Thrive (Video Game)
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| Developer(s) | Revolutionary Games Studio |
| Publisher(s) | Revolutionary Games Studio |
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| Engine | Godot |
| Platform(s) | Microsoft Windows Mac OS X Linux |
| Release | Early Access: 26 November, 2021[1] |
| Genre(s) | God game, life simulation, Simulation video game |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
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Thrive is an Early access Speculative evolution simulation game developed by Revolutionary Games Studio where players control the history of an alien civilization, from the early beginnings of life to its ascendancy. Currently, only the Microbe stage is playable, where the player controls a single microbe and slowly evolves it over millions of years. The game was initially a fan project inspired by Spore, intending to introduce more hard scientific concepts to a similar game style. After years of troubled development, Revolutionary Games was formed to oversee the development of Thrive, and the game was officially put out on online game stores on November 26, 2021. Despite this, the game is fully Open source and can be downloaded for free from the Developer's website.[2]
Gameplay
Thrive gameplay is intended to be split into seven "stages", representing seven different levels of evolution and technological progress needed to become an interstellar civilization. The list is composed of the Microbe, Multicellular, Aware, Awakening, Society, Industrial and Space stages, of which only the Microbe stage is fully realized. In the Microbe stage, players start by controlling a unicellular Prokaryote, representing the last common ancestor of all life on an alien planet.
One of the game's main features is its simulation of natural selection, called "Auto-Evo". Every 'generation', or time the player evolves, some offspring of all reproducing species is randomly 'mutated' using the same editor used by the player. Several mutations are created at once, and then tested by the game for survivability. The most capable potential cells turn into new species, which can be encountered in the game world. Because the only species and life form at the start of the game is the player's cell, this means that all species in the game world are distantly related to one another. The game also runs simulations between evolutions, which calculates the change in population for all existing species based on their characteristics, and the chance of members of a species moving to a new patch. The simulation also factors the player's performance in-game – for instance, killing a certain species more frequently in-game decreases its overall number substantially. By late-game, the game's world is a rich and expansive simulated ecosystem, with cells specialized into similar roles as Earth's biological history.
Development
Development of Thrive is considered to have begun in 2009, when fake screenshots of a game supposedly titled Evolutions! were posted to the Spore Forums by a user called "Hirnsausen", depicting a game much like Spore, but with a more scientific focus.[3][4] While the screenshots turned out to be a hoax, "Hirnsausen" revealed that he wanted Maxis, the developer of Spore, to believe that they had competition in an effort to improve the quality of the game. Many users shared this sentiment, particularly due to controversies over Spore's scientific accuracy, which resulted from splits in Maxis between developers who supported a more scientific game concept, and those who wanted a more "cute" and intuitive game.[5]
Users began to thus plan and work on the development of a real game titled Evolutions!, which was eventually changed to Thrive. In the early years of the project, the game was mostly speculative due to a lack of programmers, artists and other necessary developers to realize the project. Many early contributors went on to leave, as they believed the project would be impossible to realize due to its scope, as well as poor organization of the very few developers that did exist. Nevertheless, the project would go through various waves of popularity online, attracting new developers.
As the initial prototypes of the game were being developed in the early 2010s, it became clear that the initial vision for the game was too grand. Development was restricted to just the Microbe Stage – a parallel of Spore's Cell Stage, and many mechanics were changed to make the game more distinct and fit the vision of the new development team. By 2015, work on the game increased thanks to more programmers, new forums and a Slack channel for developers, which contributed to a renewal of interest in the project.
In 2017, the game was moved from a custom engine to the Godot engine, and in 2021, Revolutionary Games Studio was officially registered in Finland by the developers working on Thrive.[6] This allowed development to move at a substantially faster rate than before, and an Early Access version was published onto Steam and Itch.io by the end of 2021. Thanks to a Patreon page, as well as sales on Steam and Itch.io, Revolutionary Games was able to pay some of its developers part-time.
Reception
Computer gaming magazine Kill Screen likens the Thrive experience to being "thrown into an open book biology quiz". "Thrive is still trying to find the right balance between his 'love of science and [his] love of games.' The creators weren't kidding when they said they wanted it to be scientifically accurate." However, it is "commendable what the volunteer team has built from the ground up."[7]
In 2019, GamingOnLinux complained about the lack of controls at the development stage at the time: "In its current form, it is very rough and the controls really don't feel good."[8]
BrothersInGaming sees Thrive as the game that "could have been Spore". Publisher EA cut the content of the original title too much and the technology was not advanced enough at the time of publication in 2008 to exploit the potential of the game idea. Spore came out at a time when implementing a "complex, working physical system would have been revolutionary for the gaming industry." While Thrive is evolving very slowly, "with the exquisite amount of detail and work they've put into their cell phase so far, one can only imagine what other features they would incorporate as they progress to the other phases." Computer Games Blog.[9]
In 2022, Github mentioned Thrive's move to the Godot game engine as an example of how open source development is democratizing the games industry.[10]
References
- ↑ "Progress Update 11/6/2021". Revolutionary Games Studio. November 6, 2021. Retrieved October 16, 2022.
- ↑ "Revolutionary Games Studio's official website". Retrieved October 16, 2022.
- ↑ "Project History". Revolutionary Games Studio. Retrieved October 16, 2022.
- ↑ "Evolutions! - Similar to Spore!". Spore Forums. January 6, 2009.
- ↑ "Will Wright on Spore: Cute vs. Science". Time (magazine). September 5, 2008. Retrieved October 16, 2022.
- ↑ "Revolutionary Games Studio is now an association". Thrive Development Forums. February 2021. Retrieved October 16, 2022.
- ↑ Pacampara, Nicole (16 September 2016). "Here it is, the game that Spore was supposed to be". Kill Screen - Previously. Retrieved 20 October 2022.
- ↑ "Thrive, a free and open source game about the evolution of life". GamingOnLinux.
- ↑ "Thrive - the Next Evolutionary Game After Spore". August 10, 2021.
- ↑ Klint Finley (18 October 2022). "Open source is democratizing video game development". Retrieved 20 October 2022.
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