Good question! Thank you for asking :P.
We’ve been somewhat absent since releasing our
So much that we’re basically turning into workstations ourselves! On top of new features, we’re optimizing,
PLANET GENERATION OPTIMIZATION
Some of the biggest changes reside within the planet generation engine: it’s so much faster now. We reduced loading times and memory usage quite significantly. You’ll likely be very pleased with how it turned out. This allows us to add more objects, have bigger planets, and have more simulation calculations happening at the same time. We also mapped our planet with the road networks and city expansion patterns for future needs. Planet
NUGGET'S ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Oh boy! We’re having so much “fun” working on this. There’s a lot of thinking and a lot of planning involved in this process. Mainly because all Nugget
Our system
Nuggets will also understand if certain buildings need extra support (like Eateries, Farms,
Our goal is to make Nuggets feel alive. We want you to feel like they are truly organic, living beings.
What we’re doing right now is really going to make it easier for us to balance things out in the future. It’s also important to keep in mind that we’re only talking about changes that you’ll see on the
NUGGETS THOUGHTS
While some of our engineers have been busy optimizing and improving things, others have been working on new features such as the Nugget Thoughts system. Nugget Thoughts are pretty much exactly as they sound. We developed a system that will allow you to see what
GENERAL (IDLE) THOUGHTS
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Today’s forecast: no work, no pants.
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No work? Guess I’ll just stand here and look busy.
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How do we ever get things done with two circles for hands?
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It would be really awkward if there was some omnipotent being who could read my thoughts all the time.
- Last night I dreamed that I was a whale. I woke up looking like a beached whale. Sometimes dreams are scarily real.
TREE FELLER
- I really should’ve become a painter…
- The trick is not to become emotionally attached. *Sniff* Goodbye, Bertha.
- Who needs anger management when you can hit things in the face with an
?axe
- To fell a tree you must first become the tree.
STONE MINING
- These vibrations are doing wonders for my arthritis.
- Sometimes I feel like my life is just a sequence of rocks of varying sizes.
- A pile of rocks coming right up.
FERTILITY METER FILLS
- Is it warm in here or is it just me?
- If the hut’s
, don’t comerockin .knockin
- I feel like someone is lacking some Vitamin Me.
WITCH DOCTOR
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If it doesn’t clear up within three days, start making funeral arrangements. Have a good day!
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With all of these sick Nuggets, you’d think I’m not very good at my job.
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An apple a day is starting to put me out of business.
- Tell me, have you considered life insurance? You really should.
NUGGET NEEDS
Nuggets have their own needs, such as Food, Water, Rest, Happiness, and so on. These values are also being revisited by our team, as everything needs to be
NUGGET'S REPRODUCTION
This system is also going through some changes and we would love to talk about it a bit more in the future. We’re still approving some of the mechanics and don’t want to discuss them until we’re satisfied with the direction it’s going in. The challenge we are currently facing is that we want to keep the reproduction speed consistent and still make it feel natural. As the Nugget population grows, it starts to get a little out of hand due to the arithmetical progression (every Nugget pair can have children and the population booms). If you have any great ideas, please share them with us in
TUTORIAL UPDATE
Because we’re adding new content and changing the ones that we already have, certain tutorials have become outdated. We’re revisiting tutorials at the moment as well and making them more dynamic. We are also working on the game’s narration, which we will discuss at a later time.
CAMERA CONTROLS IMPROVEMENTS
We’re happy with how smooth and responsive our camera is, but we’re still experimenting with controls. We collected a lot of feedback and observed a lot of players during our exhibition showcases and it looks like we could do a better job
SEASONS
We just recently improved our season generation engine, making it more accurate and ensuring that it provides you with more information regarding what you can expect in the coming year. We are also making flora on the planet reflect changes in season dynamically. It will make trees change color based on the current season and the local temperature around the tree. Flora on other planets will be dynamic as well. You’ll see planets change in color based on the season on the planet. It’s going to be really cool.
MOUNTAINS
Our current mountains are static objects, meaning they were designed entirely by our 3D artists. We’re moving away from this concept and are planning to invest more time
EVOLUTION TOWERS
You probably learned about these towers in previous updates. This is a highly-demanded feature and we’re working hard to bring it to the game as soon as possible. Evolution Towers will allow you to unlock features in the game and will be the main stimulator of progress in your civilization.
SAVE & LOAD
We definitely know how important this feature is and development in recent months has been highly concentrated around it. In fact, it was one of the features that benefitted best from us cleaning the project. The primary challenge for us is to save a massive amount of data in one all-encompassing game state. We not only have to save thousands and thousands of positions of all the objects on the planet, but also their statistics (in a procedural system). As you know, everything in The Universim is connected: even the most basic objects, like trees, hold dynamic values and understand the exact local temperature. Nugget stats are also connected with other parameters and needs to be saved. Overall, the main challenge is not the implementation of a save and load feature, the main challenge is that we want to make sure we have all of the bits and pieces in place in order to save and load them on demand (and efficiently). The approach we’re taking now is saving us from having to redesign or restructure systems, which will take a ridiculous amount of time, but it’s slightly tricky. However, progress has been excellent, so count on us - save & load is on its way!
ART ASSETS
All buildings- yes, every single one- had to be retouched and redesigned to some extent in order to make them fit into our future plans for city expansion and roads. Each building has to correspond to certain guidelines and rules introduced by our new system. Of course, we also used this opportunity to improve the overall quality of our models: better textures, mesh, and so on. We are also optimizing each building with a LOD system. This system will update the details of our buildings based on the camera’s distance from them. This will increase performance and allow us to have more buildings in
NUGGET GENERATION ENGINE
We’re improving the Nugget generation engine. This is what is responsible for generating visually-distinct Nuggets with different hairstyles, clothing, colors, and shapes. We’re also improving animations and working on new ones. You’ll be able to pick Nuggets up and throw them or put back on the ground gently. Their actions will correspond with yours. Basically, we have better-looking Nuggets and a better system for generating them.
WHY WE'RE STILL IN THE STONE AGE
Man, you guys at Crytivo are the worst! You’ve taken years just to finish the Stone Age,
Well, it’s true, it has taken us quite a long time to implement the Stone Age era. However, it’s important to understand that the Stone Age is not just the first era in the game, it happens to hold a huge portion of all core game mechanics. During this age, we’re implementing all of the simulations that you’ll see throughout the game, connecting everything together, balancing all of the stats, creating AI systems, working on the research and progression aspects, ensuring that these systems are dynamic, and so on. Basically, this is our foundation for building things much faster down the line. This is our main testing platform to ensure we don’t design future eras around a bad system (which can be disastrous and basically require starting over). After we’re done with the core of the game, you’ll see more eras popping up very quickly.
Initially, we planned to release an update on December 1st for the game, but we will probably need a bit more time to get things finished. We hate to keep you all waiting for a new patch and promise to get it into your hands ASAP. We will keep communicating our current status and remain entirely transparent. You are an important part of our world, and we would never abandon you. We have also put a rough roadmap together for you. Please keep in mind that some features might change in the future or their priority can change based on the situation. Also keep in mind that we’re not going into detail here, we’re just summarizing As you can see, there is a lot of work happening behind the scenes and we feel you need to know about that. Your support keeps us motivated and inspires us every day. We always read your feedback and we would love to see a smile on your face when you play The Universim. We want you to care about the fragile world we’re building for you and hope you appreciate all the time and effort we spend on making this world dynamic and alive. Our team is hard at work every day. At times it can be tough, but we love what we do and hope you enjoy it as well. Please leave us your comments below and we wish you all the best for the coming holidays!
STAY AWESOME!
All the best, Crytivo Games