First of all, huge thank you to everyone who has been testing and giving feedback! This is the first update of the Cellscape Playtest. It addresses some of the issues that have been brought up so far, and introduces a couple of new features for you to play with.
Fixes & Improvements
Fixed bacteria not dividing in Colpoda death nutrient clouds
Added a warning about session loss to in-game quit confirmation popup (there is no saving yet!)
Added "coming soon" to control tab in settings menu to explain why that button is disabled
Fixed confusing tooltip text for run in background toggle
Added Discord buttons to menus for easier access to send feedback/bug reports during testing
New Features
Biofilm Preview
Biofilms are patches of bacteria and slime that can have different effects depending on the type. Some are helpful, and some are hazardous. There are currently 6 types available, each with different effects, and more coming later.
This is still an early preview of the biofilm mechanics, so natural spawning is disabled in the test build.
If you want to play with biofilms, you need to manually spawn them using the number keys.
When you press a number, a patch will appear at your mouse location. Once spawned, biofilm patches will grow and decay naturally over time.
I'll let you experiment to find out what the different types do :)
Tip: Press F to spawn a "cleansing" biofilm which removes and prevents harmful effects.
The biofilm system is not fully finished yet. There are some known issues with it and some features are incomplete, but all feedback and bug reports are welcome.
Notes:
Status indicators for biofilm effects are only placeholders; proper icons are coming later
Biofilms can sometimes cause lag in longer sessions, this is a known issue and I'm looking into it
Spectator Mode
Press H to hide your character from the simulation. You will still be able to move around and explore, but will be invisible and unable to eat or be eaten
Press H again to bring yourself back
You WILL still be affected by biofilms in spectator mode, so be careful if you're playing with biofilms at the same time
I use spectator mode during development to watch creature behaviour without worrying about getting eaten. This is just a testing feature which will be removed in the actual release, but may be added as a game mode in future.
That's all for now. Thanks again for all your help with testing so far, hope you enjoy the new updates!
All the best,
Kate