Hi everyone!
So well, Lifecraft has not been abandoned.
We know that there have been some long periods of silence between updates. Development has been slowed down by the same personal and family circumstances we mentioned in previous posts. These circumstances are still affecting the pace of development, but work on Lifecraft is continuing.
A lot of recent work has happened behind the scenes. Some of it may not immediately look like new game content, but it is building the foundations for several major systems that we have wanted to introduce for a long time.
Most of the work has been done code wise, since the graphics-art part was struggling with life events (hence the delays).
MODDING MAY ARRIVE SOONER THAN EXPECTED
While reorganizing the game’s internal systems, we prepared almost all of the underlying infrastructure required for modding.
There is still work to do before modding is ready for everyone, especially when it comes to documentation, compatibility, save games, and sharing mods. However, the foundation is now much further along than originally planned.
Because of this, we may be able to introduce experimental modding support earlier than expected, initially through the nightly branch.
EXPERIMENTAL MULTIPLAYER
We have also prepared the foundations for basic multiplayer.
This is not intended to be the final multiplayer experience yet, since there are still many questions regarding synchronization, balance, stability, and how multiplayer should properly interact with Lifecraft’s more complex systems.
However, we are considering releasing an early experimental version so players can jump into a game together, build organisms, test the systems, and generally have some fun while we collect feedback.
If we decide to make it available, it will initially be clearly marked as experimental. Expect bugs, limitations and CRASHES.
CIRCULATION & LIVING ORGANISMS
Extracellular circulation and living organisms are still actively in development.
The circulation system will use heart pumps and large vessels to move significant quantities of materials between extracellular zones. This will become increasingly important as organisms grow larger and develop more specialized tissues.
We are also continuing our work on autonomous organisms and cells that can live, move, make decisions, and interact with the world both inside and outside your organism.
These are large, interconnected systems, and much of the infrastructure work described above will also help us develop and expand them more effectively.
A MORE INTERACTIVE TUTORIAL
Lifecraft contains many unusual interactions, and simply presenting players with more text is not enough. We are evaluating a more interactive tutorial that can guide players step by step, react to their current situation, and directly point out the items, structures, controls, and actions required for the next objective.
The goal is to teach the actual production chains and interactions while you play, instead of expecting you to understand everything from a static list of instructions.
New Pathways have also been added, including guides for Pickers, Defence, and Heating ( others are still being worked too)
We want Pathways, the game guide, tooltips, and the new tutorial to eventually work together as a single learning system.
RECAP:
Here's the sum of what's slowly (sorry!) going on.
• Continuing the modding infrastructure and preparing it for experimental testing
• Evaluating an early experimental multiplayer release
• Expanding extracellular circulation
• Continuing development of living organisms and their AI
• Reworking the tutorial into a more interactive experience
• Pathways and in-game documentation update (this is tied to the tutorial)
• Game balance
• Slight UI overhaul
• Music and sfx cleanup
• More DEV TIME from the duo.
• And finally Release the game.
We do not want to promise exact release dates before these systems are stable enough to test, but we wanted to be clear about where development currently stands and what all this behind-the-scenes work is leading toward.
Thank you for your patience, feedback, and continued support during these slower periods. It genuinely means a lot to us.