Creatura
Update 0.6 Pre-release is available in Beta branch
If You have access to beta version, simply select "prerelease" branch from BETA tab in Creatura properties (in Steam library) to download the 0.6 pre-release.
EDIT 14.02.19: Second pre-release is now available!
!!! Please backup your saves before downloading 0.6 pre-release !!!
Pre-release as of now (14.02) does NOT contain Crustaceans and Horseshoe crabs!
To see full live-changelog, please check https://goo.gl/4rDfif
Roadmap for Update 0.6
Update 0.6 will bring 4 important changes (alongside many other, obviously):
- Much higher maximum active plant limit, possible thanks to new optimizations.
- Vivarium tab, allowing for much easier tank customization and first implementations of features like temperature or water acidity simulation.
- Full first tier of animals. Crustaceans, slugs and horseshoe crabs will join flatworms and fishes.
- And many fixes to still happening crashes, mostly related to using DNA Editor/Almanac.
Everything above should get implemented with release of 0.6, somewhere in first half of February. Soon after, a 0.61 should follow with first implementations of Steam Cloud, Linux native client and long postponed texture pack support.
No further hotifxes for version 0.53 are planned right now, and as i'm pretty far into 0.6 development, fixes to all crashes reported in last 2 weeks are aimed to get released with 0.6 too.
EDIT: I've issued tonight revision to hotfix crash on startup for people who've used persistant inventory.
Update 0.53
- Balanced animals growth time and lifespan
- Active plants limit can now reach 1000 (from 400)
- Active plants node data limit can now reach 64k (from 20k)
- Fixed game logic, mechanics and animations ties to framerate
- Fixed plants not inheriting direct parent node DNA for subparented nodes
- Optimized game startup time by utilizing discrete pool filling coroutine
Hotfix 0.53a:
- Disabled sounds effects in main menu
- Active decorations limit can now reach 100 (from 50)
- Objects traversed by animals limit can now reach 1000 (from 500)
- Fixed context menu not disappearing when selected node is eaten by animal
- Fixed almanac not generating proper dropdown menus for animals
- Fixed crashes when plants would exceed complexity of 720 nodes
- Fixed plants not resetting mortality flag after loading game
- Fixed sound and music interfering and glitching out
Compatibility Support for Older GPUs (DirectX 10/OpenGL 4.3) Implemented - Creatura 0.52g, Rev. 4
Support for those and DirectX 10 GPUs is now implemented. Creatura should now run fine on legacy graphic cards (Like GeForce GT 330M), with couple of visual features disabled and some calculations moved to CPU due to lack of Compute Shaders support on those older platforms.
Other players can now select in Graphics option whether they want to enable plant ground imprints and tank side reflections. Disabling those can give a minor performance boost on lower end machines.
Steam Survey shows around 5% of userbase still using DirectX 10 cards. Playerbase for DirectX 9 cards is below 1%, and Creatura will not support those Windows XP era GPUs. While technically possible, the performance losses from using older DirectX9 API would probably make the game barely playable.
Sorry for everyone who bought the game with older GPU and had to wait for compatibility. On the bright side - the latest version (0.52g Rev. 4) looks finally pretty stable, with very moderate amount of problems reported, so it's probably best time so far to get into Creatura!
0.52f Save Wipe
In future version i'll implement an option to try and convert old save to current version, but since the last release was still pretty unstable, i've preferred to just quickly release the fixes. Hope they'll work, sorry again!
Creatura official Discord server
Also, we're slowly drifting into stable version territory, the couple of last hotfixes should more or less close out the 0.52 version, hopefully. If You are interested to see what's coming up in 0.53 and later, check our official changelog document at https://goo.gl/4rDfif
Update 0.52
- Implemented algae and grass type plants
- Implemented research experience and leveling system
- Plants with hollow tissue are now enabled
- Animals family list can be now ordered by drag & drop
- Animals can be now selected to create new active families
- Algae mutates now into grass if it’s not growing underwater
- Algae spawns now randomly, and when no other algae is growing
- Plants spawn now from algae when there are no other growing plants
- Plants can now mutate tissue type (softwood/hardwood) only on leaf nodes
- Animals spawn now with different possible material overlay (skin/scales/fur)
- DNA sequencing duration and completeness is now research level dependent
- DNA appliance tools have now different properties and are research level dependent
- Fixed crash when opening research tab without any specimen selected
- Fixed sponges and eucariotas not saving/loading in research atlas
- Optimized object pooling by utilizing pool states queues
- Optimized memory allocations by pooling plant material arrays
- Optimized memory allocations by caching time returning methods
- Optimized memory allocations by pooling plant spawner operator arrays
- Improved framerate by generating plant colliders only on demand
- Improved responsivity by decreasing default resolution of grass imprints
- Refactored plants collision data and methods to use local space coordinates
- Refactored plant caching to something hopefully making more sense
- Refactored cursor states into discrete method
Hotfix 0.52a:
- Fixed tasks and dialogues counter not resetting when generating new tanks
- Fixed plant colliders not working properly when cutting from context menu
- Fixed plant colliders not generating without mouse-in/mouse-out
- Fixed reshaping ground while holding shift not working
Hotfix 0.52b:
- Implemented exceptions/crash handler and automated bug reporting
- Fixed sponges keeping highlighted state after cursor hovers out
- Fixed crash when highlighted plant changed material count
- Fixed animal families living in already occupied safespot
- Fixed tutorial tasks toggle option not working
- Fixed cellular species generation in almanac
Hotfix 0.52c:
- Enabled Steamworks
- Fixed crash when decaying animal without family searched for home
- Fixed plant spawner int/bool pools not depooling for childless plants
- Fixed plant cuttings floating around after animals start eating them
- Fixed global inventory slots not generating plant meshes on load
- Fixed crash when saving plant growing from unloaded decoration
- Fixed sponges not resetting their position after being dropped
- Fixed dropped consumables not being possible to grab again
- Fixed crash when plant cutting collider has no game object
- Fixed crash on storing items in last global inventory slot
- Fixed issues with moving growing plants
Hotfix 0.52d:
- Sponges can’t be now kept in inventory
- Fixed crash when trying to move plant without matching collider
- Fixed crash when handling plant cuttings while animals eat
- Fixed handling plant cuttings and animals in Research tab
- Fixed crash when handled sponge lost highlighted state
- Fixed animals not storing almanac species ID
Hotfix 0.52e:
- GPU name is now reported on crash to resolve compatibility issues
- Fixed crash when using already open context menu after handling new object
- Fixed crashes when flower/fruit animator did not get unloaded on depooling
- Fixed selecting always first animal in family when clicking on live animal
- Fixed sponges retaining original planting position after colony dies off
- Fixed crash when generating new tank after setting up DNA markers
- Fixed crash when setting up DNA markers after generating new tank
- Fixed plant cache ID mismanagement resulting in various crashes
- Fixed animals sharing found objects list while pathfinding
- Fixed crash when using consumable with one use left
- Fixed crashes when cutting grown plants
- Refactored grabbing and dropping objects into discrete methods
- Refactored growing plant caching to singleton method
Hotfix 0.52f:
- Implemented new default plant templates
- Ordovician spawn live complexity is now enabled
- Saved states from previous versions have been wiped
- Plants can no longer grow on decorations, unless they are algae/grasses
- Fixed crash when plant targeted by animal for food changed cache state
- Fixed various crashes related to plant caching and cache management
- Fixed decorations not resetting home status on animal family death
- Fixed reflections in main menu not generating on camera transition
- Fixed possibility of applying DNA change without active specimen
- Fixed crash when resizing decorations using context menu
- Fixed low framerate when animal died with enabled overlay
- Fixed order of handling plants when using context menu
- Fixed animal UID assigning by using discrete method
Hotfix 0.52g:
- Implemented legacy compatibility support for DirectX 10 and OpenGL 4.3 GPUs
- Side reflections can be now toggled from graphics menu options
- Plant imprints on ground can be now toggled from graphics menu options
- Fixed crash when generating new tank with active plant cutting in research tab
- Fixed crash when loading game state with non-consecutive animal family IDs
- Fixed crash when clicking on decoration after handling consumables
- Fixed crash on startup for platforms not supporting compute shaders
- Fixed crash when loading game state while/after using research tab
- Fixed plant cache mismanagement causing multiple crashes
- Fixed crashes related to animal handling in research tab
Update 0.51
- Flatworms use now updated model
- Animals can be now selected by clicking on them
- Animals can be now edited in developer DNA editor
- Animals species are now discoverable in research atlas
- Animals DNA can be now edited in research DNA editor
- Decorations can be now rotated in shop preview window
- Active specimens in research tab slot can be now rotated
- Active animals list shows now icon if family has no available homespot
- Fixed animals not using any animations
- Fixed sponges not reflecting in tank sides
- Fixed plants mutating non existent node types
- Fixed animals always spawning in center of tank
- Fixed thumbnail renderer overwriting handled object layer
- Fixed animals not falling to ground when dead and decaying
- Fixed animals navigating to parts of plants that stick out of water
- Fixed animals freezing in place if underwater home position is not underwater
- Fixed animals navigable terrain not updating topology after changing water level
- Fixed animals getting stuck due to terrain pathing/mesh colliders Y-axis differences
- Fixed decorations showing up covered in moss when held after buying them in store
- Fixed plant cuttings not displaying top tapered part of nodes and node cuttings after cut
- Fixed plant cuttings DNA not matching the cut node DNA when animals were feeding
- Fixed research tab active plant cutting repooling when new tank is generated
- Refactored animal family data structures into discrete serializable class
- Refactored thumbnails renderer
- Engine updated to Unity 2018.2
Update 0.5
- Implemented GCAT DNA editor
- Implemented research discovery system
- Research tab has been added
- Flatworms can now evolve into fishes
- Animals mutations are now environment dependent
- Animals can now spawn in up to 8 different families
- Animals search now for new homespot if old is unreachable
- Animals eat now all parts of the plant, not only leafs and fruits
- Plant cuttings left in Research tab slot are now stored in save file
- Plants species can be now discovered and browsed in research tab
- Plants are now categorized and belong to one of 8 orders and 23 families
- Main menu animates now through default/last played tank in background
- Animals family homespot is now highlighted by hovering family on animal list
- Consumable to prevent selected animal families from reproducing added
- Fixed animals home positions saving
- Fixed animals colliding with held objects
- Fixed plants animating when time is stopped
- Fixed visual issues with single node multiplier plants
- Fixed time resuming always to 1x speed after shifting ground
- Fixed plant cuttings immediately disappearing after taking a cut
- Fixed sponges sometimes spawning heir in wrong position after loading game
- Optimized interface by decreasing draw calls/object count per canvas
- Optimized plants mesh combining coroutine timings between frames
- Refactored all DNA editing functions and variables into discrete controller
Alpha Keys Prune & Update 0.5
To our great surprise, the removed part was minority of claimed Creatura activations, and almost 60% of You have helped in some way by reporting bugs or giving other feedback. Thank You very, very much, we hope that special, Early Adopter version You'll keep, will be worth the time spent in early alpha Creatura releases!
As You might have noticed, the gap between version 0.46 and 0.5 is much longer than between earlier updates. This is mostly due to two huge new features in Creatura, GCAT DNA editor and specie discovery system, but also due to change in way we'll deliver updates from now on, focusing on big feature blocks followed with bugfixes and content updates, instead of small, and almost weekly incremental releases.
This time the big features are, as mentioned earlier, GCAT DNA editor, based on actual, state-of-the-art real life gene editing software, and a very robust and easy to use specie discovery system. While the later doesn't require any knowledge and just adds some flavor (and XP points), the DNA editor will test your aminoacids knowledge and general understanding of genome sequencing and editing process. We are serious, You'll need Wikipedia, gene editing is powerfull, but not easy.
Oh, and the natural selection is now enabled, there are reports of some new fancy finned flatworms swiming around. One would call it very fishy indeed...