Thrive: The Evolution of a Game

In which I examine the past, present and future of an evolution game forged from the ashes of Spore and perhaps destined for the stars.
Thrive website: revolutionarygamesstudio.com/
Download the Thrive launcher: github.com/Revolutionary-Game...
Download Thrive manually: github.com/Revolutionary-Game...
Get Thrive on Steam: store.steampowered.com/app/17...
Get Thrive on itch.io: revolutionarygames.itch.io/th...
Set up a Thrive development environment: github.com/Revolutionary-Game...
Support Thrive on Patreon: / thrivegame
Thrive community forum: community.revolutionarygamess...
Join the Thrive community Discord: / discord
Thrive subreddit: / thrive
Apply to join the team: revolutionarygamesstudio.com/...
Get the Microbe Stage soundtrack on Bandcamp: revolutionarygames.bandcamp.c...
Get the rest of my Thrive music on Bandcamp (new album!): oliverlugg.bandcamp.com/album...
This video is a partial adaptation of the following articles I wrote in 2016 and 2018 respectively:
oliverlugg.com/the-impossible...
oliverlugg.com/thrive-a-memoir/
Thrive developer wiki: wiki.revolutionarygamesstudio...
Thrive community wiki: thrive.fandom.com/wiki/Thrive...
Join my Discord server to discuss this video and more: / discord
0:00 Intro
2:35 Part I: How to Microbe
17:27 Part II: On the Origin of Thrive
32:43 Part III: The Impossible Game
45:20 Credits
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FOOTAGE
Ballad of the Banana
Emil Blichfeldt Sørensen
• Ballad of the Banana
Blinking
Jon P
• Blinking
Factorio - Gameplay Trailer 2016
Factorio
• Factorio - Gameplay Tr...
Flames
Pixabay
www.pexels.com/video/flames-8...
GTA 5 Wasted green screen Chroma key
AltF4
• GTA 5 Wasted green scr...
Revolutionary Games Thrive stream highlight. - The underwater curse.
Captain Mcderp
• Revolutionary Games Th...
Spore: Cell Stage Video
Spore
• Spore: Cell Stage Video
Spore Creature Stage Video Preview
IGN
• Spore Creature Stage V...
Spore - Disturbance [Thrive]
DarkEdgeTV
• Spore - Disturbance [T...
Spore Tribal Stage Preview
IGN
• Spore Tribal Stage Pre...
The Simpsons
Fox
www.imdb.com/title/tt0096697/...
Thrive Gameplay Overview | 2021
The Scarlet Seeker
• Thrive ​Gameplay Overv...
Thrive Steam Edition. Thrive got steamy!
SonOfmowgef
• Thrive Steam Edition. ...
TV Screen Turn off Effect with Sound Full 1080HD Free Download
Infinity Mania
• TV Screen Turn off Eff...
Will Wright GDC 2005 Spore (The Future of Content) Remastered
Devin Watson
• Will Wright GDC 2005 S...
----------------------
MUSIC
After the Blizzard (Thrive Polar Theme)
Oliver Lugg
Alien Plains (Thrive Aware Theme)
Oliver Lugg
Casually Busy (Thrive Democracy Theme)
Oliver Lugg
Cold Clockwork of the Stars and Nations (Thrive Fallen Soldiers Theme)
Oliver Lugg
Dew and Spiders (Thrive Rainforest Theme)
Oliver Lugg
Genesis (Thrive Microbe Opening Cutscene Theme)
Oliver Lugg
Hitting Rewind on History (Thrive Awakening Theme)
Oliver Lugg
In Need of a Tune-Up (Thrive Spaceship Editor Theme)
Oliver Lugg
Monkeys Spinning Monkeys
Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Robot March (Thrive Robot March Theme)
Oliver Lugg
Take Ten (Jeopardy Theme)
Julann Griffin
The Coral Sea (Thrive Ocean Theme)
Oliver Lugg
These Constants Into Morning
Oliver Lugg
The Swamp Stomp (Thrive Swamp Theme)
Oliver Lugg
Thrive Main Theme (Original)
hongchong7
Trilobites (Thrive Multicellular Theme)
Oliver Lugg
Under the Ice (Thrive Ice Ocean Theme)
Oliver Lugg
Voyager’s Wake (Thrive Space Voyage Theme)
Oliver Lugg

[@OliverLugg]

Reminder: Thrive is open-source. New developers are always welcome! Join via the application form linked here: revolutionarygamesstudio.com/get-involved/

[@achtsekundenfurz7876]

26:40 Can we please get at least 1596 thumbs for this vid??? Both the idea and the community are awesome, and even if it's one of the 99%, the projects to go down Extinction Road, it's probably ahead of 99% of those that do. Let's think of it as an extinct species with ample fossil record. Dead but never forgotten. Also, about those underwater civilizations... ;)

[@LordWaterBottle]

I think I first heard of Thrive in the same youtube comment. It's amazing it's still going.

[@bobross547]

I didn't know if I you were going to see this otherwise so I did this here I love this so much !! I've played probably 30-40of these types of games but this even at this stage is better than all of them combined I also love that it's free as someone who is quite poor it's great that you made a basically AAA level game and I've loved watching spore for since I was like 8 but I could never pay for it . Thank you for making one of my dreams come true! Edit: I only had to watch half and I'm subscribed , I kinda hope the other videos were propaganda for your channel leading up to this!

[@WorldsBeyondImagine]

Hey, Oliver- I'm a freelance video game writer and I've kind of fallen in love with Thrive a couple times, but every time I've looked into it, it doesn't look like there's anything I could give the team. I don't really do technical writing or UX- I'm more a story/dialogue guy. Do you think there will ever be a spot for me on the dev team? Right now, it doesn't look like it...

[@OliverLugg]

@@WorldsBeyondImagine Unfortunately it's not really that type of game. I wish I could say there was a use for those skills in helping Thrive, but there probably isn't.

[@Sentiant]

Honestly the fact that Thrive is still going for no reason but sheer willpower is one of the highlights of my internet experience. Literally everyone familiar with the game industry told them “you can’t just keep a game going with no money or professional programmers” but open-source volunteers went brrrrr

[@huuphuup1526]

Sentieant it's been 6 months.

[@ziul123]

If you are interested in free and open source games, check out the story of rogue and classic roguelikes. The community is a bit elitist, but it is fascinating that there are still free games being developed to this day based on a 1980 command line game

[@nordern1]

That doesn't really sound like "everyone familiar with the game industry". There are quite a few open source developed games that tend to be small in scope. The remarkable thing here isn't that it surviveved as open-source, it's that it survived being purely hopes and dreams for so long.

[@Untrustedlife]

Nice seeing you here @sentiant !

[@vincentmarcellino7183]

Like my fat cell that lives on Hydrogen Sulfide, Iron and the flesh of smaller cells that eat my precious Hydrogen Sulfide

[@ElizabethWarne390]

“what if they could use the hydroyhermicle vents to smeltle the meltle” is going to be stuck in my head for the next seventeen years, thank you

[@zenosama3172]

i am commenting here so i too may remember “what if they could use the hydroyhermicle vents to smeltle the meltle” for seventeen years

[@cheshire1]

32:31

[@philiphunt-bull5817]

Underwater civilizations

[@SophietNatsi]

Has no one had the thought that they could just use an alternative to metallurgy

[@philiphunt-bull5817]

@@SophietNatsi what alternative???

[@TheBibitesDigitalLife]

The "flood people suggesting an ever-growing amount of random ideas" is definitely a fact of the evolution game community ahahah Even with the Bibites it's hard to not want to please everyone

[@mahna_mahna]

This is what makes open source/free/community software a challenge. Commercial software is always about delivering a product. You have to say "yeah, that would be great, but we have to deliver a product so no". It's about cutting off innovation so you can actually wrap up a version and call it complete. Without that pressure, it makes it much harder to wrangle everyone involved (who aren't "employees" who have to do what you say) to follow a very specific timeline. It takes a very strong leader with great project management skills to make that work. Those aren't nearly as common as good programming skills. And it's especially hard to get someone like that who ALSO has good programming skills.

[@Kenionatus]

I recently started doing a bit of coding for a variant of SS13 (another open source game, albeit in a completely different genre) and the discord community has a bot command with the name wyci. The bot just replies "When you code it." It's a statement with sort of official backing that devs can use to distance themselves from the good idea fairies. "If that feature is so important for you, learn to implement it yourself. I've got other parts of the game I'm working on." It's a much needed cynical take on it and I tend to even use it to shut down (at least temporarily) my own overly ambitious ideas.

[@simon_far]

I thought I might find you here Léo!

[@nicholas82849]

That is what's called "an inspiring story" in my book! Props to all the people who have given of themselves over the years to make this happen. Maybe, with your help, it will flourish a little more. Everyone counts.

[@katiebabyxx6207]

The fact that they are finally starting to develop the multicellular stage is inspiring. So excited.

[@SabbaticusRex]

The project has already surpassed my own level of cellular complexity IRL . Now _that_ is impressive . When I play I will be able to RP as a more evolved form of life , which is just enough to 'splode my ganglia and gets my flagellum wagging like the tail of a pleased Dog -- whatever a _Dog_ is -- .

[@Green_Bean_Machine]

@@SabbaticusRexyikes

[@supposedly2478]

OH DAMN. You likely don’t know me, but I actually met you on the Thrive forums like 4 years ago and since haven’t really used them, but that’s how I got to know your work! I’m really excited for this video!

[@floorbeardthepirate1141]

I found this channel with the 5d chess vid, and when I looked back at your previous uploads I found weird music for what looked like a game. I went along my merry way and occasionally got the feeling that the aforementioned game was something bigger. As I saw this video thumbnail my suspicions were confirmed, and watching it I discovered that it was built in the engine I work with. I however am young and inexperienced, currently barely able to get the motivation to finish my own solo project primarily built in GD script. I want to avoid the mistakes made by so many of the senior devs on the game so that I don't jump into a project I'm not ready for. I am just going to bookmark this tab as of now, and come back later. I plan to make a game this summer and gain more experience (and work ethic), but I hope to join this project later and contribute when I am ready. Thank you Oliver. See you on the forums (hopefully) sometime in the future!

[@Elminster-ln4yw]

The game needs YOU!

[@woegarden]

always hopeful for younger devs. keep working at it, find your flair and good luck in your endeavors.

[@DathoxUdictus]

Stop calling yourself young. Im 30 and that was more mature than anything i could say or do.

[@user-ob5hz8zi6j]

I find his channel from his 5d chess video too.

[@totalpr0st]

What the piratee said

[@northsoutheastweest8991]

Honestly, even if all they finish is just the microbe and multicellular stages, I'd be thrilled. The other stages would be beyond fantastic, but I'd consider it a job incredibly well done if the first 2 stages are completed. Here's hoping.

[@zhoubiden6003]

Imagine they go all the way to space stage lol. It would be cool if they modeled civ stage off of civ and space stage off of elite dangerous or something. Would be cool af but I can’t imagine all of that with freelance programmers

[@Naokarma]

This. The extra stages, even ignoring the failure of gameplay that is Spore, never interested me nearly as much as the cell and multicellular stage. That being said, I imagine the later stages to actually be easier to program, due to there being more groundwork established for, say, and RTS than there is a complex environment of evolving cells.

[@Concavenator128]

Oh God the memories. I remember waiting for Spore, I remember thinking "cool, but is this it?", I remember the Evolutions! forum dreaming something better, I remember the colored hexagon cells. It's unbelievable that Thrive is still going on, but here we are. Whatever happen, it IS a game, a functional, enjoyable game. It started from basically nothing, it survived against all common sense, it became something small but beautiful, and it still has all the potential to become greater someday. Just like real evolution, only a bit slower. Thanks for your work, Oliver (especially for the Main Theme), and for everyone else's.

[@Woodledude]

Man, you threw in a hell of a billion-year burn there. Just wanted to say that got me cracking up... And, yeah, I'm hopeful too :3

[@Concavenator128]

To be clear, I'm not putting down the people who worked on Thrive -- I really do think it's a marvelous project, and marvelously realized despite all obstacles.

[@captainstroon1555]

With Thrive I always get the feeling it will be stuck in the cell stage forever. But if it ever gets out of the primordial soup, I just hope it won't be five games in a trenchcoat like Spore turned out to be but a more connected experience instead. (Oh no, I have been infected by the only giving ideas virus! That said, here we go:) This could be done by being able to go back to a toned down versions of previous stages in later stages. Want to experience the cell stage again during the multicellular stage? What about being able to manage your creatures gut biome and helping them digest new stuff? Want to experience the cell stage again during the industrial stage? What about being able to develop vaccines and nanobots in a petri dish? Want to experience the multicellular stage again during the awakening stage? Take control of a single hunter and get your tribe some well needed food or stuff.

[@kamikeserpentail3778]

It SHOULD only stay in the cell stage. Just do what it's doing, but more. The cell stage was the only part of Spore that was any fun, the only time where the attributes of your creature really mattered. As Spore moved forward in stages, what you did in previous stages didn't matter. Trying too hard to do everything is just going to lead to a let down, like Spore.

[@EvilParagon4]

What to experience the Awakening stage again during the Industrial stage? Play as king/president making decisions and not a god overruling armies.

[@cetomedo]

@@kamikeserpentail3778 hence why they ended up deciding to focus on one part of the game at a time. They're not going to go to the next stage until the microbial stage reaches a point that it fullfills their dream. Which will probably take another couple years, but if it does ever happen, then they can do the multicellular stage and spend 2 decades on that next.

[@KRG30001]

Spore was great, although its original vision and demo was better than what EA made him change it to

[@Taricus]

Apparently, the multicellular stage is in beta now.

[@nix3l_]

This is why i love free and open-source software so much, it gives impossible tasks a chance at working. FOSS for the win!

[@Wauzmons]

Great video and also thanks for mentioning Elysian Eclipse. People are already asking me for underwater civilisations now and it doesn't stop. Help. 🐟

[@zettas1157]

Well I am excited to experience your project and continue to experience thrive. Spore offspring games for the win.

[@KaiserMattTygore927]

So when can my fish-men achieve metallurgy??

[@thegreatdream8427]

Protip: do what I did in my never-going-to-be-finished-because-I'm-a-perfectionist speculative evolution project and have an underwater species evolve external digestive organs that can be separated and temporarily survive independently like sessile animals, to achieve the same benefits (increased ease of digestion and resulting influx of calories to the brain) that cooking provided humans - then instead of metallurgy, have a "naturally occurring" source of graphene, which is a very good conductor, "just happen" to be evolved as a really strong membrane or something in some other species which they domesticate...

[@Poldovico]

I suppose you're gonna need some meltle smeltling system

[@iiiiitsmagreta1240]

Someone just needs to make a completely separate underwater civ game to satisfy the urge of the people

[@horse14t]

I quite like that you start the game as LUCA (Last Universal Common Ancestor). Just a really cool little detail.

[@AngelboyVR]

more than a decade and we still want a game that allows you to recreate dragons in an evolution gameplay manner with which we can roam around the earth and multiply. (including me) it is so fascinating and leaving me in awe to still find videos like these, so many years after i discovered Spore way back in my childhood. i hope Thrive will ... thrive and becomes THE creature editor we always wanted. truly a lot of sentimental value is bond with this entire journey, i have not been part of any of this but i fully understand the weight and emotions of it all.

[@robotrannicthesurprisingly9085]

Damn it oliver you're hitting me in the feels if I hadn't been overwhelmed by the lingering horror of the old forums still containing an absolute monstrosity of my own design and I'm so glad everyone in the community has forgotten about it. Somethings are best left forgotten.

[@Aconspiracyofravens1]

thats not a coherent sentence, the transition after “in the feels” does not exist and the “if” directly after leads to nothing

[@robotrannicthesurprisingly9085]

Nostalgic outbursts aren't known for their coherncy.

[@FilipeSilva_FSilval007-q1]

The current Thrive has endured an arduous and cruel selective pressure and, despite everything, it adapts and overcomes. Just like real life forms, it might fall prey to the predators and sheer apathy in its 'ecosystem', but there will always be someone ready to bear the burden, someone to carry on the genes. And maybe, in the future it will Thrive.

[@thetruecyrusplayz1256]

Hey, a thrive patreon here, I am very happy to say that, at least from what I have seen, development on the multicellular stage has finally begun! They have actually included a prototype for the multicellular stage in the latest build.

[@bowldawg4394]

From gameplay I've seen of it, it's already looking pretty impressive as a leap from being a single cell, and then having multiple cells be equal parts to one living organism, and I can't wait to see how fleshed out the multicellular stage gets as time goes on

[@CommissarMitch]

The personal story in part 3 made me actually smile. Such a good story.

[@Diarmuhnd]

Indeed :)

[@purplehaze2358]

I’ve never played or even heard of this game prior to today, and I just spent 45 minutes of my life watching this all the way through because the presentation and editing is sufficiently superb to keep me interested. Very underrated video.

[@williamrutherford553]

As someone who played spore without any knowledge of the controversy, I think it's a perfectly good game if you play it without having lofty ambitions. Yes, some of the early stuff is very far from scientific. But people always sleep on the space stage. It's a simple strategy game with huge amounts of depth. You have to terraform planets to make them habitable, and build an ecosystem to keep it that way. It doesn't have a huge amount of variety, but you can't expect much from just a single part of a whole game. The space stage is the stage you spend the MOST time in, so it's weird people focus on the creature stage as the sole factor. The tribal and city stages get boring quickly, so I can only assume people lost interest by that point and didn't give Space Stage a fair shot. It wasn't exactly the game that was promised about evolution and growing a species, but it stands in it's own right.

[@fralegend0152]

The creature stage was the stage I passed the most time in, I didn't like the other stages because I found them ripetitive or boring, and now that I look back at it, I passed most of my time in the creature stage because of the creature editor, and not the gameplay itself

[@seelcudoom1]

one of the major issues of spore is that despite being a game of evolution your previous choices increasingly dont matter, the cell to creature stage is a natural progression, and into the tribal stage your creatures still keep there abilities even if they are less important, but then in the civilization stage they mean nothing and are replaced with vehicles and city building, but then all of that is thrown out of the window in the space stage where your previous choices get you exactly one cool toy and the rest is just cosmetic

[@moonwolf6540]

I managed to befriend the grox

[@xGOKOPx]

The space stage is the one you spend the most time in, and yet it's the most boring without Space Adventures. I've had fun in the space stage back in the day when community features worked so I wasn't limited to a few adventures made by Maxis (also I was 12 so things were simpler). I've tried replaying Spore as an adult and I've had the most fun in creature and city stages. I feel like a better way to play Spore is to finish the city stage, quit the game and launch Stellaris lmao

[@Greatdictator]

I love the fact that JUST as i shared the video with a friend the part about shareing the video came about. But seriously thanks for bringing this to attnetion, i always thought that Spore was a incredibly interesting concept that never went as far as it deserved, hopefully this game manages that

[@bluebowser3121]

I think Thrive seems an insane idea. It's basically a game that will take generations to finish, but that makes it so much more important. Nations weren't build in a day, over thousands of years they establish and become better. I hope this game continues to improve over the years. It can only get better from here.

[@theseangle]

Can't believe nobody mentioned the Bill Wurtz reference at 6:47 *TASTE THE **_SUUUN_*

[@uma4340]

I immediately went looking for a comment about bill wurtz when I got to that point, wierd that you are the only one.

[@bedge7782]

Man, I still can’t believe this thing is still alive and kicking. I know that the entire game is kinda impossible with how big the scope got, but the microbe stage as it is seems like a solid game on its own and I’m glad it’s finally starting to take shape. I guess I should keep thrive in mind when thinking about personal projects. You can eat an elephant one bite at a time, but probably not the moon. If that makes any sense at all.

[@kamikeserpentail3778]

Personally, I don't think it should even aspire to go to later stages of evolution. There's so much that can be done at the cellular stage, it'd be a shame to spend a ton of effort making a system that is either disconnected from this current work (like Spore...) or making a system that IS connected but is so entirely complex it is taking exponentially more work with every change.

[@lauraclose936]

yeah the moon is the size of austrailia

[@lauraclose936]

@@kamikeserpentail3778 there should always be an option to stay in the current stage you are in and stay behind. you could be a bacteria in a multicellular organism while being in the microbial stage. there's so much you could do by having the game being interconnected like by making a good microbe and not wiping out the other microbe you get a deadly disease from that one amoeba that will now kill your species. though if it got that big and interconnected, it would LAG unless it wasn't run by the player, so then it'd be a good idea to have multiplayer. plus since it's not spore the "creatures" that resembled strange things wouldn't exist and would probably be exterminated by players. so even though it's essentially impossible, having other creatures other than the player exist would be a cool idea. even having multiplayer maybe but that would be a huge undertaking so for now I agree. For now Thrive will be taking on 1 elephant at a time, untill it was enough to dig out a section of the moon. though since we don't know about evolution that much, it would be cool if thrive taught us more about how it worked

[@catpoke9557]

@@lauraclose936 That will be an option. The game allows you to progress if you want to rather than basically forcing you like Spore.

[@Rexz2000]

I was so obsessed with this game in the 8th grade that I left a note so if older me ever time traveled back, he would give me a copy of the game on a cd

[@davoid-]

That is, quite the story. I've always heard of Thrive as "those guys" with not very good prospects from the Spore multiplayer community I was in. However I've got to know the project not there, but even earlier by myself most likely. I was just a kid playing the Spores, but I wanted more like many. However I never got too invested in Thrive, perhaps it was the fact that I am not natively English, so as a kid going site searching and forum browsing more unfriendly, or just the fact that it was always in the early access. I sometimes later joined the youtube streams for a small bit, and rarely did I try the game versions with me finding them unintuitive, unpolished and hard to understand. I will say, your story kind of parallels the story of that Spore multiplayer community. It was small, and I found it after it's peak which was when it was on the Sporums and partly on discord. On discord I played with a few people for a few months, it wasn't true multiplayer though, just save-swapping. A bunch of infrastructure for that gameplay was already set up, but a lot still had to be made. As we got more galaxies we got ideas for what to do in them, what kind of out-of-game rules or lore do we want to set up. While certain projects did go on for a bunch of months and occasionally got revived, with only a few active players eventually all of them ended up being dead, with people not being able to properly coordinate to continue on. Many people talked about making a program that would automatically update your game with the files of the current "file turn" or just a better importer on your machine, but none of that ever came to be, even if talked on for months on end. It's sad really, but I was early to understand that that project was not really doing well. Unlike Thrive, I don't see much hope with it. Most activity is random people joining most likely through the forum link, or people leaving due to noticing the server is dead. Problem is also, due to the way Spore is set up, the space stage quickly gets very time consuming and repetetive, without any real goals or gameplay nuances that'd make the late game interesting. The amount of time and reasources it takes to set up a full colony, through terraforming, placing cities, buying buildings and placing the planet structure things, it's just a hassle to make any big empire. Maybe one day we'll get something really akin to Spore 2. Also, I would like to ask, while I do not know all 4 games mentioned in the Spore-like-derivitives, I'm not sure exactly why The Universim is on there. Yeah, Species makes sense even if it is much more of a simulation program rather than a game or something, but Universim feels more alike city builders. Aside from planet panning and the fact you make a city, I don't see much similarity. The evolution of the people (Oh don't get me started on how revolutionary they advertised their technology system in the original promos with how you having different techs would lead to the people tackling problems in completely different ways, only for us to get a static tech tree, with just timers for each tech completely disconnected from whatever progress you have made in the world itself. The techs are also slight bonuses to things or just building unlocks) really is just a slow progress of tech from stone age to space age (I still don't understand how they made medieval go straight to modern when I first thought that was just temporary during development), and at that point one could say Civ 6 is a Spore-like. This comment is probably incomprehensible and badly constructed but I'm too scared to read it all back and I'd probably delete it all if I did. Also you being part of Thrive is like, wow, still an unbelievable connection for me to now have to make. Hopefully we'll see Thrive make great leaps in the near future.

[@shadowbunny7892]

I could be wrong but I think I remember the original dialog around The Universim banked on it being Spore-Like and tbh I'm pretty sure that's the reason it got as much attention as it has. That's likely why it's in that category even though it didn't actually end up that way.

[@davoid-]

Ah, I see. I can definetly see that being a thing with the early development stuff, I probably just didn't really see what other people were talking about it at the time.

[@gregorymckenzie7511]

I just discovered this game today, thanks to this video. I'm wary of over-ambitious projects, and I'm happy with it being just a microbe stage game. People sometimes forget that single cellular life is the most diverse of all lifeforms on this planet. That day to day they forget what they can't see, but when you look into a microscope, you see a world of many shapes and forms.

[@superspider64]

what strikes me as fascinating is that the story of Thrive itself almost seems to match up with evolution itself, just like how single celled organisms formed from the cosmic soup of randomness, so to did Thrive spawn from the random and wild ideas of many around the world

[@axthla8435]

i really relate to this. i wont go into detail into what it is, but, I'm in an online group which I've been in for many years now, and, I really don't have the motivation to care about it as I did once before. that group has improved many of my skills. confidence, learning organization and delegation, military strategy (yes), and whatnot. I still of course care about it due to how much time I've spent in that group, but, I just can't be motivated to do stuff. a while ago now, I realized that the people who I had once idolized for their competence and motivation and whatnot who left, are really not extraordinary in any matter, as I find myself in the same spot they were back then when I idolized them, burnt out, and angry at themselves for being burnt out. thanks for making this video. although I know that I was never really alone with my feelings of being burnt out from spending waaaaay too much time on online groups for no good reason, it helps to see this video either way. ty, oliver.

[@kecharitomene6521]

Oh man, I remember I picked up Spore in 2012, I was only 8 at the time but I loved it, and I remember hearing about Thrive some time after; I never ended up playing it but seeing this video recommended activated some hidden synapses in my brain. Awesome to see development is still going!

[@duncathan_salt]

Oliver - this story resonates with me in a way few ever have. I spent my formational years as a game developer by serving as a maintainer for a science-based simulation system in an open source game. I was little more than a 15 year old kid those many years ago, taking responsibility over a system only a few years younger than me which had been abandoned time and time again without fail. I ended up abandoning it myself one day, too. All of the emotions you described in part III of this video - they capture my experience in every way. I never imagined to see that experience captured so wonderfully and put out there for thousands of people to see. There are so few who have shared this experience... I cannot thank you enough for doing it justice via this vid.

[@_zurr]

When you brought up how the localized gameplay guided evolution with the example of camouflage emerging as a trait not initially programmed in, my mind was blown.

[@kamerona4723]

i remember finding out about thrive through a 4chan post that used its music (some of yours) to set the tone for the dnd campaign they were recapping which led me to subscribing to you and hoping for thrive to succeed now years later and your making these great videos and thrive is still in development so i'd say that was a happy coincidence that turned out well

[@Marssnowable]

Oddly, the most surprising thing to hear on this was you saying that you only had 30k followers, and as I was mostly just listening to this video while working on something else I had to check my webpage again "Oliver Lugg 77.2k subscribers" I can't be the only one here who had assumed by the quality of your work that you had a much.. much larger subscriber base. Especially so after the twist of your own involvement in Thrive, which I felt akin to the plot twist of Summoning Salt being a speedrunner, Jenny Nicholson being some infamous MLP content producer, or [insert prominent video essayist revealing their personal history with topic]. Your videos are absolutely fantastic and I'm constantly checking back for more content, thank you for what you do man.

[@spectralburst5258]

MechanicalPumpkin from the forums here. I’ve been looking forward to this video, and it definitely delivered! Excellent video as always

[@CraftsmanOfAwsomenes]

Is there any plan for how auto evo will cope with exponentially increasing complexity? Presumably single celled organisms and terrestrial animals and plants will have to co-exist, so it seems like the complexity of the simulation could get out of hand pretty quickly. That's not even accounting for how complex the mechanics regarding how multi-cellular life evolves or if the cells it evolves from remain relevant in successive generations. It seems any workable solution would have to simplify cells down to the point a lot of what happened in that stage doesn't matter aside from the feeling that having played through it gives you and the ancestors of all of your neighbors being products of it. In any case I really hope this project is successful down the road. ............. What if they selectively bred and pruned other organisms to create their tools and habitations out of their anatomy.

[@fissionphoenix4995]

I can imagine simplification of each successive stage making your own organism the baseline and starting over with a similar simulation to that of the initial microbe stages. In other words, the player controlled organism is always the first to reach any given stage of the game, and other organisms will always splinter from the player's organism with a few minor exceptions to fill important ecological niches as the player progresses.

[@Poldovico]

If they're smart, their plan is to not even think about that until they're well on their way with implementing whatever the second stage ends up being.

[@lauraclose936]

@@Poldovico yes you should first create an arm and a leg, then figure out how to stitch them together with the rest of the body.

[@Poldovico]

@@lauraclose936 Not quite. You should first figure out if being a multicellular organism is even possible, then worry about the exact design of the human lung.

[@user-cd4bx6uq1y]

I wasn't expecting the third part at all. Such a story about young people for the first time having a thing that was actually theirs

[@colinbougie]

As someone who's been checking Thrive's progress since around 2013, it's really inspiring to see how far it's come on a budget of hopes and dreams.

[@gororop6692]

36:01 Hey i remember that promo video! Partly thanks to it I got interested in Thrive and eventually joined the team. You probably realized by now, but these early contributions you made, even if they were amateurish, helped a lot promoting the game early on. This was a really good video and i'm certain it will attract a lot of newcomers like your previous work did. It's very neat that you are using your own platform to help thrive once again and that you managed to stay in the team for so many years. Even if I don't contribute that much anymore, I still appreciate Thrive and the effort people like you put on helping this little game of ours. Thank you.

[@Narstak]

I remember how, as a teenager, I just drew a cell with a little cell with the idea that "mother cell lauching baby cells to attack other cells!" A decade and more later and I realised that that I asked for stuff that no one would use anyway. Let's say you know more when you become a game developper yourself.

[@TheRmbomo]

Found you through Thrive and stuck around for your videos since 2020. Thrive has been in the background since 2014 for me, like it always would've been. I could always see that the fire was dim, but never went out. ; ) I still go back to listen to your song Democracy. Really enjoy your music for Thrive ^^ Thanks

[@2782Jack]

man I remember talking to some kid at recess in grade school about spore, and eventually in middle school about thrive years later. I checked it out but never thought they'd ever finish the game. I've had DREAMS about underwater civilizations, honestly just so glad to see that after all this time it actually has something I can play.

[@swapertxking]

wild that the multi-cellular prototype just came out, keep on rocking Thrive

[@megan00b8]

I personally don't think it matters that Thrive took over a decade to reach very little. It's core idea of being open sourced and free means that there will always be devs coming and going, a student with a week of spare time here, a programmer nostalgic about spore there, they come and go, each leaving a little bit of progress, and with time, just like the grains of sand can cut down a mountain the game will grow and continue to move slowly, but ever steadily. And of course, as you've mentioned, the game has been getting more traction recently, and the fact is that this will keep happening. Each new update, every big change, anytime anything important happens the game will receive a boom in popularity, the project revitalised by the influx of fresh people who have never heard of it, and come with the same childish hope as everyone else. It's a long run to go, but the game has made it through the worst and even worse, and yet it prevails. Some may call you crazy. Some may call you stupid. Some may call you a hopeless dreamer. I think that you've done the right thing because against all odds here we are, not quite there yet, but with an actual playable game on Steam, under the wings of an official studio. In the end you could say... the game did *Thrive*

[@Surrogate_Gaia]

I will never lose hope on this project. No matter what people might have said and however many people have abandoned the project, it is still the epitome of a true passion project. With every new update, I keep being surprised about its progress and excited for what happens next. I'm glad to see that you also have noit abandoned that hope. Thank you for making this video :)

[@oddly_chaotic5874]

It's amazing to see how a person like yourself was able to do what cards life gave you. When I read the wiki story of thrive, it was crazy to see how far they went and so I hope to experience that same feeling.

[@LiarraSniffles_X3]

Thrive was one of those open-source dream projects that pulled in a lot of new talent when we were younger. Young people with aspirations bigger than their coding knowledge who are still in high-school and can therefore donate their afternoons for free on a neat project. I suspect the endless cycle of replacing almost everyone on the Dev team with fresh young creatives is the primary reason why projects like this usually take a long time to get anywhere. I'm happy to have seen that changing in recent years, and the increase in progress speed was/is pretty inspiring to watch. I also think that Thrive is unlikely to go beyond the 2D cellular stage that is currently available. Not because it's truly an impossible game to make, especially now that the Thrive Dev team is a lot more cohesive and experienced, but because making a complex 3D game requires a lot of different skills that both new volunteers and the existing Dev team aren't as proficient at. I'm pretty sure the reason Spore is so watered down is mainly because you essentially have to make separate games for each stage of evolution, meaning for Thrive you aren't asking volunteers and crowd funding to make one game, but multiple at the same time. To me, the final iteration of the cellular stage will be the best, most fun, version of Thrive. Complex enough to be fun and engaging, but not some unapproachable monolith of menus and game mechanics ala dwarf-fortress. And that's coming from someone who loves dwarf-fortress. Edit: It also doesn't help when you have a lot of passionate fans talking up or overstating where Thrive is actually at in development. Even in this comment section, there are people talking about how the creature stage already exists. Of course, when people investigate, they find out that by 'creature stage' they meant 'multicellular but still microscopic life' people feel baited. A lot of the ridicule I've seen pointed at Thrive is based on making fun of youngsters typing out their dreams for macroscopic gameplay or advanced civilizations in Thrive, something very blatantly not supported in any version of the game. It's a lot of the same ridicule that Dwarf-fortress faced actually; people would read or watch videos about these epic stories that took place in DF, with giants and dragons and goblins and FUN. But then they'd look up gameplay of the game and see a bunch of text on a screen and laugh. It's very easy to make fun of a teenager that is overexcited, and the internet is nothing if not a merciless place.

[@RedNumber19]

I personally would download it from steam, even if you end up using the launcher, just to help out the devs. It looks like an amazing game with such potential, and your funding could help it.

[@DB-cn6rw]

I remember supporting this game for a time before I went broke and had to cancel my patreon sub. I'm so happy that, despite the harshness of such a lofty dream, this game continues to crawl it's ways towards evolutionary videogame thriving!

[@Szerdjel]

i can not express how much i love this video. serious passion can actually be heard in each line spoken it's a magnum opus , bravo!

[@anonymous-rb2sr]

Great video! I'm gonna get the game because of it, though as a word of advice, the main reason I didn't get the game or even look into it before (despite vaguely having the notion it existed) is because of the perceived lack of content I had the mindset (and kinda still do, and I'm not the only one) of "oh, I'll pick it up when it's finished, or at least when there is more stuff" And I feel like this isn't just a percieved issue and wil be the reason I put down the game pretty quickly after going 'uh, that was neat" So what I would recommend for the developpement guys is to just focus on bulk right now, giving the game more features, replayability, rabbitholes to fall into, average play time, etc, just raw bulk, the same way tiny featurless cells become complex factories in the game, I feel like the main focus should be for the game itself to make that transformation, as I feel the lack of stuff is the main reason more people arent getting the game, it is at least for me

[@oceanblue971]

My contribution to the underwater civilization discourse I just found out existed: something like tool breeders in all tomorrows could work. Of course that would probably lead to drastically different gameplay from a terrestrial society and that's probably not realisitc to implement given what the devs already plan to hopefully someday deal with. A game about selectively breeding organisms into ever more complect tools would be neat though. Sorry to contribute to the years old tradition of only coming up with ideas agdkdhf More seriously though, the history here is incredible. The cell stage theyve managed to create is already cool on the face of it but the context of what it took to get here makes it even more incredible! Even if they don't get to further stages I think what they have managed to create is still pretty rad. Hope they're able to keep that spark alive for even more years.

[@electrowizard3209]

It would take way too long to develop even a semi-useful tool. Generations of people would have to remember the concept made by an ancient ancestor.

[@thenoltzone498]

To think I was subscirbed to you since way back then... I knew you'd do a video about this, and I'm glad you did. Great work!

[@wastucar8127]

I’ve had Thrive downloaded for a while, love the ideas. Love the game. Someday we’ll get multicellular, someday…

[@t3chkn1ght]

And that day may be on the horizon

[@10Tabris01]

Multicellular is out as a prototype

[@Turpaanvetopasuuna]

I legit went and bought it on Steam as a bday gift to myself and it is p good

[@bilgehan2778]

Well this was a pleasant surprise. I had seen your old music content (on the next day after I discovered the game steam!) but never would have expected more thrive content. More thrive exposure is always a very pleasant sight to see. Thank you for making some great jams to listen to while playing not-spore, they were a big part in hooking me in :D

[@utubefuku7132]

Bro, this is amazing! And it doesnt matter if it is "impossible", this is pure passion and you should few proud for being a part of it! Doesnt matter if the project dies out, somethings are about the path, not the final destination. And even if the project dies out along the way, you never know the future, this could be the seed for a new thing to blossom tomorrow. Im absolutely amazed, and wish I could contribute. Now now, wipe out the tears and the sad voice, and view it for what it is: a beautiful flower. And yes, people grow and move on, that's part of life, but like you said, you learned so much by being part of this project, and so have everybody else that participated, so it was not a "waste of time" for anybody, but rather a stage of development for all people involved. It helped all those "silly teenagers" to grow, which may well be it's biggest achievement. Defeatists will always be everywhere, but this project is amazing brother, dont you worry about the negative voices, just enjoy the ride for as long as you're in it

[@STUIPEDCHICKEN]

I’ve been waiting for over 10 years for a proper Spore game. It was my favorite game as a kid.

[@joshuasgameplays9850]

This video touched my heart and inspired me to establish an underwater civilization centered around smelting with hydrothermal vents. Thank you, Oliver Smalliver.

[@Peter-vv1sb]

Holy crap this looks so gooood! I'm surprised I've never heard of this. These types of games are so fascinating to me. Edit: there is a similar story to thrive playing out with a game called bibites. Unlike thrive it looks at making an in depth simulation of artificial life evolving on a 2d plane. I highly recommend anyone who enjoyed this video check him out since what he’s trying to achieve is quite similar to the thrive community’s goal of an accurate science based game displaying evolution and it’s intricacies. Bibites is currently being developed by a small group of people lead by a man with what seems to have a Quebec accent. He has a KZbin channel showcasing his work on the project named “The Bibites: Digital Life”. As I’ve said the subject of evolution is so interesting to me and I love the idea thrive and will definitely be looking more into it.

[@arro2546]

top tier ending to this video

[@joed7547]

This is awesome man, thanks for this, came for the the initial video essay and have been hooked on your voice and comedy styling ever since.

[@joaobispo2602]

I love thrive, i remember playing the hexagon version back in the day. My cousin showed me the forum back before that launch, and ive been following it from afar ever since. I thought all the prototipes were fun, and each one allways seemed so impossibly better than the last it allways gave me hope. I played the steam version a couple times this week, and was astounded by what a fun experience it has been to play, i couldnt believe my eyes, its everything spore was for me back when i was a wee lad with an enoumours optimistic imagination. To me its an unpolished game, but its already a real game, not a prototype. Everything i want from the microbe stage is basically already there, and its all so much fun.

[@Permaviolet]

28:23 I remember contributing this terrible UI art for the game back in 2014 when I was 13! I'm now 21 and graduating uni this year. It's amazing to see that progress is still being made on this project. I really hope to see it succeed :)

[@Akieta]

Having recently discovered your channel, man, I must say you do a phenomenal job of creating captivating content. Loving it so far. Well, most of it--cause GOT DAYAM that bell sound is painful every time it plays lol.

[@SageThyme23]

I only found out about Thrive because I loved your videos and wanted to go through your backlog. I hope your channel and this game continue to grow

[@DepravedSluggy]

Subscribed! I had no idea about the history of Thrive, and of how much love and dedication was poured into it. Thank you for taking your time telling your story and the story of Thrive to us, I love the game even more now! ^-^

[@themlgdinosaur1296]

I remember hearing about this game from a blitz video. I didn’t knew about this whole lore behind the game.

[@radordekeche947]

Thrive - Cell Stage, seems interesting. Personally, I think the main issue with spore is that it's trying to be multiple games at the same time. You don't play Prey or Deus Ex: Human Revolution for the hacking mini-games. Likewise, a creature creator isn't going to have the same gameplay as a space 4x game. I figure the best approach for this kind of game, would be to separate each section out into it's own game, and allow players to import their creations into each game. Theoretically then, as long as the export/import tools are publicly available. You wouldn't even need the same dev team making the games. Also, I would really like to have a 4x game built around becoming a Kardashev type 3 civilization. Stellaris is close, and with mods is basically there, but it'd like some more options.

[@xGOKOPx]

You can have functionally separate games that come together to form one game just as fine. I'm not sure how familiar you are with software development, but if certain features are independent enough you don't need the same people to work on them. You could have a team that works on the microbe stage and another team that works on the multicellular stage at the same time, and the teams wouldn't have to communicate with each other much more than if they were working on completely separate games with save export/import. It's worth to notice that to match the ambition of Thrive, the effort required to create each stage is indeed equal to the effort required to create an entire game, but that doesn't mean much in terms of distribution. If this was a for-profit game then it would make sense to release the stages as separate games because then you could sell them separately which wouldn't be a cash grab because of the effort. But with their current business model, I don't think there's a reason to release stages separately. It could've done well for Spore, though - they've tried to make five games with the resources and deadlines for a single one

[@astrospect]

The algorithm delivers. Never heard of you or this game, and now I'm a fan of you and want to play this game really badly. Instant sub.

[@s3pcapcoeuniverse734]

This video was amazing. The story telling, music and deph kept me gripped and even took me through the emotions as we progress through the story.

[@iminumst7827]

I think Thrive is proof that triple A game studios are sometimes necessary. The internet loves to put amateur work on a pedestal, it's always easy to root for the underdog. But sometimes to reach a bar of quality and scope you do need full-time seasoned professionals on the case. Open-source sounds very freeing, but sometimes you need leadership and limitations to create something great. I've been aware of Thrive for a very very long time, and honestly the only impressive part about the project is that people had the patience to continue working on it. The work itself is respectable but not impressive, in Thrive's current state, it's something almost any indie-game studio with at least one game under it's belt could have made in a couple years. I've definitely been victim of this mentality myself, not even too long ago I got really entrenched in the community for the game Hytale. An indie game announced in 2018 as a spiritual successor to Minecraft. I spend so much time in this community that I became well known and well connected, but the game hit delay after delay and I just couldn't take it anymore and left the community out of frustration. While Hytale does seem to have more of an actual future than Thrive, I still felt a lot of the same things you talked about in this video. That feeling of being in a game community for a game that won't exist for a while. After the wild-speculation phase, the community literally ran out of ideas and barely talk anymore. I think part of growing up is being slapped a bit with cold hard reality. I wish game development was so easy that anyone can do it and make great games in their free time, but that's simply not true. Game dev is hard and requires high skill, a lot of time, and real investment. Sometimes the little guy gets lucky and complete a simple game that for whatever reason gets really popular, but I've just seen so many people now who think they can make a game but they can't. Thrive is probably the perfect case study of a non-existent team over-promising out of sheer unfiltered naive optimism. While it's nice they at least have something to show for it, it really can only be seen as a failed project. Luckily Thrive didn't go full kickstarter or had any real investors, because it's short-comings would be seen as a total scam. The fact that the game's always been free and open-source made its failure sting less. But it still stings knowing that no real Spore successor will come anytime soon.

[@matthewbadger8685]

The benefit of thrive's open source production style is that it will probably continue to change hands indefinitely, taking on a life of it's own outside of it's programmers until another 9 years down the line, when it is a match for industry giants or surpasses them. In a way, it will evolve like the organisms that it tries to portray, changing slightly over time to keep up with the demands that are placed on it, and stay relevant due to years upon years of built up additions.

[@catpoke9557]

I recommend browsing the Thrive dev logs and forums if you want proof of your statement about needing leadership. I literally saw someone say "I will make the sprite and hope someone codes it, haha" They NEED leadership. It's a mess over there. So many ideas and sprites and codes, but nobody knows what to do with them or what to work on next. A lot of the devs suggest things that were already planned or that were already suggested but shot down. I think if they just had someone step up and say "This is what we're going to do, and this is how we're going to do it, and this is when it's going to get done" they'd make significantly more progress. But alas, in open source games, anyone who gives orders is ostracized and anyone who doesn't like said orders leaves the team. And I can't blame them. They go into it being told they're going to be FREE and contribute how they choose. Of course they'd be upset if someone ordered them around. But this is exactly why you either need a team who goes into it with agreed upon standards and plans for the future. Basically, make a studio! Make a real TEAM! Not a group of people working on the game separately, A TEAM! People with roles and hierarchies and a real, solid plan. They sort of do this with Thrive, I think. They have directors and stuff. But as far as I know they don't give orders so much as they give things the ok. They go "Yeah, this idea is good. We can implement it." I don't believe they actually tell people "You go do that, and try to get it done by this time." I could be wrong though so correct me if I am.

[@notjustwarwick4432]

Can't wait in a decade, when I get to fully play the game. And I don't say this ironically.

[@icecreamdrought]

your videos about music and videogames and really everything you put out really speaks to me like the way you talk about the things you're passionate in is exactly how i think about the things i'm passionate about and i also just love hearing people talk about neiche communities they have fond memories of

[@Peanut_Koala]

I knew I heard your channel name somewhere before! I followed the project when I was younger and I remember listening to a lot of the tracks you produced. I’m beyond happy the game is still going, bought it on steam and now I think I’ll go become a patron.

[@turkeygod6665]

Honestly, if they even get to multi-cellular (which prob is still unlikely, but honestly after seeing everything should at least be somewhat possible) I'd consider this absolutely revolutionary. That kind of evolutionary complexity in a 3d environment? God, besides my favorite spore stage was always the creature one. Nevertheless, I hope this project the best of luck, you can never have enough of that.

[@andrew9812]

Thrive has reached the multicellular stage now. But it’s only balls currently

[@kelzling]

You've definitely inspired me to give the game a go :) Thank you for sharing the tale!

[@themarkusplp2241]

Saw this pop up in my recommended. And by god, this video unlocked some secret memory within me. It could be just the mandela effect, but by god I've heard about Thrive *once* before! Thank you so much for creating this awesome video. Will definitely look into the game and your channel, I hope to see more!

[@Phrenotopia]

Thank you so much for opening up about this and showing your heartfelt passion for this project. I always kinda liked Thrive even though it was far from perfect yet. I did a review some time ago and even briefly joined the development team, but had to bail out due to lack of time. There are many directions I would like the game to move, especially in multicellular mode, but it takes a lot of time formulating your visions and then there's no guarantee these will be adopted by the team. I may re-join or start my own evolution simulator project along more simplistic lines.

[@michaelwells529]

I've been checking up on Thrive here and there since 2015 I think. It makes me so happy to know that it is still going on and on steam with paid employees no less! It is a miracle of a project as it is and I'm so excited for it. I remember hearing the theme music one late night as a teenager, looking at that concept art with tears in my eyes at the majesty of creation and the excitement of the project. My hope is that just like how evolution happened in real life, each stage will be developed exponentially faster and faster! I don't care if it takes 20 more years to be complete, I'm willing to wait and as long as there is even a little bit of progress towards it, the dream is not dead and proves the nay sayers wrong. If it is finished it will be one of the most unique, important, and "revolutionary" games of all time and an inspiration story in game develop forever.

[@Luredreier]

Underwater civilisations *is* possible, but the only way I can imagine for it to happen would be with a amphibian approach I think. Creatures that's just as comfortable under and over the surface, *starting* that part of their technological development above the water but then bringing the progress down subsurface.

[@ruffusgoodman4137]

I am impressed with your dedication and passion and it speaks volumes to my inaction towards my projects or ones that I like

[@zobblewobble1770]

I was a teen lurking on the Spore forums during the Hirnsausen's Evolutions! affair. I remember watching people debate and get increasingly suspicious of Hirnausen, who turned out to be increasingly weird. The thread was huge, and ended up spawning one of the biggest spore memes at the time "the Hugmonster" to make people feel better (before it began drugging people with Advil PM, good old 2010 era internet humor). When people finally found the real photos that Hirnsausen had photo shopped his "game builds" off of, and he admitted that he had faked it so "Maxis would feel pressured to improve the game with the upcoming competition" I remember people discussing splitting off and doing it for themselves. I didn't believe they would get anywhere, even after they named the project Thrive, since I was smart enough to recognize the Venn diagram of people's ideas to people's programing skills that Oliver put up in this video. Though they are still lightyears off of what their lofty goals are, I've got to admit I'm surprised and impressed that they've been able to keep the project going. The fact that they actually have a product on steam now is just amazing to me.

[@ottovonbismuth]

This is objectively awe inspiring!

[@Alt-ec4nv]

This video broke me for a little while. I, too, when I was young found myself in love with a community. I, too, found myself one day, helping out, dedicating my time to that community. I, too, found myself one day, the most senior staff. I, too, became disillusioned. Stopped visiting, except to do my work. It'd become work, and nothing more.

[@leggonarm9835]

Been watching this game grow from the beginning. You guys are doing great seeing as the very lofty goals.

[@futotesan]

TY for your contributions to this game. I loved the concept when I stumbled upon it. Listening to you lamenting about how it might never be complete...well, as sad as I am there, still is hope. And even if it goes nowhere, at least I got to experience the cell stage of this incredible endeavor. So, again, thanks to you...and the others who selflessly contributed.

[@antonberkbigler5759]

I’ve never heard of or been part of any aspect of thrive and even I’ve had thought about and had arguments with only myself about underwater civilizations and then come to the conclusion that metallurgy would ultimately be impossible, the closest any emergent toolmaking underwater lifeforms to having any form of metallurgy is scavenging shipwrecks, which is ultimately not feasible in the long term. The better question that should come after reaching such conclusion is not “what obscure or loophole-ish way could they have metallurgy?”, the better question is “what materials would underwater civilizations use *instead* of metal, and in what ways would they use them?”

[@ishouldprobablychangemyuse5093]

I really hope that this will become popular, love the game!

[@treverpearman6475]

Thank you for making this video. I'd never heard of this game before, and I'm excited to see this kind of game development push forward.

[@BenDover-bo1hm]

When I saw this video at first I haven't watched it but as someone who played spore at a young age this is giving me nostalgic feelings along with lots of sad emotions overall I am glad I watched this video also very happy to come across your channel thank you

[@123TeeMee]

Been watching your videos already, and suddenly you make this and I've never really found such a relatable thing. I dreamt of making a game of microbes fighting, but they'd be kinda pokemon so you can search for and collect them, like scientists do. This wasn't actually inspired by spore at all. I was inspired by a game called cell lab, which is amazing but didn't get popular; it involves actually evolving multi cellular organisms that can fight and stuff, but the really cool thing is how they grow and the fact it's not tile based but instead all soft body physics. I made a long google doc for my idea just before I joined university. Made some awful demo with some guy at university, it was pretty much just extremely basic and buggy pokemon with no microbe simulation. I'm pretty sure I knew it would never really happen but it was fun thinking about it anyway. I do still dream of making games and do still have long google documents for them. Never found anyone else who did it too tho, and have never progressed too far. But I probably could make at least something if I actually was motivated to some day, as I've started a software development job. I try and think about how to make things easy on the development side. So it's all 2D and tile based. Also, I've kind of abandoned the desire to make games; instead I'd rather make simulations that are somewhat educational and inspring, that don't eat away people's time. Recently I've been inspired by a project I found called the life engine, which the developer made some interesting videos about. It's technologically very basic, but it's something I can enjoy watching and playing around with for hours. Also it's open source. P.S I have to admit, I did once spend an evening thinking about how underwater creatures would progress technologically.

[@arch_imedes7108]

You can really tell this game aspires to its ideals when it has you wait the actual amount of time it would take a cell to reach the next evolutionary stage.

[@scolkereybel]

This is *crazy* the level of complexity and personal this game can get, developing species based on your previous iterations

[@gabrielvanwinkle324]

This has been a delight for me. I stumbled across thrive, was on the fence. I'm emotionally involved now. This is great, your content is great, and I hope some of the original developers make their way back on to the team.

[@MarshallMori]

This is some inspiring stuff, man. Maybe one day I'll fully grasp Blender in order to contribute in some other way than helping with the Dutch translation.

[@ArcticTron]

Not going to lie I did not think that this amateur-ish Musician for a game that less people than the population of Monaco has more than likely heard of turned video essayist would ever make a video that puts into words exactly why they (and more than likely many others) still have faith in a game this ambitious and conceptually impossible to make that has only just started picking up steam after close to a decade of development. Honestly at this point I have to assume that our collective faith is somehow keeping this impossible game alive simply because we want it to like the Orks in 40k making red vehicles go faster simply because they believe they do. So... I guess I'll keep believing if for no other reason than I want to play the Aware stage since the creature stage was my favorite in Spore and I'm a huge biology, ecology, and evolution enthusiast.

[@uwskie8672]

having only found this gem of a game recently, and having shown this to my professor. I have to say i'm hyped and you my man are a legend.

[@Sincuttiere]

This is great work, thank you for your time in making this video