WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN DOING OVER THERE?
Good question! Thank you for asking :P.
We’ve been somewhat absent since releasing our hotfix for the Cheesecake patch on October 22st. In the patch notes, we mentioned that we’re going through a major in-game engine update, which you know as Prometheus. This is a huge milestone in the development of The Universim and it’s very, very important for us. A few issues were encountered that needed to be ironed out before we broke something or designed a feature around a flawed system. After we’re done cleaning and optimizing the project, we will now properly be able to introduce your most-wanted features, such as: new eras, save and load, advanced artificial intelligence for Nuggets, and more that you can read about below.
So much that we’re basically turning into workstations ourselves! On top of new features, we’re optimizing, reimplementing, and redesigning a lot of systems. Let’s break it down.
PLANET GENERATION OPTIMIZATION
Some of the biggest changes reside within the planet generation engine: it’s so much faster now. We reduced loading times and memory usage quite significantly. You’ll likely be very pleased with how it turned out. This allows us to add more objects, have bigger planets, and have more simulation calculations happening at the same time. We also mapped our planet with the road networks and city expansion patterns for future needs. Planet biome temperatures were optimized as well. Now, temperatures are more accurate and easier to understand. A lot of love has been invested into this process. After all, planets are our playground and we want them to perform well.
Pathfinding on the planet is another area that was optimized. Animal AI and Nugget AI can be very taxing depending on the amount and actions performed. It’s now faster and smoother than a speeding roller coaster. Nuggets have a much better understanding of their surroundings and can easily find the shortest path to their destination.
NUGGET'S ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Oh boy! We’re having so much “fun” working on this. There’s a lot of thinking and a lot of planning involved in this process. Mainly because all Nugget stats are connected and the environment changes dynamically around Nuggets over time, so we want them to understand the current circumstances and decide what is more important to do at a certain time. Things change on the fly and we need to make sure Nuggets make reasonable decisions without your direct intervention. Nuggets now compare distance vs quality before making their decision. For example: cooked food is better than raw food for Nuggets, they become happier and more satisfied by eating cooked meals. It also keeps Nuggets full for a longer period. In the past, Nuggets were always choosing cooked food over raw food, which in some circumstances was a bad decision because the distance and wait time would be more wasteful for them than simply grabbing a nearby fruit. Nuggets now check this information before starting their journey. However, this doesn’t only apply to food, it applies to any resource they need to collect to finish their task or satisfy their needs.
Our system prioritises tasks for Nuggets dynamically. This allows us to quantity the number of available Nuggets vs busy Nuggets. If there is a need for extra stone, the system will not send all 20 Idle/Free Nuggets to mine stone. The system will task Nuggets to the job one by one and check the weight of that need based on the amount of Nuggets now assigned to it. This way, the system dynamically assigns Nuggets jobs based on the current situation, and it no longer prioritises one job above all else when assigning them. It will only send 5 Nuggets to help build a Hut instead of sending 20 of the available group, because the system now understand that 5 Nuggets are more than enough to finish the task.
Nuggets will also understand if certain buildings need extra support (like Eateries, Farms, etc) and automatically assign themselves to those buildings. If a Farmer dies of old age or from the unfortunate and somehow all too common event that a mammoth stepped on them (how didn’t they see it coming?), another Nugget will fill this position without your interaction.
Our goal is to make Nuggets feel alive. We want you to feel like they are truly organic, living beings.
What we’re doing right now is really going to make it easier for us to balance things out in the future. It’s also important to keep in mind that we’re only talking about changes that you’ll see on the frontend, there are also tons of changes happening behind the scenes as well. We’re developing debugging tools that help us to understand why Nuggets made a particular decision, such as where they are going, what they plan to do next, and what triggered these actions. A lot of amazing work has been done, but there’s a bit more that needs our attention.
NUGGETS THOUGHTS
While some of our engineers have been busy optimizing and improving things, others have been working on new features such as the Nugget Thoughts system. Nugget Thoughts are pretty much exactly as they sound. We developed a system that will allow you to see what Nuggets are thinking about their current situation. It will show you their thoughts regarding things like their work, relationships with their spouse and children, current feelings, etc. This will help you to better understand what the Nugget is up to, such as if they plan to burn things to the ground or they’re ready to start a family. This is a cosmetic element that will add even more personality to Nuggets. Here are some examples of Nugget Thoughts based on their daily activities:
GENERAL (IDLE) THOUGHTS
TUTORIAL UPDATE Because we’re adding new content and changing the ones that we already have, certain tutorials have become outdated. We’re revisiting tutorials at the moment as well and making them more dynamic. We are also working on the game’s narration, which we will discuss at a later time. CAMERA CONTROLS IMPROVEMENTS We’re happy with how smooth and responsive our camera is, but we’re still experimenting with controls. We collected a lot of feedback and observed a lot of players during our exhibition showcases and it looks like we could do a better job by minimizing the amount of buttons you click to control your camera. It shouldn’t look like you’re trying to play the piano. We want the controls to feel intuitive and easy to learn. Let us know what we can do to make it better (like things that bother you right now). SEASONS We’re happy with how smooth and responsive our camera is, but we’re still experimenting with controls. We collected a lot of feedback and observed a lot of players during our exhibition showcases and it looks like we could do a better job by minimizing the amount of buttons you click to control your camera. It shouldn’t look like you’re trying to play the piano. We want the controls to feel intuitive and easy to learn. Let us know what we can do to make it better (like things that bother you right now).
MOUNTAINS Our current mountains are static objects, meaning they were designed entirely by our 3D artists. We’re moving away from this concept and are planning to invest more time intoprocedural mountain generation. We hope to improve over other procedural mountain generation techniques used in other games. Mountains are usually generated by the noise found on the planet’s terrain, which makes all mountains look basically the same on all planets. Our goal is to build a system that will combine pieces of rocks, assign textures, and spawn flora and stones based on the planet environment. Mountains are the biggest objects on our planets, and this gives our artists a lot more freedom to give planets a unique character by changing the shapes and look of the mountains on the planet. We will talk more about this system in the future.
EVOLUTION TOWERS You probably learned about these towers in previous updates. This is a highly-demanded feature and we’re working hard to bring it to the game as soon as possible. Evolution Towers will allow you to unlock features in the game and will be the main stimulator of progress in your civilization. SAVE & LOAD We definitely know how important this feature is and development in recent months has been highly concentrated around it. In fact, it was one of the features that benefitted best from us cleaning the project. The primary challenge for us is to save a massive amount of data in one all-encompassing game state. We not only have to save thousands and thousands of positions of all the objects on the planet, but also their statistics (in a procedural system). As you know, everything in The Universim is connected: even the most basic objects, like trees, hold dynamic values and understand the exact local temperature. Nugget stats are also connected with other parameters and needs to be saved. Overall, the main challenge is not the implementation of a save and load feature, the main challenge is that we want to make sure we have all of the bits and pieces in place in order to save and load them on demand (and efficiently). The approach we’re taking now is saving us from having to redesign or restructure systems, which will take a ridiculous amount of time, but it’s slightly tricky. However, progress has been excellent, so count on us - save & load is on its way!
ART ASSETS All buildings- yes, every single one- had to be retouched and redesigned to some extent in order to make them fit into our future plans for city expansion and roads. Each building has to correspond to certain guidelines and rules introduced by our new system. Of course, we also used this opportunity to improve the overall quality of our models: better textures, mesh, and so on. We are also optimizing each building with a LOD system. This system will update the details of our buildings based on the camera’s distance from them. This will increase performance and allow us to have more buildings in future. We have also added more visual elements to buildings like night lights and visible degradation when in a bad condition.
NUGGET GENERATION ENGINE We’re improving the Nugget generation engine. This is what is responsible for generating visually-distinct Nuggets with different hairstyles, clothing, colors, and shapes. We’re also improving animations and working on new ones. You’ll be able to pick Nuggets up and throw them or put back on the ground gently. Their actions will correspond with yours. Basically, we have better-looking Nuggets and a better system for generating them.
WHY WE'RE STILL IN THE STONE AGE Man, you guys at Crytivo are the worst! You’ve taken years just to finish the Stone Age, so how long will it take for new eras?! (You might think) Well, it’s true, it has taken us quite a long time to implement the Stone Age era. However, it’s important to understand that the Stone Age is not just the first era in the game, it happens to hold a huge portion of all core game mechanics. During this age, we’re implementing all of the simulations that you’ll see throughout the game, connecting everything together, balancing all of the stats, creating AI systems, working on the research and progression aspects, ensuring that these systems are dynamic, and so on. Basically, this is our foundation for building things much faster down the line. This is our main testing platform to ensure we don’t design future eras around a bad system (which can be disastrous and basically require starting over). After we’re done with the core of the game, you’ll see more eras popping up very quickly. Initially, we planned to release an update on December 1st for the game, but we will probably need a bit more time to get things finished. We hate to keep you all waiting for a new patch and promise to get it into your hands ASAP. We will keep communicating our current status and remain entirely transparent. You are an important part of our world, and we would never abandon you. We have also put a rough roadmap together for you. Please keep in mind that some features might change in the future or their priority can change based on the situation. Also keep in mind that we’re not going into detail here, we’re just summarizing work that was done.
As you can see, there is a lot of work happening behind the scenes and we feel you need to know about that. Your support keeps us motivated and inspires us every day. We always read your feedback and we would love to see a smile on your face when you play The Universim. We want you to care about the fragile world we’re building for you and hope you appreciate all the time and effort we spend on making this world dynamic and alive. Our team is hard at work every day. At times it can be tough, but we love what we do and hope you enjoy it as well. Please leave us your comments below and we wish you all the best for the coming holidays! STAY AWESOME! All the best, Crytivo Games
The Universim
Crytivo Games
Crytivo Games
Aug 2018
Strategy Simulation Singleplayer EA
Game News Posts 148
🎹🖱️Keyboard + Mouse
🕹️ Partial Controller Support
Very Positive
(7552 reviews)
https://crytivo.com/the-universim
https://store.steampowered.com/app/352720 
The Game includes VR Support
The Universim Linux [1.35 G]
The Universim Collector's Pack Vol 1
Meet the Universim
The Universim aims to revive the glory days of the god-game genre, and bring it into the new generation with fresh ideas and ambitious gameplay. With the powers of a god, you are unleashed upon the universe to begin forging your galactic empire in the stars. From dust to the cosmos beyond, your civilization will rise through the ages under your guidance. Yet, this is not the same static world you may be accustomed to, this is a dynamic, living world that is just as unpredictable as it is beautiful. Everything in The Universim revolves around dynamic gameplay. No two planets will ever be the same, natural disasters and other events can be triggered at any time, and the AI will react to the world in an organic and believable way. Although, it wouldn’t be any fun if things don’t get a little silly every now and then.
Your citizens (Nuggets) will make their own decisions and always seek to better the civilization in some way, but, at times, things may not always go to plan. Fortunately, you are there to keep them on the straight and narrow. Or, rather, to keep them from getting themselves killed, at least. One such situation that may arise from bad decision-making is that two or more AI cities declare war on one another. You then have an important choice to make: intervene and attempt to bring an end to the chaos, or simply watch as they destroy one another. Some people just want to watch the world burn, and we’re okay with that.
Research plays a pivotal role in The Universim, and is therefore an area that will require your utmost attention. Without certain discoveries or technology, your civilization may not even be able to progress beyond the Stone Age. For instance, fire is a crucial invention to ensure the warmth and safety of your early civilization, amongst other useful applications. New research options become available as your civilization progresses through the ages.
Learn More About Nuggets
Due to the dynamism of the game, natural disasters, alien visitors, disease, war, famine, riots, and so much more can be thrown at your civilization at any time. All of these factors will leave their mark on the civilization, but can be dealt with in numerous ways. When something like the plague strikes, it is up to you to quickly strategize on how you will help your civilization overcome this disaster. The way in which you fight certain disasters varies from era to era, depending on the current research level and available technology.
When it comes to disasters, the world itself is not the only bringer of doom. You, too, can trigger disasters if you are displeased with your civilization’s decisions. Your influence over the world is dependent on two basic elements, Power and Wrath. Power comes from having a loyal civilization under your control. Successful completion of tasks and other activities will generate the Power you need to alter the very world itself, such as changing the weather or triggering events. It can also be used to initiate a major civilization action. Conversely, if your civilization begins to lose loyalty due to failed events, every action they perform that displeases you will generate Wrath. This, in turn, allows you to unleash destruction upon them at any time.
The more loyal a civilization is, the better they will follow your orders. Sometimes, you just need to remind them who is boss. What better way to do that than to send a meteor down with a friendly note strapped to the side? There are also less destructive ways of maintaining loyalty, though. You kind of need a civilization to exist in the first place if you plan to rule over one. Although, it’s sometimes just fun to blow things up, isn’t it? You monster.
Disasters will also have many simulated secondary effects. Something like a meteor crashing into the planet will not only leave a sizeable crater, but it could also set trees and buildings on fire. Fires spread dynamically, making it rather dangerous for any structures or citizens within range. However, YOU can prevent forest fires! By wielding your Creator Abilities, you can drag a storm cloud over the impact zone and cool the situation down before things get out of hand. Creator abilities are your way of interacting directly with the world and assisting with various issues that may arise. These kinds of abilities drain Power, though, so use them wisely!
Buildings and society will evolve as you progress from era to era. Every era will bring with it entirely new types of buildings that will impact your civilization in some way. All buildings will be constructed around what we call The Epicenter, the central heart of every city in the game. You can place an Epicenter in any feasible region on the planet that supports cities, and buildings will begin developing around it as your population grows. Normal housing structures can be built automatically, but you will need to explicitly choose where special buildings go up. Special buildings include things like farms and nuclear power plants. Civilization development and expansion is based on the conditions around your Epicenters. In certain environments, your population and buildings will grow faster. However, in cold environments, deserts, and other rather inhospitable areas, resources like food may be scarce and will thus hinder development.
In a vibrant, living world driven by dynamic events, realistic natural processes, and ever-changing environments, you need an in-game simulation engine that is capable of going above and beyond expectations. This is what the Prometheus In-Game Engine™ aims to be. Developed from the ground up in Unity3D, it will form the foundation upon which every element in the game is built.
Thanks to Prometheus, every planet you encounter in the game will be as unique and vibrant as the last. Doesn’t random generation rock? You will come across planets with varying temperatures and environmental conditions, as well as a wide range of characteristics that make them special. Planets will also undergo the changing of seasons, which affects the many environmental biomes on the planet. It has the potential to cause rapid changes in temperature and conditions, leading to a significant change in the rate of resource gathering and civilization development.
Seasons will change according to the in-game timeline. Summer offers the best food yield and growth period due to its favourable weather, while winter can have a negative impact on the wellbeing of your civilization. Some winters may go by quickly, while others will drag on. There is even a chance for the most brutal winter of all to ravage your civilization for months on Mother Planet. Fortunately, our in-game News System will inform you about upcoming winters, giving you enough time to react and begin preparing for the long winter months ahead by storing food and researching the appropriate technologies. Fire, clothing, storage of food, and building shelters are all excellent examples of proper preparation.
The space era will be the culmination of all your hard work. All of the decisions you have made thus far will truly begin to bear fruit or reveal their consequences, if any exist. This is when you will begin to discover all of the beauty and mercilessness of alien planets.
Colonization plays a huge role in the Space Era, as it allows you to spread your civilization across the stars. New research opportunities, technologies, resources, and more can be discovered by exploring and colonizing planets! However, colonizing a planet requires a little preparation beforehand. Simply hitting the GO button when initiating a mission will likely result in unhappy endings. If adequate research about the planet is not done, it may lead to the untimely demise of your colonization team. After all, it can be rather difficult to traverse molten lava while fending off giant space mosquitoes with nothing but a tube of sunblock! Even more so, if they happen to be wearing the previous mission's sub-zero equipment.
Every planet in the game can be colonized. They may just require a dash of scientific magic to make them habitable. Certain planets could even possess extremely valuable resources, but there is always a catch. Such planets may also have a ticking timer attached to them, indicating that the planet is going to explode or the sun is minutes away from going supernova. Are you brave enough to risk it all and attempt to harvest those resources before time runs out? There is always the option to leave the planet to die in peace, of course. You may already have a cargo hold full of valuable resources and new discoveries. It would be a shame to see all of that go to waste! Oh, and your poor colonization team, too. Imagine all the paperwork…
Naturally, the hardships may not always end at having to harvest all of the resources before the timer hits zero. The planet could still have unsuitable conditions for your team to get the job done. You will most likely need to place atmosphere generators to generate air and thermal regulators to keep the temperatures on the planet at suitable levels. It’s not going to be an easy process, but the rewards may just be worth it.
Most alien planets will also likely have a few strange creatures roaming around. Some may be friendly, and could even become good friends with your crewmembers. Others have sharp teeth and a general dislike for everything that moves. Better pack a few weapons as a precaution! You will encounter many unique and interesting creatures, vegetation, and environments in your travels. Be sure to send any interesting combinations you find to us! Prometheus might get a little ‘creative’ sometimes.
A lot of extra detail is planned to go into numerous planets in The Universim. You can expect to find many easter-eggs and secrets scattered across the universe. There are even plans to possibly include mod support somewhere down the line. After all, no modern game would be complete without inappropriately-shaped rocket ships!
By utilizing an intuitive GUI, you can keep track of the various planets in the universe and manage your intergalactic endeavours with ease. Every star in the sky is actually a different planet that you can discover and explore. This is another area where research and technology can make or break your experience. One such technology is the Discovery Rover. This vehicle can be sent to distant planets to acquire information about the conditions, colonization requirements, hidden dangers, and available resources. However, as with everything else, you will need to prepare your Rover adequately for the mission. Additional technologies like Environmental Armour, Thermal Shielding, weaponry, resource probes, and more will need to be acquired in order to get the most out of your rover and protect it from the dangers of alien planets. There is even the ability to add an all-purpose camera to it, which allows you to take direct control and drive it on alien planets! Did someone say VR? We might have. Maybe.
What will you do with the power to control the universe? With the fate of galaxies resting in your hands, and the fragile lives of so many under your influence, there is no telling what you may accomplish. Through your every decision, you are writing the history of a species. This is your story now, so make it one to remember.
- OS: TBA
- OS: TBA
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