This announcement is a quick progress report on the arrival of Monarch caterpillars into the game. First up, video of a neat new feature!

Video of DoN's "Physical Leaf Munching" system

https://youtu.be/BtSG6jw_e6I --

ETA for caterpillar release

Another 7-10 days will be needed based on the current trajectory. Hopefully the video above did a good job of showing how the caterpillar is being built at an unprecedented level of detail. Instead of building just-another-generic-species by reusing existing systems, a new locomotion system, a new consumption system, etc have been built for the caterpillar to fully express itself in the game. Add to this lifecycle depiction (egg-to-larvae-to-pupa) and the end-result was a formidable amount of complexity that has taken longer than planned to satisfactorily execute.
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What about all the other species planned?

I'm fully aware that everyone is very eager to see many more species and more content in the game. Rest assured, all the building blocks needed for making this happen are industriously being built. These building blocks will make it so much easier to add new species over time. Eg: the caterpillar's "leaf munching system" can be readily carried over to a grasshopper munching on grass and its "wormy locomotion system" can be adapted to other invertebrates. With each new species the game's development methodology also evolves further as the lessons learnt from tackling one creature are put to use in the next. ~~~ If you liked the "physical leaf munching" video feel free to share it around, being a 1mm sized creature sculpting leaves hasn't often been done in gaming :) Thanks for following DoN's journey! With ♡, Venugopalan Sreedharan

[ 2017-01-12 20:59:31 CET ] [ Original post ]