be released in. Usually we put out a Release Candidate build, however this time the build is being just called a beta, because it is in much rougher shape than usual, but we are putting it out anyway as we don’t want to delay 0.9.0 further. The most major omission in the build you are likely to notice is that it is not possible to save the game while in the editor. Saving has been only reimplemented for the swimming around portion of the game. Besides the background work the most major visible new feature is the microbe terrain system that adds bit of inert terrain in many patches and the tweaked current particles and some other visuals. There are also major balance changes and new features added to auto-evo.
This build had to be delayed a few weeks due to the saving reimplementation, which took much more time than expected, but hopefully it will be worth it in the long run as it will act as a base as we move development to further stages. And cutting down saving time to just a lag spike should make saving feel at least a bit better.
To access the beta build, you need to select the "beta" version in the Steam client for Thrive. Right click Thrive in your Steam library and then in the properties select "beta" as the version.
Please provide any feedback you have on this test build. We are especially interested in hearing about the new game balance and how auto-evo feels. If you can manage to break saving in the microbe stage, we are very interested to hear how you did that, and if possible the save file you have if the problem occurs during loading, so that we can have saving fully working for the 0.9.0 release.
You can leave feedback below in the comments, or on our forums in this thread: https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/0-9-0-beta-testing/8710
Open source evolution sim Thrive version 0.8.3 brings in some more customization in how you play, along with new additions to the gameplay. Read the full article here:
Open source evolution sim Thrive version 0.8.3 brings in some more customization in how you play, along with new additions to the gameplay.
Read the full article here: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2025/08/open-source-evolution-sim-thrive-adds-planet-customization/
Have you ever wanted to customize an alien planet? Do you yearn for the glory of making a microbial lifeform unlock an achievement? Does reading about balancing force you to the edge of your seat? If you answered yes to any of the above, then look no further: Thrive 0.8.3 is here
Have you ever wanted to customize an alien planet? Do you yearn for the glory of making a microbial lifeform unlock an achievement? Does reading about balancing force you to the edge of your seat? If you answered yes to any of the above, then look no further: Thrive 0.8.3 is here!
Read on for more details, or play the new version now.
Achievement hunters beware: 12 achievements have now been implemented in Thrive, allowing players to measure their progress, strive for unique goals, and overall, hunt for the glory of 100% achievement progression. Massacre cells, pursue exotic metabolic strategies, and compare your progress to other Thrive players!
The achievement system will be expanded upon as Thrive itself expands. The upcoming Multicellular Stage represents a completely new challenge for players to sink their teeth into, and additional playstyles can be covered in the Microbe Stage. Until then, we hope you enjoy the current selection of achievements.
Planet Customization
One of the longstanding ambitions for Thrive has been the implementation of planet customization. Thrive is about evolution on alien worlds after all, and alien worlds can be, well, very alien.
For the first time in Thrive's history, players now have various customization options to alter their home planet. Players can tweak various parameters which can dramatically change their playthrough's procedural map, altering the depth of oceans, dropping temperature to increase the frequency of frozen patches, and altering the behavior and availability of compounds to accentuate certain metabolic strategies. As is so for various other of our grandiose concepts, this is an initial implementation of planet customization features. Further customization options will be available at some point in the future, especially as the world map becomes more complex during the Macroscopic Stages.
We would appreciate any input on the current customization features. Furthermore, we'd love to see some of the whacky planets you create. Share them in our Community Discord, or create an account on our community forums and post there.
Balancing Refinements, Multicellular Expansion
Various balancing changes have been implemented this update. With sped up projectiles and increased damage, players should hopefully find that agent gameplay is more fun, responsive, and threatening when faced with other microbes. The mucocyst has also been refined, requiring more tactical use of the shielding ability to ward off threats. More exotic metabolism strategies, such as radiotrophy and thermosynthesis, have been slightly buffed to increase build diversity. Auto-evo should also be more diverse and robust, allowing players to compete in more resilient ecosystems.
Along with this main game polish, the Multicellular Stage prototype has received some love from wonderful volunteer contributions. Colonial organisms now are visibly linked together via an intercellular matrix, a highly requested feature. The multicellular menu has also been enhanced for information accessibility, with a new tooltip setting and an enhanced preview allowing you to see what your multicellular organism will look like in game. And, much to the joy of hardcore colonialists, cell placement in the prototype is now much more reliable - cells won't dramatically shift from their intended placement. Other balancing changes, such as increasing max zoom out in the Multicellular Stage, will hopefully provide fans of the prototype with more hours of fun in our prototype.
We would really appreciate any input about balancing; game balance constantly shifts across practically every game as features expand and players adopt various strategies, and Thrive is by no means different. We also want to point out that any current features in the Multicellular Prototype are subject to change and refinement.
Additional Features
Added new hydrogenosome organelle
Added a microbe movement ripple effect
Improved auto-evo generation diversity
Made hydrogen sulfide diffuse between patches and buffed events that generate it
Made water currents affect bigger cells more strongly to be able to push them around
Microbe colonies now have passive reproduction enabled for them in the form of gaining free compounds needed for reproduction while part of a colony
There is now a new look to our options menu with checkboxes replaced by toggle buttons and various other tweaks were also made like moving options around
Fixed digestion being stuck at 0 / 0 when the engulfed cell produces resources
A full list of patch notes is at the end of this post.
What’s Next
This Thrive release also coincides with the Thrive Soundtrack being released on Steam. We've decided to put the soundtrack on Steam as a way for fans to support Thrive further. Hopefully many people will enjoy the soundtrack and help future Thrive development that way. Thrive Soundtrack on Steam.
The end of the Microbe Stage roadmap is rapidly approaching. Some features may be dependent on available manpower - terrain generation as an example, currently requiring some much needed art assets and coordination between programmers and artists - and might require some reconsidering on timeline. As a whole, there are less and less entries on the official Thrive roadmap waiting on implementation, and our target of “finishing” the Microbe Stage by the end of 2025.
There are discussions being held by the development team on possible final refinements to the Microbe Stage, some of which are visible in the forums - in these next few months, these discussions will likely ramp up, and any resulting actions from them will take place. In the meantime, we would really appreciate any feedback from the community on the Microbe Stage. How do you feel about it? Where would you like to see some work? What parts of the game do you really like? Are you satisfied with the current state of Microbe Stage?
We would like to reinforce that reaching the end of the Microbe Stage doesn't mean no more work will be done on the Microbe Stage - it just means that our team will officially start focusing on development for the Multicellular Stage. Volunteers, both on the team and external contributors, are free to propose new ideas and submit new pull requests to the Microbe Stage until the end of time.
As always remember to join us for our developer Thrivestream later today, where we’ll cover the changes in this release and answer any questions you might have about the future of development. We'll also answer the usual question of what's coming in the next releases. You can visit our feedback thread or comment below to give your thoughts on this update.
Added simple planet customization options to the new game screen
Added new hydrogenosome organelle
Added a microbe movement ripple effect
Improved auto-evo generation diversity
Made hydrogen sulfide diffuse between patches and buffed events that generate it
Increased max zoom out distance when playing as a large cell colony
Intercellular matrix is now represented in the multicellular stage with visual links
Implemented preview images of multicellular species
The multicellular editor now remembers the exact hex layout between sessions and no longer does a conversion process that sometimes shifted cells around
Implemented tooltips for multicellular cell selection buttons
Added a graphical setting that slightly tilts the camera towards the cursor, which can be enabled in the game settings
Made water currents affect bigger cells more strongly to be able to push them around
Updated the icon for hydrogenase
Tweaked balancing of the easy difficulty preset
Tweaked balancing of toxins
Mucocyst activation now requires 50% stored mucocyst to activate it
Buffed thermosynthesis and radiosynthesis by 20%
Microbe colonies now have passive reproduction enabled for them in the form of gaining free compounds needed for reproduction while part of a colony
Added an in-game list of achievements
There is now a new look to our options menu with checkboxes replaced by toggle buttons and various other tweaks were also made like moving options around
Metabolic stability pressure in auto-evo no longer penalizes sessile species as harshly
Fixed digestion being stuck at 0 / 0 when engulfed cell produces resources
Fixed tolerance tooltips sometimes always showing debuffs when the theoretically perfect tolerances calculation failed due to not taking organelle effects into account
Fixed the glaciation event ending leaving light levels in some cases to be incorrect
Fixed the move to patch button staying active when the patch extinction popup was triggered multiple times in a row
Fixed engulfing in cell colonies using capacity information from the wrong cell
Fixed key rebinding when there were conflicts not working
Fixed queued chunk spawns being able to spawn too close to the player's position
Fixed errors when glaciation ended related to re-applying original patch conditions
Fixed the 2x game speed mode not speeding up the day/night cycle
Fixed a problem with cell type colours not updating by making the colour part of the visual hash for them
Fixed ATP warning staying active in the multicellular editor
Fixed iron meteor event not being able to add iron to a patch that didn't have any iron
Fixed the hydrogenase tooltip claiming that the organelle used hydrogen as an input when in reality the fermentation process results in hydrogen being released
Fixed species preview images not updating when the species mutated
Fixed freebuild species missing tooltips showing what they look like. Note that species that go immediately extinct still don't have tooltips.
Fixed the process panel list being empty if opened initially when the game is paused
Fixed auto-evo being able to place macroscopic organelles in the microbe species
Fixed the timeline tab showing nonsensical glucose reductions if playing a single Thrive playthrough for a very large number of generations
Compound bars in compact mode now use a font with shadow for better visibility of numbers against the bar backgrounds
Improved the handling of scrollbars in the timeline tab with too tall scrollbars being now less likely to appear, but they still do sometimes
Fixed jittery creature movement in the ascension ceremony screen
Fixed editor cancel button focused mode visuals
Fixed organelle names in tooltips not updating when changing the game language
Fixed chemical equation titles not updating on language change
Made signalling agents from colony members available for use even if the primary cell doesn't have them
Save list now has a tag for saves that cheats have been used in
Added a popup message the first time cheats are used in a game
Removed accidentally leftover text in the new game setup screen about passive reproduction
Cell type editor now validates the new type name immediately on entering the name
Made sure species bacteria status is always up to date in the species class
Made the editor tabs disallow swapping between them if there is an in-progress action that needs to be completed first
Improved the direct stage start cell for multicellular
Converted all NodePaths in our code to direct node references that were added with Godot 4. Hopefully this makes long Thrive play sessions a bit more stable.
Updated an outdated command in our setup documentation
Made our game export script to delete the test runner before starting as that caused failures
Tweaked our code checking tools to not report false positives on some Godot scene files
Tweaked our code checking tool ignore list
Updated unit testing framework, including updating gdUnit4
