What is Reddit's opinion of Thrive?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

You may want to have a look at Thrive, an open source, independently developed game currently in the works. The basic premise is that Spore had the right idea but went wrong in several ways, including its failure to live up to the grand natural selection-based game it was billed as. I do have to warn you that, at first sight at least, it will look as if we haven't done much considering the time it's been in development, but that's sort of inevitable with a free, open source project which demands people's free time to finish. As of right now, we have a full concept for the first stage, implementation details on most of it (including a compound management system and procedural evolution) and a build which includes a few of them but will soon include far more.

If you watch the press videos from like a year before release the game is massively more complex than what was released. There was significantly more physics based interaction in the creature stage (the only remnant of that was that now you can pick up sticks, and than drop them).

The space stage also seemed to be more fun, being more of a sandbox rather than "trade various colours of spice" game. Whenever I think about Spore I get sad.

Hopefully Thrive a game inspired by spore but promising more depth will be more fun if it is anywhere near finished somewhere in the next couple of years.

You can download and find out for yourself: http://revolutionarygamesstudio.com/releases/

At the moment...probably not. We have some of the game in place but even the first stage is a long way to completion. We'll get there eventually though.

There's an indie game project for a spore-like game called Thrive. Mind you, it's still very early on.

http://revolutionarygamesstudio.com/

You can follow the development here: http://forum.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/

EDIT: also /r/thrive

Hey, I'm a member of the Thrive team. Thanks for your support! We've got a basic microbe stage working now. We'd love for you to join us at /r/Thrive, the forums and our website! We'd love your help, especially if you can program or can work in 3D modeling.

There's always Thrive. It's kinda Spore-ish but the progress on that game's development is slow, as it's done by freelancers for completely free. I'll give you a link so you can check it out. Unfortunately I haven't heard of any other similar games. http://revolutionarygamesstudio.com/releases/

Edit: Dev.

There's actually no place to donate. We appreciate the gesture, but we're doing this voluntarily, so we don't accept money. If you were able to donate some more programmers and artists though, we'd be ever grateful!

EDIT: We did address kickstarter two Deblogs ago (http://revolutionarygamesstudio.com/devblog-2-new-cell-membrane/).

It's nowhere near done, but there's a game called Thrive being made by a small indie team that's setting out to be everything Spore was but better. It's not much now, but they've got some big goals and I'm excited to see where it goes.

Not to be mean or anything, but there is already a group trying to do this right now. They are a pretty small team, so they are always looking for people to help them out.

The project I was thinking of is called Thrive. I'd seen it mentioned a few months ago and was referencing it from memory in the first comment. I've looked it up again and it's a free open-source project being done by a team of volunteers whose goal is basically to develop a more complex evolution simulator. Their website is here. No idea how it'll pan out since it seems like it's still an early work in progress, but at least serves as another example of an independent group pursuing an ambitious goal of developing a game to rival a major release. Hopefully the future will see more projects like this developing and succeeding.

The development for it is so slow you might have to wait until you're on your deathbed to even play it, but Thrive has set out to become everything Spore said it would be and more, and is entirely free.

http://revolutionarygamesstudio.com/faq/

>While Thrive was originally widely inspired by Spore’s intended concept, we aim to portray a creature’s evolution in a fun and interesting way while remaining scientifically accurate. Evolution will play out on not just your own creature, but those around you, each competing to survive within the simulated environment.

Download - https://github.com/Revolutionary-Games/Thrive/releases/tag/v0.3.0

Subreddit - https://www.reddit.com/r/thrive/

Website - Only click this link if you can't find what you want on the above two. Reddit and Github can handle a hug of death, I doubt these guys can.

Yes and no. The original concept was a lot like what OP described, but the final game feels rather watered down. There's a fan project to make a game based on the original ideas and potential of Spore. Give it a look, see what you think.

If you aren't aware there's a very WIP open source game called thrive that was inspired by the original vision for Spore. There's only a cell stage so far after it's been going for years so chances are it may never get that far, but it's a thing

Keep an eye on this http://revolutionarygamesstudio.com/

It may take a long while to finish but when it does it looks like it would be the spore everyone was waiting for or better.

Also its free and open source so you can program for it to speed it along.

Yeah you can check out how the game looks and play it here http://revolutionarygamesstudio.com/

Basically things are going really well! Huge progress has been made (like the cells actually look like cells) and hopefully, ~maybe / keep your hopes down, the microbe stage might be properly playable before ~too~ long~~ whatever that means. Which would be huge. That's a real watershed for the game as we get to discover if it's actually fun or not! (I think it will be fun).

Anyway if you've got programming skeeeels apply to join the team and help you. If you don't and you have programming friends get them on the team.

There's also the community forums http://thrivegame.freeforums.net/

which is a great place to hang out and chat with people about the game. The devs hang out there a lot and it's a cool place to share ideas / give feedback.

Broken promises primarily, as a game it's one that I keep finding myself compelled to play, however the game that we got was an entirely different beast compared to Will Wright's original vision for the game, it was going to have a much more realistic style than the final version of the game which was quite cartoony, and the gameplay too was originally going to be vastly different.

that said, the void opened by the promises Maxis made and left empty by SPORE's release, is one that a small losely connected group of game developers is trying to fill. Their project is called Thrive and it's open source, so anybody can contribute.

It is one of the goals of the game, so hopefully it will stay realistic, the creators have investigated a lot, read this to understand furthermore

http://revolutionarygamesstudio.com/devblog-16-realism/

Even if the awaken stage (3rd stage) will not be realistic the multicellular (2nd stage) weill probably be.

My actual concern is if there is even going to be an awaken stage, specially since they've been 4 years in a single stage.

We're switching the engine to a new custom one made by one of the developers, since most of the current developers didn't know how to work with the old engine that well anymore. The developer making this new engine (hhyrylainen) has documented it really in depth and it's helped with making it easier for new programmers to learn and adaptable for the features we want to add to the game. If you want you can read more about it here: http://revolutionarygamesstudio.com/devblog-13-engine-dilemma/. That was a while back so there've been updates since then but it summarizes it pretty well.

I can't remember where it was but I answered this somewhat recently. And the answer is that to reach a state where each stage is almost fully done will probably take a decade or two. But to have a fully playable game with all the stages will probably take only a bit over 5 years or so. It's going to be a long ride but we will be releasing new versions with new features along the way so there won't be a sudden full release, just incremental updates.

Regarding your second point about the mac version: if you know any programmers with a mac send them our way, http://revolutionarygamesstudio.com/get-involved/

I too have been looking for these and most of what I have found is in Alpha or Beta still a while off. http://revolutionarygamesstudio.com/ is one Thrive is the games Name and http://spore.wikia.com/wiki/Spore-like_games

Hi.

I'm contributing to a project called Thrive. It's a game about the evolution of life from microbes to spacefaring mega-civilisations. We're currently working on the AI systems for the game. It's an open source game so there's no money involved but if you are interested check it out.

http://revolutionarygamesstudio.com/

We're a friendly bunch of people and you can contribute as much or as little as you like. We've also got some great scientific expertise so there's plenty to learn! I've learnt a huge amount myself.

If you were at all interested in doing some ai programming for us then that would be really cool. Here is our code base

https://github.com/Revolutionary-Games/Thrive

and here is the ai discussion we are having at the moment

http://forum.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/thinking-about-ai/60/15

If you have any questions just ask and I'll answer, I have been working on the project for about 9 months and I have enjoyed it! The summer is our most active time so it's a great time to join the project.

Yeah, have a look at this page. If you can do any of these tasks then we'd love to have you on board.

If you also happen to be a programmer with professional experience then that would be just dandy, (or if you know some people like that let them know).

Otherwise you can treat Thrive like a learning experience. Ever wanted to learn to 3D model or compose music? Why not take this as an opportunity to learn those skills while making something useful for us.

Actually, this is already happening, albeit slowly. I'm a member of an independent development team creating Thrive, a better and more realistic game about evolution: http://revolutionarygamesstudio.com/

Our latest devblog does a great job of detailing the latest update and all: http://revolutionarygamesstudio.com/devblog-18-thrive-is-alive/

​

We're an open source evolution similar developed by volunteers. We aren't Spore 2 or anything and don't claim to be. Everyone on the team was inspired by the type of game Spore was and wanted something more!

EA did fuck up Spore, the way the game was marketed didn't match up with the final product. Doesn't mean the game is bad, however.

This is ultimately how I felt with No Man's. Terrible Marketing. Poor execution. But in the end I still enjoy the game.

I think what Spore and NMS both have in common the most, was the whole "infinite possibilities" nonsense. The whole "two playthroughs are entirely different" is just a string of buzzwords.

Spore and NMS are perfect in small bits. but they can't advertise it like that, can they?

Spore is still one of my favorite non-sim sim games however. I wish there were more spiritual successors. Heck, I wish there were more spiritual successors to the Sims/Maxis games in general.

There is Thrive, an open-source "possible successor" to Spore.

Currently they're only developing in Cell Stage, and have been for the past few years. However they promise an entirely full simulated universe. But we all know how that goes

Alright so here's what I've found so far:

Darkspore. I still have a DVD disc with it! But I never liked it. The only thing from Spore there is the concept of different unlockable body parts.

Thrive. Never played it but it looks more "serious" than Spore.

Species. Looks terrible but, according to its description, it's something similar to Spore.

Also Sparkle 2 Evo reminded me of stage 1 in Spore. I really liked stage 1 so maybe you'll enjoy the game too.

Just asking, what do you think about the various "Spore ressurection" projects like Thrive? Do you think an indie team will ever be able to make anything at least somewhat comparable?

Another interesting game is Thrive, basically trying to do what Spore was supposed to do, using real life science to make the game mechanics. So far they've only got the single cell stage open to the public, but there's a lot of promise in it.

The development forums are by invitation only. You can apply on the website if you have skills that will help with the development.

The community forums are open to all, if you have any trouble there then please get in touch.

Thanks to this thread, I learned about something interesting.

Apparently, there's a game in development called 'Thrive' that seeks to make an open-source version of the original Spore idea. I'm not sure what its status is, but it looks interesting.

Currently the first stage, the microbe stage, is being built. It's going pretty well. You can download it here if you like

http://revolutionarygamesstudio.com/

Currently there's not any gameplay but I'm hoping we can get some included soon. It's going to be really interesting to fight as microbes.

Working on this stage is going to take a loooong time but progress is being made.

The team is great and there's some really talented people working hard.

What‘s wrong with Thrive, though? It has a great balance between Species‘ realism and Spore‘s fun. The microbe stage is coming along just fine. And this is only the beginning. Check it out and try it yourself if you don‘t believe me: http://revolutionarygamesstudio.com

Hey there! May I interest you in a game called Thrive? Thrive, much like this game you are proposing, originally started as a spiritual successor to Spore. Thrive will have 7 stages: Microbe, multicellular, aware, awakening, society, industrial and space stage. We are currently working on the microbe stage and have only recently published a new version. You can download and play it FOR FREE here: http://revolutionarygamesstudio.com That‘s right, Thrive is and will always be free. It‘s an open source game and all of us developers are volunteers. That‘s why we are constantly looking for new talented programmers, graphic artists, musicians etc. If you‘d like to become a part of the Thrive team, this is the site to go to: http://revolutionarygamesstudio.com/get-involved/

Edit: Here is the text of the original post in case the link is not working.

We are making a free and open source game called Thrive and our biggest problem right now is that out compound clouds don't show up for people who have AMD graphics cards. Unfortunately the whole dev team has Nvidia so we're struggling to work out what the problem is.

I know it's a bit of a longshot but does anyone have experience of Ogre, Shaders or AMD graphics and would be willing to try and help us figure out what is happening?

Here is some more info, feel free to check out our code. Here is our discord if you want to talk to us.

Thanks :)

If you happen to stumble upon game developers willing to volunteer, please send them our way: http://revolutionarygamesstudio.com/get-involved/ to help speed up the development

YES! And a better civilization and space stage, please.

BTW, there's this project aiming to create a game similar to spore, but with more realistic cells, creatures, etc. Just a better game overall. It's made by a few dudes and has been going on for some years now, so production is extremely slow, but I hope they'll finish it someday.

Yeah the system they made is really impressive. What they made for procedural animations is really great.

Basically they abstracted the animations so that you could program in "wave your top most limb towards your friend" and then this would be translated to how the arm should move on different creatures. Larger creatures would have the limb move further, the correct one would be selected etc.

In a recent article I read it said they did have to throw the challenge out of the stage to keep it maximally creative. You can make any shape in the editor and they are all equally viable but that means the shape making process ultimately means nothing gameplay wise. This has made the game very popular with creative modellers but the gameplay is very poor.

We're doing something a bit similar and we've got a microbe editor. We're going for a more realistic approach where you need to think in the editor to make a good microbe otherwise it will die a lot.

Generally you want /r/gameDevClassifieds or /r/INAT

If you are looking for Hobby stuff we're looking for a sound designer atm, feel free to make an application.

Hey, we're a volunteer project looking for a sound designer, our sound effects could do with a bit of love. If you play the game you can hear what I mean. It's only hobby though.

http://revolutionarygamesstudio.com/

Yo bois there is a game called Thrive and is in early access. It's apparently based on Spore, but also focused more on the science part. It is in early early early stages, though. Check it out, we have scientific cell stages!

(not trying to be an online marketer, sorry if it seems like that) http://revolutionarygamesstudio.com/

We are switching to another custom engine (https://github.com/hhyyrylainen/Leviathan). The main reason for this is that it is similar to the old one to reduce porting work. The reasons are elaborated here: http://revolutionarygamesstudio.com/devblog-13-engine-dilemma/

Building the game from source can be a challenge. There's a download here that should work out of the box, fingers crossed.

http://revolutionarygamesstudio.com/releases/

A beta was released in March and our last release was in August.

I'm confused by the news sites blog. It is from August and remarking on a release 3.2 from March :P

http://revolutionarygamesstudio.com/devblog-9-current-affairs/

It's fine to plug Thrive, I think its a cool idea, but I've not had any luck building it and have yet to try a playable release. Will there be one soon?

It's still all here, but it was removed from the main page a) because it took up too much space and b) because concept art in pride of place on the main page screams vapourware (see the comment above).

Per your second point: I don't know about you, but I think it's pretty obvious even without concept art that the game's nothing like Call of Duty. We certainly want to inspire, but showing definite progress is more inspiring than (albeit beautiful) concept art.

It was a bit annoying at first, but once we got it working we could ignore it for a while. We spent about half of this year upgrading to Ogre 2.0 from 1.8.1, and it looks like we might be upgrading to 2.1 soon because there have been a lot of improvements on the renderer. I'm not the one who did most of that work, though, so I can't speak with a very informed opinion.

We'd be very interested in having an experienced engine programmer willing to yell at us about our mistakes once in a while. And personally, I think the advice would be going the other way. Throw an application our way so we can add you to the list (we got like 5 awesome applications thanks to this thread so far, you could make it 6), and PM me your email so I can add you to things.

Fantastic, we'd love to have the help. Could you fill in an application here, that would be great.

http://revolutionarygamesstudio.com/application/

We don't need much detail, just some idea of your skills, experience and areas of interest. Then we can send you some invites to the dev forum and the slack group, so then you can join in the discussions.

Look forward to working with you.

I'm not sure if it would qualify as "more mature" but maybe Black & White (more of a god sim)?

A google search led me to Thrive which may be more what you're after? http://revolutionarygamesstudio.com/

Hi.

We're looking for programmers at the Thrive project. We are an established team of about 10 people covering all the areas of game design making a game about the evolution of life. It's open source (no money for anyone) and you can check out our codebase and website here.

http://revolutionarygamesstudio.com/

https://github.com/Revolutionary-Games/Thrive

If you're looking for something to contribute to and use your c++ skills it's a great opportunity. We also have some great scientific talent working on the project so there's a lot that can be learnt.

If you have any questions please ask. It's a great project being made by a good group of people.

Hi,

I've been contributing to the Thrive project for about 9 months now, I've really got a lot out of it. It's an open source game about the evolution of life.

We are looking for c++ programmers to help with development. We already have a team of 10 dedicated people so you can contribute as much or as little as you like. Checkout our codebase and webiste, you can download and play the game from there.

http://revolutionarygamesstudio.com/

https://github.com/Revolutionary-Games/Thrive

Thrive is a great learning experience, we have some great scientific talent on the team (at the moment 3 micro-biologists for the microbe stage) so there's a lot that can be got out of it. If you have any questions just ask and I'll be happy to answer them :)

If you are interested in something a little bigger (in C++ and lua) then the Thrive project is looking for people to contribute. It's unpaid and a fantastic learning opportunity. I've been contributing for 9 months and learnt a huge amount.

Have a look at our website and ask if you have any questions. We have a dedicated team of about 10 people already so you can contribute as much or as little as you like in any area.

http://revolutionarygamesstudio.com/

Other than any suggestions anyone else has, here is everything that's still left to do:

1. Transfer the domain (replacing http://revolutionarygamesstudio.com/index.htm )

2. Create a better intro video, featuring gameplay, concepts and prototypes animations (like Tritium's in place as a placeholder, just with actual recorded game footage spliced in)

3. Finish the GitHub API integration on the Releases page

4. Have the team leads register so they can post updates