The Sapling cover
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Linux PC Steam
Genre: Simulator

The Sapling

Patch v12.34

Fixing bugs that show up in long running simulations




  • Fixed a gamebreaking problem that could emerge with hormone instincts after an animal lost a hormone
  • Fixed a save file corrupting problem related to saving instincts and diets for the non-default sex
  • Removed various log messages slowing down the simulation when sped up


Balancing plant evolution from algae




  • Areas automatically get their nutrients filled up by nearby water, so in these areas plants can evolve without the need for fungi
  • Added more random variation to the 'starter plant' that evolves from algae
  • Fixed a problem where the shown statistics of the stilt (mangrove) roots didn't match its statistics in the simulation, leading to plants not growing in 'high moisture, max softness' areas


Fixes for the daily challenge




  • The daily challenge now uses a less extreme variant of the planet generator, to prevent planets that are too hot or windy for starter organisms
  • Medium moisture is now the default planet setting (instead of maximum)
  • Fixed seed selection mechanic, so it should no longer be possible to get the exact same daily challenge two days in a row
  • Fixed bugs that caused the daily challenge to not always lock for the day after trying
  • Fixed 'animals that change sex during lifetime' objective not registering
  • Time is now paused until you click 'let's go'


Various changes to the animal editor




  • Sleep pattern buttons are now greyed out for the smallest body size, because their lifespans are so short that they will die before they get tired
  • Dropped support for multiplacement mode (CTRL)


Performance optimization




  • Hearts to indicate mating now only appear when the animal is somewhat close to the camera
  • Zzz to indicate sleeping now only appear when the animal is close to the camera
  • Merged all colored spheres for the flypaper trap into 1 object, so they no longer have a measurable impact on performance (fewer draw calls)


Other changes




  • Fixed a bug where opening the detail view for multiple species in quick succession caused their names to be mixed up


I often forget to read comments below release notes, so if you have questions or bug reports, feel free to reach out via the Steam forums or thesaplinggame@gmail.com.

Patch v12.32

Changed all scenarios to work with the new mechanics in the Scary & Sexy update




  • Decreased moisture in 'beach', 'disaster' and 'flower' scenarios, to better reflect what primitive leaves can handle
  • Changed the milestones of the 'first animal' scenario, as sight is now required to eat
  • Fixed instincts based on sights actually activating
  • Made temperature rise in 'greenhouse' scenario less extreme, because evolving heat losing body parts has become harder
  • Changed the helper notification in the 'greenhouse' scenario to focus on skin and eggs (instead of body parts) to beat the heat
  • Fixed plants with various seed types not triggering the final 'flower' scenario objective
  • Finally removed 'ice age' scenario
  • Added icon for 'swamp' scenario


Further tweaks to the scenarios




  • Made the sea in the 'first animal' scenario deeper, so you can use the just introduced plankton in a larger area
  • Hovering an organism over terrain where nothing is allowed (for example, because it outside the play area) will no longer show terrain stats
  • You can no longer place organisms outside the play area
  • Made scenario clouds less bright, so the bloom effect (to highlight bioluminescence) in the evening is less extreme
  • The clouds in the greenhouse scenario are now a little higher, so they don't block the view of the plants
  • Made pollination occur also if the nectar eaters choose to eat other food (making the 'flower' level way easier)
  • Made 'completionist' achievement more dynamic, so it does not matter how many scenarios I add or delete


Tweaking mouth part stats




  • Revised the mouth part evolution tree so you can see some air breathing mouths without using the arrow buttons
  • The 'attractive mandibles' now evolve from the 'larger mandibles'
  • Made the 'nectar feeder' and 'nectar feeder with external parts' much better at extracting energy from nectar
  • Decreased the hitbox size for the 'semi aquatic plant eater'


Other fixes




  • Various fixes to remove incorrect family tree lines in the plant and animal editors
  • Eggs that are not the default land/water hybrid eggs now also have hover labels telling you what species is inside (instead of FPS eating errors in the log file)
  • Fixed the archive button
  • Made sure the leave buttons (to main menu or desktop) continue to work, even if the autosave right before it fails


I often forget to read comments below release notes, so if you have questions or bug reports, feel free to reach out via the Steam forums or thesaplinggame@gmail.com.

Patch v12.31

Save file format 10



Loading save file version 9 is still supported, but if you click 'save' now the game will also remember:


  • The secondary color of juvenile stages and other sexes
  • Traits specific to juvenile stages and other sexes
  • Instinct and diet options specific to juvenile stage and other sexes
  • The birth locations of species
  • In the species detail view, not only which species your species is eating, but also in the form of what food type (eggs? fresh meat? etc)
  • Fungus organism caps
  • Fungus mutation chance
  • Energy collected by living plants and animals (to increase the chance they live through the night)


Fixes and changes related to saving and loading




  • Fixed a problem where plants died after saving and loading: the game incorrectly thought all plants were in an environment too wet and without nutrients
  • Added an autosave when exiting the game
  • Removed needless logging from the save/load process, making it much faster
  • In the savegame list view, sandbox saves now show the sandbox icon
  • You can now save scenarios before completing the first objective without the game crashing
  • When loading a scenario, night cycle periods are now set correclty
  • When loading a scenario, allowed alga and plant colors are now set correctly
  • Fixed a crash when exterminating populous species immediately after loading a save
  • Added save file versioning explanation to the load view


Working on the daily challenge




  • There is now a main objective view before you start, including an explanation you get only 1 attempt
  • Starting the daily challenge now only 'counts' AFTER you click 'let's go' in this new objective view
  • Added events like meteorites to the objective description
  • Fixed time stopping bug when the meteorite hits the world
  • Removed options to the retry from an autosave (which didn't exist anyway) if you fail


Tweaking the manual mutation mechanics and UI




  • Removed the option to mutate organisms that didn't reproduce yet (but just survived long enough) because this messed with the species counts... I think it contributed to the negative population size problem
  • Removed 'mutate' from the dropdown menus in the sandbox, as mutating doesn't make sense in this game mode
  • Removed the 'mutate' button from the organism detail views
  • Added a mutate icon to the species detail view, but only when mutating is possible (so not in the sandbox)


Fixes for the juvenile stage in the animal editor




  • Fixed bodypart hitbox sizes for juveniles
  • Fixed a crash that sometimes happened when resizing body parts of a juvenile animal


Mouth statistics balancing




  • Added grass and fresh meat energy for 'semi aquatic plant eater'



I often forget to read comments below release notes, so if you have questions or bug reports, feel free to reach out via the Steam forums or thesaplinggame@gmail.com.

Patch v12.30

New food types




  • Added grass as a separate food source, so not all plant eaters automatically become grass eaters
  • Added marine snow as a separate food source, so not all filter feeders automatically become deep sea animals


Work on the diet UI




  • Added fungi, grass and marine snow
  • Prey can now also be excluded/focused for their secondary color
  • Prey can now also be excluded/focused for their skin pattern
  • Fungi can now be excluded from a diet
  • Added animal specific color vision bars
  • Polished positioning of color bars


Other food related fixes




  • Eaten plankton statistics are now shown correctly on the species detail view
  • Eaten grass statistics are now shown correctly on the species detail view


Changes to mouth statistics




  • Add fruit and sap food types to 'generalist with external parts'
  • Added fruit to 'primitive air breather'
  • Added fruit to 'trunk'
  • Added grass to 'spike resistant plant eater'
  • Added grass to 'temperature regulating plant eater'
  • Added fungi to 'tusked generalist'
  • Added fruit to 'pointy teeth'
  • Added marine snow to 'filter feeder with external parts'
  • Added marine snow to 'deep sea meat eater'
  • Added marine snow to 'marine snow feeder'


Fixes for body part positions




  • Further polishing of body part positions in subslots
  • The body part 'attractive tuft of hair' no longer disconnects from the body when you scale it up


Worked on random mutation behavior




  • Revised the random mutations system for instincts, so it can handle all new instinct extensions
  • Added new diet options to random mutation system
  • Added hormone mutation
  • Incorporated all new skin patterns
  • Fixed various statistics that were not correctly changed when a bodypart is upgraded or downgraded


Fixes for the grass visualization




  • Grass in the species detail view no longer looks like a single blade
  • Added way more blades to the Linux grass shader


Other fixes




  • The random mutation chance view now scales with the screen size (and is no longer controlled by the GUI scale setting)


I often forget to read comments below release notes, so if you have questions or bug reports, feel free to reach out via the Steam forums or thesaplinggame@gmail.com.

Patch v12.29

Fixing instinct UI




  • The color pickers now show the colors as the animal sees them, unless you are hovering a handle
  • Made sure all dropdown panels are always visible and not out of screen
  • Improved hitboxes of all dropdown panels, so you don't accidentally hover a button under a dropdown panel
  • When selecting something (like an action), the dropdown panel will not immediately close anymore, so you can also set further parameters
  • Fixed white circles (slot indicators) showing through the diet and hormone views
  • Removed the glitchy white circle for the compact instinct view (in the organism and species detail view)
  • Only show the 'display' option if the animal actually has something to display (that is, bodyparts that have a 'folded' state)
  • Polished positioning of the color pickers
  • The lower part of the range indicators in the color pickers now also shows being hovered
  • Added labels to the 'see alga', 'see plant' and 'see animal' instinct condition parameters
  • Fixed the skin pattern buttons disappearing and incorrectly showing whether selected or not


Fixing hormone UI




  • Fixed a problem where various buttons stopped responding if you used the 'ready' button in the hormone list
  • When removing hormones, also remove all instincts that reference it
  • You can no longer click 'feel a hormone' if the animal has no hormones


All animal traits can now be different for different sexes (not saved yet!)




  • Different sexes can how have different instincts
  • All sexes will share their hormones, but can have different hormone behavior (starting and change per day)
  • Different sexes can now have different diets
  • Different sexes can now have different nesting behaviors
  • Different sexes can now have different egg laying behaviors
  • Different sexes can now have different poison/venom statistics


Worked on animal sounds




  • Added new sound effects to ballistic tongue mouth
  • Removed default sound from various mouths that were not supposed to make sound


Other fixes




  • The random mutation chance view now scales with the screen size (and is no longer controlled by the GUI scale setting)
  • Fixed problem where creating a fungus directly after an alga lead to putting the alga in the world again (instead of the fungus)


I often forget to read comments below release notes, so if you have questions or bug reports, feel free to reach out via the Steam forums or thesaplinggame@gmail.com.

Patch v12.28

Added a map to the special detail view




  • Added current locations of organisms
  • Added origin (birth) location of species (not saved yet)


Animal editor improvements




  • Shells can now only be placed on top of an animal, and always face the right way
  • Added a 0.5 second cooldown after placing body parts, which prevents that the 'quick flicker' if a bodypart modifies the torso shape


Fixes to the save/load system




  • Fixed the save action failing if there was an animal in the deep sea
  • Fixed mixing up fungus species after saving and loading
  • Fixed super old age of fungi after saving and loading


Fixes related to ocean depth




  • Places where an animal can survive, but only in the deep sea, will now be orange
  • The text indicating whether the animal will survive will change color to indicate importance (orange if the animal can only survive in the deep sea, yellow if the eggs won't survive)
  • The ocean current speed will now be correctly recalculated if you lower the ocean height and then raise it again
  • Fixed the color of the fastest ocean current speed in the information view (was pitch black)


Fixing and balancing organism statistics




  • A juvenile animal no longer copies its statistics from the parent; it might be completely different after all
  • Fixed current resistance of 6 dots (max should be 5)
  • Added attack to electric tail
  • A plant's temperature range is now infinite if it sheds its leaves and flowers before they freeze/burn
  • The trunk mouth now gets a lot more energy from eating soft plant tissue (reason: it has less time to eat now animals sleep at night)


Other fixes




  • Fixed plant branches not being available in the daily challenge


I often forget to read comments below release notes, so if you have questions or bug reports, feel free to reach out via the Steam forums or thesaplinggame@gmail.com.

Patch v12.27

Work on juveniles (young life stage)



  • Added neotony, a special mutation where the adult stage takes on the characteristics of the juvenile stage
  • Added a 25% chance that some mutations are only applied to juveniles
  • Babies that have a different sex than their parent will no longer copy their statistics from the parent
  • It's now possible that only the juveniles (and not the adults) have a shell or vice versa
  • Fixed a bug where manually changing the juvenile stage color also changed the adult stage color


Work on the sex system



  • When adding a new sex, its offspring sex distribution is divided over all available sexes by default
  • When removing a sex, any references to it in the offspring sex distribution of other sexes are automatically removed
  • When adding sex B for the first time, sex A will already have its distribution set to 50% sex A, 50% sex B by default.
  • Added a deathcause type for when organisms died of old age, but without reproducing
  • Individuals that can only reproduce sexually will no longer reproduce asexually
  • To make obligate sexual reproduction feasible, make it possible to mate (and store sperm) already before being ready to give birth
  • Fixed a glitch that occurred when two sexes of the same species had different limbs
  • Fixed sex distribution chances: you no longer only see the first two sexes
  • Fixed a bug where the game showed the animal model of the wrong sex for children of manually placed animals


Working on the mutation system



  • Added mutation of the secondary color
  • All traits in the mating tab now also mutate at random
  • Body parts will now also mutated for the non-default sex (sex B-F)
  • Bodyparts that have been upgraded or downgraded will now have the correct values for new statistics like attractiveness, defense, etc.
  • Sexes can now also be added and removed at random
  • Limited the enormous list of useless instincts after running random mutations for a while
  • Fixed a crash when the mutation system was touching diet
  • Fixed a crash when the main sex lost a torso part while another sex still had body parts there
  • Fixed a crash when mutating an animal with 6 sexes


Fixed problems related to species classification



  • Species taken from the archive no longer get a new random name, but keep the name they had in the archive
  • Widely different sexes of one species will no longer be classified as separate species
  • Evolving a new sex is now a reason to be classified as a separate species
  • When creating a new animal classified to be part of an existing species (because it is so similar), that species' statistics will now be updated to match the ones of the more recent creation


Work on body parts



  • Changed the default secondary color to something brighter, so bioluminescence in various bodyparts is visible without tweaking sliders
  • The primitive stigma pollination organ can handle higher temperatures
  • Fixed glitch with illegal fruit shapes in the plant editor
  • Added support for comments in the statistics YAML files


Misc



  • The plant cell requirements panel now also uses the new nutrients icon
  • Fixed accidentally going into the organism detail view (zooming into a plant, for example) when trying to place fungi


I often forget to read comments below release notes, so if you have questions or bug reports, feel free to reach out via the Steam forums or thesaplinggame@gmail.com.

Patch v12.25

Work on the species detail view:
* It now support renaming species <- common request!
* It now supports fungi!
* The options buttons no longer block the family tab
* Fixed a bug where the statistic dots were the wrong color

Implemented spore distribution methods (wind, animal touch, raindrops) for fungi:
* Fungi dependent on animal touch will no longer spread to areas without animals
* Fungi dependent on raindrops will no longer spread to areas without moisture
* Fungi that depend on wind and are close to the ground will no longer spread to new areas, so always have an expected offspring count of 1
* Fixed the game glitching when fungi had a 'spore travel distance' of 0
* Fungi that are not dependent on wind, will now always travel a minimum distance of 2

Fixes relating to editing and mutating organisms:
* When mutating a fungus, the correct buttons are now preselected
* Various fixes to fungus organism counts, so the game knows when the player is allowed to mutate
* When not in the sandbox mode, non available options in the fungus editor are now locked
* The correct sleep patterns and egg types are selected now when you edit or mutate an animal
* The correct egg types and skin types are unlocked now when you mutate an animal
* It no longer shows two locks on the land carapaces
* You can no longer unlock body parts by going to the juvenile stage and back

Finalized rough version of body part stats:
* Implemented defense for shells
* Filled out everything for attractive body parts
* Improvements to eye statistics, as suggested by Did/ULTRANEON
* Removed incorrect carnivory from the 'proto petal' flower (https://the-sapling-encyclopedia.fandom.com/wiki/Bud_Flower)

Improvements for the organism builders:
* Improved positioning of fungus caps when there is no stipe (stem)
* Improved positioning of animal bodyparts that are not in the center subslot

Fixes to the editors:
* Fixes rotating with arrow keys for plant and animal editors
* Added rotating with arrow keys for alga en fungus editors
* Sliders that can be disabled are no longer whited out when enabled
* You can no longer invert day/night/twilight indicators in the day night period slider in the planet editor

Designed new icons:
* Added a button for the merch web shop in the main menu
* Added a new 'nutrients' icon to the soil stat dropdown

Fixed bugs in the world view:
* Fixed a crash when adding animals from the archive in the daily challenge
* Fixed the game crashing when there was seagrass along the edge of the map
* Fixed a missing material to pipe leaves (shown a bright pink) when placed in the world

I often forget to read comments below release notes, so if you have questions or bug reports, feel free to reach out via the Steam forums or thesaplinggame@gmail.com.

Patch v12.24

The editor camera is no longer extremely slow at low quality settings! Low camera settings often caused high FPS, and in some situations the camera didn't respond correctly to this and slowed down; my assumption that I had made it independent of FPS was incorrect... but not anymore!

Work on fungi:
* Mushroom stipes (stems) now have a more realistic shape and longer ones have rings
* Random mutations have been added
* You can now filter by fungi in the species list view
* Mushrooms no longer all face the same way (random rotation)
* The bulldozer tool now also removes fungi (and deep sea animals)
* If you click a fungus to zoom in, it now shows information about this organism
* Decreased chance fungi and plants grow in the exact same location
* Added the number of fungus species to the time skip view
* Fixed a bug where opening the fungus archive directly after creating a world would cause the game to glitch

Work on the fungus editor:
* Added a new tab with bioluminescence and poison settings
* The red handle to scale the cap is now always at the same height as the cap
* Large cup fungi no longer block the red handles in the editor
* Fixed a bug where the starter cap had its minimum temperature decrease (instead of increased) when the cap was scaled up
* Polished the scale and positions of various UI elements

Tweaking the look of twilight and night mode in the editors:
* Twilight mode now relies more heavily on color correction post processing (as opposed to just changing the background color)
* Fixed over the top bloom effects caused by counter shading and back lighting
* Added a twilight and night mode to the fungus editor
* Also unlock the secondary color sliders if an animal has bioluminescence (as you need them to change the light color)

Entering more (rough versions of) body part statistics:
* Carnivorous plant body parts
* Mouths
* Limbs
* Mushroom caps
* Attractive body parts (unfinished)

More work on species labels shown when hovering an organism:
* Hovering an egg now shows the species inside, as well as its diet.
* Labels no longer show through the success message, shown when beating or losing a level.
* Algae and plants that started their life invisible (for optimization reasons) now also show their species when hovered.

I often forget to read comments below release notes, so if you have questions or bug reports, feel free to reach out via the Steam forums or thesaplinggame@gmail.com.

Patch v12.23

Completely refactored how plant and animal color is processed, leading to fixes like:
* Dragged body parts no longer have the 'error' color (bright pink)
* Dragged leaves take the color of the plant they are about to be attached to
* When dragging the color pickers, the color of the animal changes in real-time, to the correct colors
* When the animal has no secondary color, the secondary color pickers are now disabled
* Billboards (for optimization) now take on the color of the bark instead of the main color of the plant
* Animals that are hurt flash red again

Improved UI for the 'allowed color' mechanic:
* Replaced the weird '4 boxes' light color picker with regular sliders in the planet editor
* There's now a small 'randomize light color' button in the planet editor
* You can no longer place alga and plants if the color is not allowed, for example when you got them from the archive
* Added 'allowed color' to the requirement panel for algae and plants

Finished moisture and drought resistance as a statistic for leaves:
* Added a first draft version of the statistics to all leaves
* Added the statistic to the plant requirements panel seen when placing
* Plants outside the moisture range take damage
* Added 'too dry' and 'too way' as possible death causes

Entered rough body part stats for:
* Leaves
* Eyes
* Mouths (not finished)

Worked on animations for the new body parts:
* Putting new body parts behind the animals to get a tail (like the rattle, club tail and thagomizer) no longer leads to the animation system crashing
* All new mouths now correctly open when the animal is eating
* Added attack particles for the electric eel fins and poison spraying abdomen
* The mouth with the ballistic tongue now has its own eating animation

General UI improvements:
* Redesigned the animal requirements panel, with separate icons for whether an area is suitable for animals and eggs
* Added limits for the night cycle period slider in the planet editor
* The new species names on hover no longer show through other UI elements
* Added a new '300 degree' icon for the eye field of view statistic

Small editor fixes:
* Improved the hitbox for the aquavision eye
* In the alga, plant, animal and fungus editors, hitting 'h' will now remove handles and dust/bubbles, so you can make better screenshots