Progress Update 10/10/2026

Hello and welcome to your weekly Thrive Progress Update! This time we have some important functional additions to the Multicellular Stage, as well as some interesting visuals produced while working on the Macroscopic creature texture system.

Two required features were implemented for the Multicellular Stage. The first is the new requirements for advancing to the Macroscopic Stage, no longer is it just getting to 20 cells. While the cell number requirement has been lowered to 15, several other requirements have been added to ensure your species is “advanced” enough. This makes sure players spend enough time in the Stage. The second big addition is 5 more Multicellular tutorials added, helping ensure that players that reach the editor are not immediately lost.

Meanwhile, over on the Development Forums, there was significant design discussion in preparation for Macroscopic Stage development, specifically on the transition from Multicellular, and how to handle minimum sizes. There was also discussion regarding the Multicellular stage though, with the topics being Multicellular Stage achievements, and the implementation of AI species becoming multicellular and a new organelle to digest things outside your cells. Finally, there was again some discussion on improving Thrive's Steam visibility.

There were also some smaller changes, such as a rework to the movement system, both in-gameplay and what the editor/auto-evo uses. In general, cell walls will no longer slow you down twice as much as we intended, and Multicellular species should survive more easily. Secondly, the auto-evo exploration tool can now load saves, which makes it possible to test specific scenarios. Auto-evo also received a few structural and performance improvements.

Finally, one of our team members has been working on the texture system for Macroscopic Stage creatures for some time now. And while this has not made it fully into the game's code yet, some of the experiments along way have had some… interesting results. (Don't expect to find this in your copy of Thrive)

If anyone was wondering: “But can it play Bad Apple?” The answer is: Yes, it can.

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Programming

• New Devbuild available to our Patreon Supporters:
  • Added more complex conditions for advancing to the macroscopic stage
  • Added a set of new multicellular stage tutorials to the editor
  • Reworked how movement speed and buffs are calculated especially for cell colonies
  • Added loading of existing worlds from saves to the auto-evo exploring tool
  • Made some macroscopic / aware stage menus close when going to the editor to prevent the scene switch from destroying them permanently
  • Added caching of mutation scores during auto-evo sorting to slightly improve performance
  • Improved auto-evo code in miche population writing
  • Updated Sygiyama library from 0.13.1 to 0.15.1
  • Updated AngleSharp from 1.8.3 to 1.8.4
  • Adjusted code review tool locale file paths
  • Updated translations
• Practical discussions around the implementation of non-player species becoming multicellular.

Graphics

• Nothing substantial.

Gameplay

• Added requirements to be met before you can advance to the Macroscopic Stage (The numbers are very likely to still be changed):
  • Cell count at least: 15
  • Using a more advanced reproduction method than regular budding
  • Cell types used in the body plan: 3
  • Overall specialization of at least: 40%
  • Average cell adjacency bonus at least: 10%
• Added tutorials to the Multicellular Stage for:
  • General editor introduction.
  • Creating new cell types.
  • The Cell Editor.
  • The exact cell Layout tab.
  • Requirements for advancing to the Macroscopic Stage.
• Some reworks and (noticeable) fixes of the movement system:
  • Membrane properties no longer affect organelle propulsion outside the editor (this was already the case for the prediction in the editor). So flagella now work well in combination with cell walls.
  • Membrane properties are no longer applied to base speed twice. Primarily, cells with cell walls should be less slow now.
  • The movement boost from sprinting is now applied to all cells in a colony/Multicellular species, instead of just the number 1 cell.
  • The editor display and auto-evo now use a method for Multicellular speed calculation that is more similar to that of microbe species. Among other things, this makes Multicellular Species get a better score and show up more often.
• Game design discussions:
  • Discussion on implementation of an extracellular digestion organelle for Multicellular.
  • Plenty of discussion on translating Multicellular species to Macroscopic, and related topics.
  • Revived discussion on handling the minimum size of species in the Macroscopic Stage.
  • A call for suggestions for Multicellular Stage achievements. Feel free to add your own suggestions, for example on our Community Forums!

UI

• New button and popup for viewing requirements to progress to the Macroscopic Stage:
• The “Become Macroscopic” button is now disabled when editor requirements are not met:
• Several tutorial elements added for the Multicellular editor. Here is one example:
• Added a button to load a save in the auto-evo exploration tool:

Sound

• Nothing substantial.

Theory

• Nothing substantial.

Outreach

• The second loading screen art contest is still ongoing. Art submissions of any level of quality or experience are welcome!
• Another comment on Thrive's Steam visibility, on a potential demo and show more trailers in particular.

Other

• Nothing substantial.