Hello everyone, It’s been a while since the last big update and there’s a lot of cool stuff on the horizon. Over the last few months, I’ve been focused heavily on tackling the last remaining hurdles for pinning down a proper early access release date, and while we’re not there just yet, the upcoming patch will feature a few key pieces to solving that puzzle. So let's take a minute to talk about what's coming in the next update.
Discoveries
The upcoming Discovery mechanic requires players to first investigate new objects before they can be otherwise manipulated or used. This system will also ultimately help drive several upcoming mechanics, including player progression, and is designed to both encourage exploration and to foster a more tactile relationship between the player and the world. Now players will first need to take a hard look at new objects before simply stuffing it in their mouths.
Shelters
This one has been on the docket for a long time, and I’m really excited to have a first version ready to show off. Shelters represent hiding spaces in game which can be used to avoid predators, or as a safe place to rest. For the moment, this system is in its simplest state, and allows for animals of any size to hide in any shelter object. But I’ll be building on this system in a number of exciting ways, implementing new shelter types, restricting access based on animal size, and adding some fun utility around identifying hidden animals, avoiding ‘overnight’ risk, and seasonal behaviors such as caching food, hibernating, etc.
Tutorial (Questing)
A HUGE part of this update’s development time has been committed to the development of the upcoming Questing system, which will heavily drive both gameplay and player progression. While the full Questing system isn’t ready quite yet, many of the core components are functional and have been implemented in the form of a new tutorial system!
This new tutorial will hopefully help to better communicate complex gameplay mechanics, and I’ll really be looking to all of you for feedback on how accessible and functional this new content is.
Rebinding
The addition of Key rebinding may be a relatively uninteresting change for some of you, but an absolutely critical tool for others; and something I’ve long been wanting to get into the game. I’m happy to say that the next update will include this important accessibility feature. While this first release of rebinding supports all major mouse-keyboard inputs there is still more work to be done for controller rebindings, as this requires a completely separate interface than mouse-keyboard; mostly for analog inputs, which are all treated as a single grouped input type.
We've just updated the demo with a Christmas hat part!
To get into the holiday season we've added a silly little hat to the demo which offers cold resistance so it's functional as well as stylish!
Enjoy!
Adapt Demo Update Out Now
Patch Notes - 0.49.0a
We’re inching ever closer to Adapt’s early access release, and this update is all about improving quality of life, and beginning to fill out more dynamic ways to interact with other animals, and the world around your species. In addition to new interaction features and behaviors, a number of optimizations have found their way into this patch as well.
Changes
General
Reworked numerous plants and food
New carriable variants of many food items
Major improvements to camera system
Several new plant species
Added on-hit VFX particles
Added basic VFX for Poisoned status
Added basic VFX for Stunned status
Added basic VFX for Bleeding status
Numerous Updates to User Interface
Optimizations to animal generation
Optimizations to terrain generation
Optimizations to food generation + placement
Sleeping now cuts stomach fullness by half
Reduced max animal size to 6 (from 9)
Increased animal size per level
Gameplay
Mood system removed
Weapon selection removed
Major redesign to control scheme
New nest building recipe - Deliver 2 stones
New behavior when attacking carriable objects
Eating incorrect food now still provides nutrition, but also causes illness
Animal groups become temporarily hostile when attacked
Animal groups can be marked / unmarked as enemies
Improvements to visibility when obscured by objects
Improvements to animal family group spawning
Improvements to AI following behaviors
Editor
Restructured numerous attributes
Revised Attribute Categories
Shopping Cart temporarily disabled
Randomize Temporarily disabled
Fixes
(Fixed) Carried and spawned items scaling incorrectly
(Fixed) Some animal interactions becoming stuck
(Fixed) Animal attempting to eat food they can’t reach
(Fixed) Parts sometimes disappearing when bolt adaptations are changed
(Fixed) Part scaling could change based on parent part
November Development Update
Hello everyone! Dan, the community manager for Adapt here!
It's been a minute since our last development update so we thought it was about time to do another to explain what we've been working on! For the main update I'll hand over to solo dev Paul to explain what he's been up to recently.
Development Update
Adapt’s development continues to push forward, with one of the game’s first feature upgrades, and new groundwork for upcoming progression gameplay in the works. I’m very excited to announce that over the last few months, I’ve been putting a lot of time into outlining and prototyping the first major progression mechanics in the game; Requests.
Requests represent the wants and needs of the AI animals around the player, and offer a proactive means of befriending and courting other animals. In this first release, Requests will be limited to edible food for an animal, and random materials such as sticks and rocks, but in the future this system will be expanded to include encounter-based objectives such as deterring a potential threat, rescuing lost young, or building a new nest. As a huge bonus, this new infrastructure has allowed for a new and significantly improved Nest building mechanic, which requires players to collect stones in order to construct a new nest.
Note that these new mechanics are the starting point for critical future progression content, namely, daily quests; which will allow players to complete objectives to unlock new genetics, DNA, and other rewards.
Another major improvement which will be immediately obvious to active testers is a huge streamlining pass on all Attributes and Abilities in the game as well as more improvements to the still-young Status Effect system. It’s my hope that these changes will positively impact player’s understanding of their animal’s strengths and serve as a solid launch-pad for further improvements and additions with upcoming genetics.
A good deal of effort has been placed on some important improvements to vegetation and habitats. So I’ll dive a little deeper into each one separately.
Vegetation: Thanks to the recent introduction of sleep and daily cycles, vegetation now grows, dies, and reproduces when the player sleeps. This has many positive impacts in the background, including greatly reducing the amount of ongoing processing required by plants in the world, removing the distracting ticks of growth for semi-grown plants, and allowing for clear and efficient respawn times for berries, leaves, flowers, etc…
Habitats: Historically, Adapt’s habitat / biome types have been calculated using a combination of humidity (referred to as climate), and temperature, with pretty extreme ranges and overlap between many plant types. In order to streamline this system, as well as provide better scalability, I’ve recently added a 3rd metric, called nutrients, which represents the health and fullness of the soil. This addition has allowed for a drastic simplification of the biome system, which now supports 27 (3x3x3) sub-biomes. With each attribute containing a value from 1 - 3, or low, med, high. This system drastically reduces the number of possible combinations, while still offering plenty of range, with each combination having a much more clearly defined identity; opening the door for more future biome types such as Swamps, Shrublands, Grasslands, etc…
As with any complex game, optimization is an ongoing effort. Included in the upcoming patch, are a number of improvements to world generation which have a positive impact on performance; in addition to some other fun benefits.
What a year!
2023 was a crazy time for Adapt exhibiting at both PAX East in Boston back in March, and Tokyo Game Show this September, as well as digital only events such as a the Earth Appreciation Festival.
This marketing activity has seen the game grow beyond our expectation and we're so thankful for everyone who's taken the time to wishlist Adapt and join our Discord.
Community Creatures
Speaking of the Discord, we've got a channel where people show off the weird and wonderful creatures they've been making and I wanted to share just a couple of my favourites.
First up we have these monstrosities from user "Egg".
Followed by this little cutie from user "Strangest Creature"
And finally this Godzilla-esque creature from user "Turtlecroc_1332"
Thanks for a great Tokyo Game Show!
Hello everyone, Dan here!
Despite being quiet recently we've been hard at work getting the demo updated ahead of a trip to Tokyo Game Show at the end of September, including getting translations up and running for the game and localising into Japanese.
We had some great exposure whilst out at the show on Twitter, for example this tweet was causing lots of people to come and queue to check out the game!
We also got a write up about the game in Famitsu which was very exciting!
Paul is hard at work on the next demo updates and we will be posting more information in a proper development update soon!
Adapt Demo Update Added
Finally your cute/monstrous creations can get some rest - with the addition of the sleep mechanic now in the demo!
This demo patch also coincides with our inclusion in the Cozy & Family Friendly Games Celebration which is live now and will run until June 5th!
Feel free to click the banner above and check out all the great games on offer!
Below you can see the full patch notes for today's demo update:
Patch Notes - 0.48.4a
Changes
Sleep Added!
The ‘Sleep’ action can be accessed via the interaction menu
players will now become tired and need to sleep to remove this status
The Night Vision Ability causes players to become tired at dawn instead of dusk
General
Day Length increased
Nest start panel removed - Now simply select start (Space) to spawn
Improvements to 3rd person camera
Improvements to interaction menu logic / feedback
Increased reach length per point
New leg part
New root food + stick, rock, and bark objects
AI
Improved defense logic to increase likelihood of running from threats
Improved AI threat assessment logic
Improved AI sound processing logic
Fixes
(Fixed) Some issues potentially disrupting key inputs registering correctly
(Fixed) Animals fluctuating between standing upright / on all limbs
(Fixed) Animal posture doesn’t always match in-game vs in-editor
(Fixed) Issue causing sounds to not trigger responses correctly
(Fixed) Animals unable to court group members
Earth Appreciation Festival Livestream
Hey folks!
At 1.15pm BST, I'll be live playing Adapt on the Steam page to celebrate our inclusion in the Earth Appreciation Festival :)
And don't forget to check out the other awesome games taking part in the Earth Appreciation Festival:
Warning: Due to improvements to species data intended to reduce the need for future resets, previous saved animal data is not compatible with the new update.
Description
We’ve returned from Pax East! And we got a lot of great feedback both from watching, and talking with players from the event. The 0.48.2a patch is exclusively focused on integrating the first pass of these changes, which primarily relate to simplicity and ease-of-use.
In the Creature Editor, I’ve refined some of the more recent changes to the part and upgrade shops, to make the system feel more streamlined and simple, but to hopefully retain improvements focused on assisting new players in discovering the potential of upgrading their genetics. In the gameworld, the first set of improvements are focused on the camera system, which was still causing a lot of trouble for players, especially when attempting to interact with objects in very close proximity.
More refinements are coming. With a major upcoming change being the removal of the nest-start mechanic, which is not used anywhere else in the game, requires players to age up to maturity before breeding, and was a source of confusion for many new players. Additionally, I’ll be spending even more time streamlining the species editing process, and am currently planning on improving the cart, buying, and undo-redo systems for improved usability.
The next steps for Adapt have become extremely clear; with my focus doubling down on the upcoming progression features, as easily the #1 request from players was more systems for guidance and direction during play. These systems will ultimately be supported by further enhancements to the interaction system, and the addition of more complex social interactions such as herding and competition for status / mates.
Changes
General
Improvements to Camera system (particularly when looking directly up or down)
New ‘Banish’ Interaction - removes member from family group
Friendly / Ally ai will now approach the player when called
Hemovore intake values reworked (20% per level, +20% per target size)
Reduced visibility of non-edible foods
Increased visibility range for food abilities (ei: Poison)
Minor improvements to Interaction Context Menu
Minor improvements to Mood Wheel UI / mood selection
Editor
Reworked shops / part editor system to reduce # of clicks required to get around
Lifespan Lifecycle Attribute Removed (Animals now have a static lifespan of 5 years).
Removed Player death from old age
Removed some non-useful information form Creature Details panel
Part Rotator tool no longer visible for non-rotation parts
Fixes
(Fixed) Some foods not destroying correctly
(Fixed) Parts attached to bolts would load in incorrect location
(Fixed) AI Reach calculation incorrect
(Fixed) Hot and Cold Status can charge over 100%
(Fixed) Cached food (Berries, eggs, etc…) not inheriting wind from owner
Patch Notes - Hotfix 0.48.1a
Description
This is a general quality of life update for the 0.48a release focused on fixing a few known issues, as well as making some minor improvements which didn’t make it into the initial patch.
Patch Notes
General
Reduced the probability of large creatures spawning
Increased maximum animal size to 9 (from 6)
Adjustments to Terrain Generator
Adjustments to Animal Scaling
Adjustments to food densities
Improvements to Physics bodies
Improvements to Reach calculations
Genetics
Restructured some neck parts
Several minor pricing adjustments
Bugs
(Fixed) Swimming Food spawning on seafloor
(Fixed) Menu button not working in end game screen
(Fixed) Animal summary break when target is despawned
(Fixed) Fish schools show filter food instead of fish
Development Update - March 2023
Hello! It's been a little while since the last game update, but development has been going great and it's time to release a new update to the pre-alpha demo which is available for free right here on Steam!
You will find the full patch notes at the bottom of this post, but we've got some other exciting announcements in the meantime - the biggest of which is we're attending PAX East next week!
PAX East 2023
That's right, Adapt is going on the road - you will be able to find me and the Slug Disco team at Booth 12060 on the show floor, where we will be demoing this new build of the game and getting some valuable feedback from watching everyone play it!
As well as the new build, you will be able to pick up some swag as have some new buttons to be giving away.
The Dream of Spore
I'd just like to take a minute to shoutout Curious Archive on YouTube - they published a video back in January that led to a big spike in our wishlist numbers which was very exciting!
Adapt was mentioned in the section title "Biopsphere Simulation: The Dream of Spore" and you can see it at 11:12 in this video below - I'd recommend giving the full thing a watch though as it's very interesting:
Pre-Alpha Demo Update
As mentioned at the start, ahead of PAX East, I'm releasing a new update to the game demo. This update is primarily focused around some much needed quality of life and stability improvements both in the creature editor and during gameplay. In addition to a complete rework of the editor DNA economy, players now have access to new Beak genetics / parts.
General
New Advanced Interactions Menu to allow for additional player behaviors
Changed some keybindings to make room for Advanced Interactions Menu
Removed Internal Fill component from Health, Stamina, and Stomach Resource bars.
Numerous fixes and Optimizations to world and animal logic
Entire animal group marker set now displays when called
Improvements to relationship levels & Relationship UI Markers
Minor Improvements to camera follow behavior
Increased base stat value to 5 (from 2)
Reduced Stomach and Health scaling from 50% -> 20%
Parts + Genetics
Added new parts
Added leveling system to genetics
Added variable attributes to parts
Reworked Genes and Adaptations / part relationships
New Beak Gene with associated head parts
New Body adaptations added
New Day / Night Vision Attributes
Editor
Editor UI Redesigned
Tutorial window replaced with tooltips
Streamlined Editor Shopping Cart (Purchase Pouch)
Part Rotator support added for parts when centered
AI
Improvements to animal movements and follow AI
Improvements to animal defensive behaviors
Improvements to animal vocal triggers
Added Fear behavior indicator
Share Your Creatures
Thanks to all the people who have shared images of their creatures on the Adapt Discord recently, below are three of my faves from users JustAKhat, Noctis9836 and tpbond!
That's it for now, hopefully I'll see some of you at PAX but if not thanks for reading and keep your eyes peeled for future announcements and updates!
