Ecosystem

Promising, but buggy. It first appears to be Spore crossed with SimLife, if that were designed with science as a focus, and not as a child's game. What it turns out to be is SimAquarium. Which I'm fine with, since this is supposed to be a pretty chill game, planting coral and sea urchins looking for somewhere else that needs a bit more kelp fits the bill. Once you reach the limit of your aquarium, however - you research all the stuff, and you're reduced to spending points on sea shells that are only for aesthetics - the game begins to show some strain. At its core is the idea that neural networks can be used to simulate evolution, and the game does alright in this regard. I never saw anything that resembled a fish, but there were a few horrors that would have fit well in some hellish Devonian ocean. I was close to 40 generations with my Bitterwrack, an organism that looked like a bioluminescent aquatic prickly pear, and at one point I spawned something that resembled a fish crossed with a wind turbine. The interactions between these organisms and other species are interesting enough, but I feel that a better UI would have greatly improved the game. An overlay, for instance, telling you where you laid down your ocean currents. More explanation of the actual neural network would have been helpful, as well as a way to tweak the nodes to favor one or the other. And it does have bugs, and not just the crustaceans that you spawn, which look nothing like crabs, but could be mistaken for sea scorpions or the like if you squint real hard. No, the bad kind of bug, minor ones that require a restart from save, and major ones - just had a CTD, because I think I hit an upper limit of creatures to spawn. Not well optimized, game gets stuttery, especially when auto-saving, which takes quite a while, even with an SSD. These take hold once the game starts to get interesting, where there are lots of. Things. Swimming around. The game does not like complexity, in a game about ecological complexity. Audio could have used a little more work, too. I would have liked to hear when a forager is eating those accursed red tubes which spread like kudzu across my aquarium. Or thrashing sounds when a predator goes to dinner. Graphics are well done, you do get the feeling of being under the sea. All in all, I'm not unhappy, and I would like to see an Ecosystem 2, but I'm also not unhappy that I bought it on sale.

The mechanics of this game are amazing and engaging for me, but it's actually impossible for me to load my saves. It takes a very, very long time just for the tiniest bit of loading progress. I literally finished an entire Better Call Saul episode (S4:E3) from start to finish before my game loaded, you can't make this up.

This is great fun for a while, "gardening" plants corals and creatures in a living ecosystem but it doesn't take that long before you unlock everything and fill the map. By then you've just about seen everything and the creatures that evolve always seem to be monstrosities. I think if they enforced symmetry they'd be less ugly.

It's fun, but I'm having trouble loading my saves. Staring at the loading screen for 10 minutes.

on my first run, i ran into crashing issues and my save file was unloadable. on a second run, i was cearful on how many creatures i spawned. look, on sale, yeah. but i payed full price ($29.50 AUD) and at that price point its a buggy s@#t game. if it was down to 5 dollars, it would be worth a look. otherwise wait.

I love the concept and the gameplay wasn't even that bad if you know what you're getting into, however the game is soo poorly optimized that it was burning my computer up and sutttering quite a lot once things started going which is sad because i had just gotten multiple spieces in the system. It is pretty unplayable once that happens.

It's interesting conceptually but the buggy unfinished UX kind of kills any potential enjoyment. These types of digital garden experiences live and die off of being kinaesthetically pleasing to interact with as software, most of your time in this game will be spent fighting with the camera or trying to decipher obtuse UI elements

I like the game but.. sometimes when i try to load my saves it doesnt work, its probably bc how many sprites there are

As a biologist I do enjoy it.

Game is interesting if it was not for the fact it take ages to load or gets stuck on loading if they can fix this issue it has potential. It has still a long way to go to have long term viability.