Thrive

I think the devs should drop the "macroscopic" parts from the todo list and just make a good 2d physics enginge for multicellular organisms. With enough complexity the progression wouldn't have to be so linear and you could truly specialize in order to adapt instead of just trying to climb some make beleive ladder. The concept of "toxin" is way to broad in the context of how detailed the other chemical stuff was.

Thrive is a spiritual successor to Spore, the Maxis game from the 2000s. Godsim/Evolutionsim, start from a small single cell, and grow into a dominant species. As far as I know, Thrive is specifically an in depth version of the Cell Stage of Spore, you won't be developing into a larger creature, and forget any idea of recreating civilization or flying a space ship. After 2 hours of play, I do not believe I enjoy the gameplay. In general the basic game loop is there, you have a cell, you need to collect food and basic chemicals used to construct cell parts, once you've collected enough materials, you go into the cell editor, add parts to your cell, then get back into the world and the cycle continues. That loop is simple and enjoyable enough, it's basically the same loop as Spore's Cell Stage. My issue is information fatigue. I think there are too many stats, abilities, cell parts, and other various mechanics, and the tutorial in general does not do a good job helping me to understand what is happening. Even after my 2.5 hours of play, I still only barely understand how to actually play this game beyond the simple game loop, and I don't think that is a good sign. Spore in contrast is very easy to pick up, there's not a lot of text to read, and there's a fraction of the stats to have to manage. In Thrive, I find that I don't know exactly where to look for the information that I need. I find that the tutorial gets in the way more often than not, I can't interact with previously learned mechanics before the tutorial has thrown something new at me. I find that a lot of the information that tooltips and stats are giving to me, I don't care much for, I ignore it, not knowing what it's for, if it's important, or even what it does. I do actually enjoy complex management games, I play factorio, oxygen not included, and surviving mars, those games are very system, stat, and management heavy. However, those games have a way of making the gameloop enjoyable, interesting, and attention keeping. In my opinion, Thrive lacks a real hook into the gameplay and systems that are being displayed. I think the devs of Spore knew about this too, this may be the dichotomy of this game loop: add more mechanics and stats, and the gameplay lacks interest. simplify the mechanics and make gameplay faster, maybe slightly more fun, but the game ends sooner, people don't have fun for a long time, engagement goes down. Spore gets over this issue by having more stages of gameplay, you don't stay in cell stage forever, you will move on and have fun doing something else. Thrive doesn't have that right now, and it's unclear if stages beyond multi-celled microbes will be implemented in the future. My recommendation to the Devs of Thrive would be if you decide to add stages of gameplay beyond Thrive's Cell Stage, you're going to have to find a way to streamline the additions you've made to Spore's original Cell Stage gameloop, otherwise this game is going to be too much for the average player to digest. In general, I'm excited for the future of this game, I think Spore is unironically one of the best games that has ever been made, and there's not enough people trying to recreate or improve upon that games concept. with modern technology, I feel like Spore could be so much more than what it is, and I will always encourage those who have the balls to make the attempt, Game development isn't easy. Thank you Thrive devs for keeping the dream of a Spore successor alive, thank you for being out here putting effort into this dream. Give me a reason to change my review, I WANT to change it, I WANT to play a game like this, I WANT to recommend it.