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.

[ 2025-01-04 12:45:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

The Sapling is a short simulation game where you design your own plants and animals, and put them in a world together. Or you turn on random mutations, and see what evolution does to your ecosystem!

Features

Design plants and animals.
Fast-forward time to and watch the ecosystem work like a charm or slowly fall apart (probably the latter :) ).
A sandbox mode where you can skip time and turn on random mutation, allowing true evolution.
An instinct system where you can specify what an animal should do when it hears or sees something.
A procedural animation system so any animal can perform any animation.
Procedural music mixed on the fly.
Everything set up to be easily extended by players.

This looks just like Spore!

Wessel Stoop has wanted to play a simulation game where you can build your own plants and animals, put them in a world, and see what happens since 2002. You can imagine his excitement when Will Wright, the father of simulation games, demoed his latest game Spore to an enthusiastic crowd. When Spore turned out to be all game genres except simulation, Wessel decided he wanted to try to make the game by himself. The Sapling is the result of that attempt.

MINIMAL SETUPOS: Ubuntu 16 or newer
Processor: A processor with SSE2 instruction set supportMemory: 4 GB RAM
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: Graphics card with DX10 (shader model 4.0) capabilities.
Storage: 150 MB available space
Memory: 16 GB RAM
RECOMMENDED SETUP

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