Progress Update 9/19/2026

Hello and welcome to your weekly Thrive Progress Update! We finally got through the backlog of issues this week, so work has begun on a new major feature. Though since it is not yet finished, you will unfortunately not be reading about it today! Instead we have some smaller features, fixes and balance changes.

The Sexual reproduction mode now uses the same overall mechanics and UI for handling its special cell types as the Sporulation mode does, where it does not use one of your normal cell types directly, but instead copies one to make a gamete-only cell type. This also means that switching between the two options keeps the same cell design! In another Multicellular feature the maximum zoom now properly grows dynamically as you grow new cells (previously, it was making an estimate based on the editor design). The absolute largest view range is now as large as we can make it without things visibly popping into existence at the edges.

Meanwhile, over on the Development Forums, there was a flurry of discussion on many different topics. This includes improvements to environmental tolerances and resources from predation for the Microbe and Multicellular Stages. But there was also discussion on Macroscopic and Aware design, as well as on trying to improve sales of Thrive. There was even a revival of talk about a multiplayer mode for Thrive, but I have to caution that there are still no firm plans on this.

A major rebalance has happened for predation. Every time a cell dies or is engulfed, a bit of glucose is “created” (on top of stored glucose) to represent digesting the organic compounds the cell is made of. This has been made larger, and more consistent, so especially small cells provide more now. You can also increase digestion efficiency much higher, so eukaryotes (and multicellular species) can now get even more by using more lysosomes.

There are also a number of smaller tweaks and changes. Auto-evo has had some things made more accurate, but has also been sped up by somewhere around 20-30%. This kind of performance improvement gives us the space to try more advanced things. One of the more amusing bugs fixed was that it was possible to use the pause key during a loading screen, leaving you waiting forever.

Look below for additional details and screenshots if you're interested, and we'll see you next week for more updates!

Programming

• New Devbuild available to our Patreon Supporters:
  • Implemented the special cell type selection GUI for the gamete types (as it was only implemented for sporulation in the previous release)
  • Increased the max zoom out distance when controlling a large multicellular colony
  • Increased max digestion efficiency from 0.6 to 1.0
  • Reworked how bonus glucose is calculated on cell death / engulfment
  • Fixed process speed and specialization bonus to be independent of the order they are applied in. This has a slight impact on the entire bioprocess system.
  • Fixed mass budding causing an action history entry for other reproduction modes when starting the editor with just a single cell
  • Fixed placing stuff in the editor after a history resetting action like the new cell button in freebuild
  • Optimized random X taking algorithm in auto-evo
  • Significantly reduced auto-evo runtime by skipping duplicate organelle deletion checks
  • Optimized remove organelle placement check in auto-evo
  • Optimized auto-evo population calculation step a bit by reusing cache memory
  • Fixed auto-evo calculating toxin score from an unused cell type
  • Added a temporary auto-evo optimization regarding checking storage capacity. The checks now skip special storage but in the future we hope to take that into account properly.
  • Updated the style guide again
  • Fixed distributed colony damage causing each entity to play a sound which made things like damage sounds much louder than intended
  • Fixed auto-evo state variables not being fully accurate whether a run was in progress or not
  • Fixed initial composition being only released on cell death if the cell stored any amount of that compound
  • Fixed the game being able to pause during the loading screen
  • Optimized auto-evo initial compounds calculation by it only happening on succeeding candidate species
  • Fix a macroscopic stage test
  • Improved safety in our task executor system in case some task items failed
  • Modified the included free view camera debug tool to use our custom input system and keybindings
  • Fixed entering an editor scene with a console command not remembering that that is a cheated state if a save is made afterwards
  • Fixed auto-evo incorrectly checking required enzyme for the smallest cell in multicellular prey
  • The Thrive development scripts now recognize “godot-mono” as the primary name of the Godot executable but still accept plain godot as a fallback
  • Added a modular shader builder for later usage
  • Updated code checking tools
  • Updated translations

Graphics

• Nothing substantial.

Gameplay

• Sexual reproduction now uses dedicated cell types for gametes instead of one of your normal cell types.
• Increased maximum digestion efficiency (improved by lysosomes) from 60% to 100%. This should make specialised digestive cells (and having many lysosomes in general) much more worth it.
• The bonus glucose (outside of glucose in storage) provided by engulfed cells and released by dead cells has been reworked. Instead of being equal to 125% of the glucose storage capacity, it is now equal to 90% of the reproduction cost (ammonia and phosphate) of each organelle. This means you overall get a lot more glucose, but especially so for smaller prokaryotes. Some particularly vacuole-enthusiastic species will provide less than before.
• Increased maximum zoom-out range for large Multicellular designs (the zoom out distance depends on colony size). The max is about as far as we can go without having issues with the edge of the simulation becoming visible.
• Game design discussions:
  • Extensive discussion on an option to reset the patch/environment after leaving the editor even when staying in the same patch.
  • A comment on implementing toxin immunity.
  • Continued discussion on Macroscopic Stage progression, and what differentiates it from Aware.
  • Questions arising from the Macroscopic Editor concept.
  • Proposals for improving resources from predation, later implemented.
  • Proposals for improving the environmental tolerances system.
  • A design concept for handling cultures starting from the Awakening Stage.
  • Revisiting the old idea of having multiplayer in Thrive.

UI

• Sexual reproduction now uses the same special cell type selection GUI as the Sporulation option already did.

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!
• Ideas on improving Thrive's visibility on Steam.

Other

• Nothing substantial.