Hi everyone!
There are a lot of changes in this update, including some new mechanics that fundamentally change how the game works.
Here’s an overview of the biggest changes in this update:
Fungi Added
Fungi first appear on the scene in the form of spores, which germinate and grow when they find the right conditions. Fungal strands are sticky and will slow you down when you pass through them. They also stick to soil clusters and can create large immovable aggregates.
All soil clusters are now breakable by shoving. Destroying soil clusters that are attached to fungal networks will also destroy any attached fungi. The loose fungal strand can float around freely until it gets stuck on more clusters and becomes anchored again.
There are two types of fungi to begin with. The first one is present from the start of the game as randomly scattered loose spores. They can be carried around, and you need to find the right place to “plant” them (Hint: it won’t be available until a few minutes in). Once they germinate and start growing, they digest the material and produce a wave of bacteria that you can eat.
The second fungus will also have loose spores that can be carried and planted, but right now these are spawned randomly along with larger soil clusters when they form, and they start growing right away. This one grows much larger, thicker hyphae, and its stickiness is strong enough to trap and digest Stylonychia.
New Bacteria Spawning
The old bacteria spawners have been replaced with a new system of bacteria nodes. Instead of static clusters randomly producing bacteria all the time, the new nodes produce different bacteria depending on their current state, and only last a while before they decay into another form or disappear.
Biofilm-associated bacteria now spawn from the relevant biofilm patches themselves instead of random spawners.
Food Web Overhaul and Expansion
There are now more different kinds of bacteria and flagellates. Flagellates now have specific food preferences and will starve to death if they can’t find enough of their preferred food.
Along with the new flagellates, there is also a significant improvement to flagellate visuals, including leading flagella that look much more realistic.
Keybindings
You can now adjust the controls to your preferences, for both keyboard/mouse and gamepad. Just go into the controls tab in the settings menu and click on the input you want to change, then press whichever button you want to change it to.
Keyboard movement is still locked to WASD and arrow keys, and those keys can’t be selected for other actions. This may change in future, so please let me know if this is important to you.
Other Changes
Adjusted viruses so they can appear more often, but outbreaks are less intense
Colpoda now grows bigger as it eats, and resets growth on division
Increased Stylonychia size
Adjustments to Halteria’s movement controller to make it a little less crazy
Changed how creatures are kept within game boundary
Added new flagellates and bacteria types
Added new leading flagella to some flagellates, with better line animation
Healer and double growth bacteria now move significantly faster
NPCs can now starve to death, and spawn bacteria when they die
Lowered caps on biofilm growth so they don’t take over so much of the play area
Playtest menu is now accessed from the enter key instead of right click
Spectator mode now also pauses hunger and blocks biofilm effects
Bug Fixes
NPCs should no longer randomly disappear for no apparent reason (this was likely caused by the old boundary system)
Testate amoeba is no longer too scared to come out of the walls
Various performance improvements with creatures and soil systems
Fixed flagellates not spawning on start screen
Fixed score calculation errors
Current known issues:
Bacteria on the poison death screen all move the same direction
Stylos that have been digested by fungi come back as brain dead zombies when they respawn
Some runs may have few or no predators. This is because of changes to the population management system that are still in progress, and will be fixed soon.