Oh boy, what a year. It’s been a blast to share this year with you, our friends. The Universim continues to grow and shine ever more each day, thanks to you. A lot of fundamental work was done in 2016 that will allow us to implement more features at a quicker pace. Our team has been working tirelessly and did everything possible to ensure we deliver our promises on time. We really appreciate your amazing support and understanding. The Universim generates a lot of attention - our fan base continues to grow every day with absolutely nothing spent on PR or marketing. That can mean only one thing: you shared your excitement with your friends and family, and that’s what made this project successful. Since our Kickstarter, we have made some risky moves that allowed us to increase the production quality and overall scope of the game. We have also reached out to multiple suppliers in order to choose the best-quality physical rewards for our Kickstarter supporters. All of our Kickstarter backers have received access to the game, and your physical rewards are ready to be packed into delivery trucks and delivered within the first few months of 2017.

After our Kickstarter, we decided to extend the development time of The Universim, because with a little extra time we can make The Universim so much better. We want it to be a dynamic and emotional experience for everyone. There are lot of soulless projects on the market that players forget about within a few months, if that, and we don’t want to be just another forgotten title. The Universim is in open-ended development, which means we will continue developing the game even after we release all of the planned features. As long as the community stays active and supportive, we'll be here gold-plating the game. We really love what we’re doing. The Universim is such a unique and riveting project. In 2017, we will continue to update you regularly and remain 100% transparent. We will stay true to our vision.

Thank you all for the amazing journey that you shared with us in 2016. We wish you a very Happy New Year. May you, your friends, and your family stay healthy and happy! We will do everything we can to make you proud to be a pioneer of The Universim.

Happy New Year!

Yours sincerely,
Crytivo Games

Oh boy, what a year. It’s been a blast to share this year with you, our friends. The Universim continues to grow and shine ever more each day, thanks to you. A lot of fundamental work was done in 2016 that will allow us to implement more features at a quicker pace. Our team has been working tirelessly and did everything possible to ensure we deliver our promises on time. We really appreciate your amazing support and understanding. The Universim generates a lot of attention - our fan base continues to grow every day with absolutely nothing spent on PR or marketing. That can mean only one thing: you shared your excitement with your friends and family, and that’s what made this project successful. Since our Kickstarter, we have made some risky moves that allowed us to increase the production quality and overall scope of the game. We have also reached out to multiple suppliers in order to choose the best-quality physical rewards for our Kickstarter supporters. All of our Kickstarter backers have received access to the game, and your physical rewards are ready to be packed into delivery trucks and delivered within the first few months of 2017.

After our Kickstarter, we decided to extend the development time of The Universim, because with a little extra time we can make The Universim so much better. We want it to be a dynamic and emotional experience for everyone. There are lot of soulless projects on the market that players forget about within a few months, if that, and we don’t want to be just another forgotten title. The Universim is in open-ended development, which means we will continue developing the game even after we release all of the planned features. As long as the community stays active and supportive, we'll be here gold-plating the game. We really love what we’re doing. The Universim is such a unique and riveting project. In 2017, we will continue to update you regularly and remain 100% transparent. We will stay true to our vision.

Thank you all for the amazing journey that you shared with us in 2016. We wish you a very Happy New Year. May you, your friends, and your family stay healthy and happy! We will do everything we can to make you proud to be a pioneer of The Universim.

Happy New Year!

Yours sincerely,
Crytivo Games

It’s that time of year again!

Ah, the sound of bells and cash registers echo throughout the streets as Christmas nears yet again. Very soon you’ll have to deal with your awkward cousins and distant relatives. But fret not, you can always escape to your safe haven and play some more of The Universim while the roast cooks.

Speaking of The Universim, it’s been quite the year, hasn’t it? We’ve come a long way, in terms of both development and the knowledge we uncovered therein. There have been many laughs, a few hair-pulling antics, and the occasional cry, but we’ve made it out stronger than ever. And so has The Universim. Thank you all so very much for being with us on this journey. Your encouragement and enthusiasm is the best present our small team could ever ask for, and you’ve provided buckets of it.

The game has expanded so much since our initial reveal on Kickstarter, with features changing for the better and new systems making their way into the game. It is finally beginning to shape into the game we all dreamed of. The next year promises to be even better!

Have a fantastic holiday!
Thanks again, The Crytivo Crew

It’s that time of year again!

Ah, the sound of bells and cash registers echo throughout the streets as Christmas nears yet again. Very soon you’ll have to deal with your awkward cousins and distant relatives. But fret not, you can always escape to your safe haven and play some more of The Universim while the roast cooks.

Speaking of The Universim, it’s been quite the year, hasn’t it? We’ve come a long way, in terms of both development and the knowledge we uncovered therein. There have been many laughs, a few hair-pulling antics, and the occasional cry, but we’ve made it out stronger than ever. And so has The Universim. Thank you all so very much for being with us on this journey. Your encouragement and enthusiasm is the best present our small team could ever ask for, and you’ve provided buckets of it.

The game has expanded so much since our initial reveal on Kickstarter, with features changing for the better and new systems making their way into the game. It is finally beginning to shape into the game we all dreamed of. The next year promises to be even better!

Have a fantastic holiday!
Thanks again, The Crytivo Crew

The Universim nominated for Indie Of The Year Award! We need your help Creators! Vote Here: http://www.indiedb.com/games/the-universim
Don't forget to share this with your friends! Let's see how powerful our community is! \o/

The Universim nominated for Indie Of The Year Award! We need your help Creators! Vote Here: http://www.indiedb.com/games/the-universim
Don't forget to share this with your friends! Let's see how powerful our community is! \o/

WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN DOING OVER THERE?

Good question! Thank you for asking :P.

We’ve been somewhat absent since releasing our hotfix for the Cheesecake patch on October 22st. In the patch notes, we mentioned that we’re going through a major in-game engine update, which you know as Prometheus. This is a huge milestone in the development of The Universim and it’s very, very important for us. A few issues were encountered that needed to be ironed out before we broke something or designed a feature around a flawed system. After we’re done cleaning and optimizing the project, we will now properly be able to introduce your most-wanted features, such as: new eras, save and load, advanced artificial intelligence for Nuggets, and more that you can read about below.



So much that we’re basically turning into workstations ourselves! On top of new features, we’re optimizing, reimplementing, and redesigning a lot of systems. Let’s break it down.

PLANET GENERATION OPTIMIZATION

Some of the biggest changes reside within the planet generation engine: it’s so much faster now. We reduced loading times and memory usage quite significantly. You’ll likely be very pleased with how it turned out. This allows us to add more objects, have bigger planets, and have more simulation calculations happening at the same time. We also mapped our planet with the road networks and city expansion patterns for future needs. Planet biome temperatures were optimized as well. Now, temperatures are more accurate and easier to understand. A lot of love has been invested into this process. After all, planets are our playground and we want them to perform well.



Pathfinding on the planet is another area that was optimized. Animal AI and Nugget AI can be very taxing depending on the amount and actions performed. It’s now faster and smoother than a speeding roller coaster. Nuggets have a much better understanding of their surroundings and can easily find the shortest path to their destination.

NUGGET'S ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Oh boy! We’re having so much “fun” working on this. There’s a lot of thinking and a lot of planning involved in this process. Mainly because all Nugget stats are connected and the environment changes dynamically around Nuggets over time, so we want them to understand the current circumstances and decide what is more important to do at a certain time. Things change on the fly and we need to make sure Nuggets make reasonable decisions without your direct intervention. Nuggets now compare distance vs quality before making their decision. For example: cooked food is better than raw food for Nuggets, they become happier and more satisfied by eating cooked meals. It also keeps Nuggets full for a longer period. In the past, Nuggets were always choosing cooked food over raw food, which in some circumstances was a bad decision because the distance and wait time would be more wasteful for them than simply grabbing a nearby fruit. Nuggets now check this information before starting their journey. However, this doesn’t only apply to food, it applies to any resource they need to collect to finish their task or satisfy their needs.



Our system prioritises tasks for Nuggets dynamically. This allows us to quantity the number of available Nuggets vs busy Nuggets. If there is a need for extra stone, the system will not send all 20 Idle/Free Nuggets to mine stone. The system will task Nuggets to the job one by one and check the weight of that need based on the amount of Nuggets now assigned to it. This way, the system dynamically assigns Nuggets jobs based on the current situation, and it no longer prioritises one job above all else when assigning them. It will only send 5 Nuggets to help build a Hut instead of sending 20 of the available group, because the system now understand that 5 Nuggets are more than enough to finish the task.
Nuggets will also understand if certain buildings need extra support (like Eateries, Farms, etc) and automatically assign themselves to those buildings. If a Farmer dies of old age or from the unfortunate and somehow all too common event that a mammoth stepped on them (how didn’t they see it coming?), another Nugget will fill this position without your interaction.
Our goal is to make Nuggets feel alive. We want you to feel like they are truly organic, living beings.



What we’re doing right now is really going to make it easier for us to balance things out in the future. It’s also important to keep in mind that we’re only talking about changes that you’ll see on the frontend, there are also tons of changes happening behind the scenes as well. We’re developing debugging tools that help us to understand why Nuggets made a particular decision, such as where they are going, what they plan to do next, and what triggered these actions. A lot of amazing work has been done, but there’s a bit more that needs our attention.

NUGGETS THOUGHTS

While some of our engineers have been busy optimizing and improving things, others have been working on new features such as the Nugget Thoughts system. Nugget Thoughts are pretty much exactly as they sound. We developed a system that will allow you to see what Nuggets are thinking about their current situation. It will show you their thoughts regarding things like their work, relationships with their spouse and children, current feelings, etc. This will help you to better understand what the Nugget is up to, such as if they plan to burn things to the ground or they’re ready to start a family. This is a cosmetic element that will add even more personality to Nuggets. Here are some examples of Nugget Thoughts based on their daily activities:

GENERAL (IDLE) THOUGHTS

• Today’s forecast: no work, no pants.
  
• No work? Guess I’ll just stand here and look busy.
  
• How do we ever get things done with two circles for hands?
  
• It would be really awkward if there was some omnipotent being who could read my thoughts all the time.
  
• Last night I dreamed that I was a whale. I woke up looking like a beached whale. Sometimes dreams are scarily real.
  
  TREE FELLER
  
  
• I really should’ve become a painter…
  
• The trick is not to become emotionally attached. *Sniff* Goodbye, Bertha.
  
• Who needs anger management when you can hit things in the face with an axe?
  
• To fell a tree you must first become the tree.
  
  STONE MINING
  
  
• These vibrations are doing wonders for my arthritis.
  
• Sometimes I feel like my life is just a sequence of rocks of varying sizes.
  
• A pile of rocks coming right up.
  
  FERTILITY METER FILLS
  
  
• Is it warm in here or is it just me?
  
• If the hut’s rockin, don’t come knockin.
  
• I feel like someone is lacking some Vitamin Me.
  
  WITCH DOCTOR
  
  
• If it doesn’t clear up within three days, start making funeral arrangements.
• Have a good day!
  
• With all of these sick Nuggets, you’d think I’m not very good at my job.
  
• An apple a day is starting to put me out of business.
  
• Tell me, have you considered life insurance? You really should.
  
  NUGGET NEEDS
  
  Nuggets have their own needs, such as Food, Water, Rest, Happiness, and so on. These values are also being revisited by our team, as everything needs to be rebalanced according to new values and Nugget behavior. Game balance is a big challenge in a game like The Universim, as a lot of things are connected together and changing something in one of them can lead to everything falling apart. It’s like playing with a giant house of cards. Each card is equally important and if any of them were to fall out of place, the entire house would collapse. Thankfully, we have you, our community. Without you, it would be extremely difficult to balance things. Your feedback is massively important for this process, so thank you for supporting us and helping to shape The Universim into an amazing game.
  
  NUGGET'S REPRODUCTION
  
  This system is also going through some changes and we would love to talk about it a bit more in the future. We’re still approving some of the mechanics and don’t want to discuss them until we’re satisfied with the direction it’s going in. The challenge we are currently facing is that we want to keep the reproduction speed consistent and still make it feel natural. As the Nugget population grows, it starts to get a little out of hand due to the arithmetical progression (every Nugget pair can have children and the population booms). If you have any great ideas, please share them with us in comments below.
  
  
  
  TUTORIAL UPDATE
  
  Because we’re adding new content and changing the ones that we already have, certain tutorials have become outdated. We’re revisiting tutorials at the moment as well and making them more dynamic. We are also working on the game’s narration, which we will discuss at a later time.
  
  CAMERA CONTROLS IMPROVEMENTS
  
  We’re happy with how smooth and responsive our camera is, but we’re still experimenting with controls. We collected a lot of feedback and observed a lot of players during our exhibition showcases and it looks like we could do a better job by minimizing the amount of buttons you click to control your camera. It shouldn’t look like you’re trying to play the piano. We want the controls to feel intuitive and easy to learn. Let us know what we can do to make it better (like things that bother you right now).
  
  SEASONS
  
  We’re happy with how smooth and responsive our camera is, but we’re still experimenting with controls. We collected a lot of feedback and observed a lot of players during our exhibition showcases and it looks like we could do a better job by minimizing the amount of buttons you click to control your camera. It shouldn’t look like you’re trying to play the piano. We want the controls to feel intuitive and easy to learn. Let us know what we can do to make it better (like things that bother you right now).
  
  
  
  MOUNTAINS
  
  Our current mountains are static objects, meaning they were designed entirely by our 3D artists. We’re moving away from this concept and are planning to invest more time intoprocedural mountain generation. We hope to improve over other procedural mountain generation techniques used in other games. Mountains are usually generated by the noise found on the planet’s terrain, which makes all mountains look basically the same on all planets. Our goal is to build a system that will combine pieces of rocks, assign textures, and spawn flora and stones based on the planet environment. Mountains are the biggest objects on our planets, and this gives our artists a lot more freedom to give planets a unique character by changing the shapes and look of the mountains on the planet. We will talk more about this system in the future.
  
  
  
  EVOLUTION TOWERS
  
  You probably learned about these towers in previous updates. This is a highly-demanded feature and we’re working hard to bring it to the game as soon as possible. Evolution Towers will allow you to unlock features in the game and will be the main stimulator of progress in your civilization.
  
  SAVE & LOAD
  
  We definitely know how important this feature is and development in recent months has been highly concentrated around it. In fact, it was one of the features that benefitted best from us cleaning the project. The primary challenge for us is to save a massive amount of data in one all-encompassing game state. We not only have to save thousands and thousands of positions of all the objects on the planet, but also their statistics (in a procedural system). As you know, everything in The Universim is connected: even the most basic objects, like trees, hold dynamic values and understand the exact local temperature. Nugget stats are also connected with other parameters and needs to be saved. Overall, the main challenge is not the implementation of a save and load feature, the main challenge is that we want to make sure we have all of the bits and pieces in place in order to save and load them on demand (and efficiently). The approach we’re taking now is saving us from having to redesign or restructure systems, which will take a ridiculous amount of time, but it’s slightly tricky. However, progress has been excellent, so count on us - save & load is on its way!
  
  
  
  ART ASSETS
  
  All buildings- yes, every single one- had to be retouched and redesigned to some extent in order to make them fit into our future plans for city expansion and roads. Each building has to correspond to certain guidelines and rules introduced by our new system. Of course, we also used this opportunity to improve the overall quality of our models: better textures, mesh, and so on. We are also optimizing each building with a LOD system. This system will update the details of our buildings based on the camera’s distance from them. This will increase performance and allow us to have more buildings in future. We have also added more visual elements to buildings like night lights and visible degradation when in a bad condition.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  NUGGET GENERATION ENGINE
  
  We’re improving the Nugget generation engine. This is what is responsible for generating visually-distinct Nuggets with different hairstyles, clothing, colors, and shapes. We’re also improving animations and working on new ones. You’ll be able to pick Nuggets up and throw them or put back on the ground gently. Their actions will correspond with yours. Basically, we have better-looking Nuggets and a better system for generating them.
  
  
  
  WHY WE'RE STILL IN THE STONE AGE
  
  Man, you guys at Crytivo are the worst! You’ve taken years just to finish the Stone Age,
  so how long will it take for new eras?! (You might think)
  
  Well, it’s true, it has taken us quite a long time to implement the Stone Age era. However, it’s important to understand that the Stone Age is not just the first era in the game, it happens to hold a huge portion of all core game mechanics. During this age, we’re implementing all of the simulations that you’ll see throughout the game, connecting everything together, balancing all of the stats, creating AI systems, working on the research and progression aspects, ensuring that these systems are dynamic, and so on. Basically, this is our foundation for building things much faster down the line. This is our main testing platform to ensure we don’t design future eras around a bad system (which can be disastrous and basically require starting over). After we’re done with the core of the game, you’ll see more eras popping up very quickly.
  
  Initially, we planned to release an update on December 1st for the game, but we will probably need a bit more time to get things finished. We hate to keep you all waiting for a new patch and promise to get it into your hands ASAP. We will keep communicating our current status and remain entirely transparent. You are an important part of our world, and we would never abandon you. We have also put a rough roadmap together for you. Please keep in mind that some features might change in the future or their priority can change based on the situation. Also keep in mind that we’re not going into detail here, we’re just summarizing work that was done.
  
  
  
  As you can see, there is a lot of work happening behind the scenes and we feel you need to know about that. Your support keeps us motivated and inspires us every day. We always read your feedback and we would love to see a smile on your face when you play The Universim. We want you to care about the fragile world we’re building for you and hope you appreciate all the time and effort we spend on making this world dynamic and alive. Our team is hard at work every day. At times it can be tough, but we love what we do and hope you enjoy it as well. Please leave us your comments below and we wish you all the best for the coming holidays!
  
  
  STAY AWESOME!
  All the best, Crytivo Games
  

WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN DOING OVER THERE?

Good question! Thank you for asking :P.

We’ve been somewhat absent since releasing our hotfix for the Cheesecake patch on October 22st. In the patch notes, we mentioned that we’re going through a major in-game engine update, which you know as Prometheus. This is a huge milestone in the development of The Universim and it’s very, very important for us. A few issues were encountered that needed to be ironed out before we broke something or designed a feature around a flawed system. After we’re done cleaning and optimizing the project, we will now properly be able to introduce your most-wanted features, such as: new eras, save and load, advanced artificial intelligence for Nuggets, and more that you can read about below.



So much that we’re basically turning into workstations ourselves! On top of new features, we’re optimizing, reimplementing, and redesigning a lot of systems. Let’s break it down.

PLANET GENERATION OPTIMIZATION

Some of the biggest changes reside within the planet generation engine: it’s so much faster now. We reduced loading times and memory usage quite significantly. You’ll likely be very pleased with how it turned out. This allows us to add more objects, have bigger planets, and have more simulation calculations happening at the same time. We also mapped our planet with the road networks and city expansion patterns for future needs. Planet biome temperatures were optimized as well. Now, temperatures are more accurate and easier to understand. A lot of love has been invested into this process. After all, planets are our playground and we want them to perform well.



Pathfinding on the planet is another area that was optimized. Animal AI and Nugget AI can be very taxing depending on the amount and actions performed. It’s now faster and smoother than a speeding roller coaster. Nuggets have a much better understanding of their surroundings and can easily find the shortest path to their destination.

NUGGET'S ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Oh boy! We’re having so much “fun” working on this. There’s a lot of thinking and a lot of planning involved in this process. Mainly because all Nugget stats are connected and the environment changes dynamically around Nuggets over time, so we want them to understand the current circumstances and decide what is more important to do at a certain time. Things change on the fly and we need to make sure Nuggets make reasonable decisions without your direct intervention. Nuggets now compare distance vs quality before making their decision. For example: cooked food is better than raw food for Nuggets, they become happier and more satisfied by eating cooked meals. It also keeps Nuggets full for a longer period. In the past, Nuggets were always choosing cooked food over raw food, which in some circumstances was a bad decision because the distance and wait time would be more wasteful for them than simply grabbing a nearby fruit. Nuggets now check this information before starting their journey. However, this doesn’t only apply to food, it applies to any resource they need to collect to finish their task or satisfy their needs.



Our system prioritises tasks for Nuggets dynamically. This allows us to quantity the number of available Nuggets vs busy Nuggets. If there is a need for extra stone, the system will not send all 20 Idle/Free Nuggets to mine stone. The system will task Nuggets to the job one by one and check the weight of that need based on the amount of Nuggets now assigned to it. This way, the system dynamically assigns Nuggets jobs based on the current situation, and it no longer prioritises one job above all else when assigning them. It will only send 5 Nuggets to help build a Hut instead of sending 20 of the available group, because the system now understand that 5 Nuggets are more than enough to finish the task.
Nuggets will also understand if certain buildings need extra support (like Eateries, Farms, etc) and automatically assign themselves to those buildings. If a Farmer dies of old age or from the unfortunate and somehow all too common event that a mammoth stepped on them (how didn’t they see it coming?), another Nugget will fill this position without your interaction.
Our goal is to make Nuggets feel alive. We want you to feel like they are truly organic, living beings.



What we’re doing right now is really going to make it easier for us to balance things out in the future. It’s also important to keep in mind that we’re only talking about changes that you’ll see on the frontend, there are also tons of changes happening behind the scenes as well. We’re developing debugging tools that help us to understand why Nuggets made a particular decision, such as where they are going, what they plan to do next, and what triggered these actions. A lot of amazing work has been done, but there’s a bit more that needs our attention.

NUGGETS THOUGHTS

While some of our engineers have been busy optimizing and improving things, others have been working on new features such as the Nugget Thoughts system. Nugget Thoughts are pretty much exactly as they sound. We developed a system that will allow you to see what Nuggets are thinking about their current situation. It will show you their thoughts regarding things like their work, relationships with their spouse and children, current feelings, etc. This will help you to better understand what the Nugget is up to, such as if they plan to burn things to the ground or they’re ready to start a family. This is a cosmetic element that will add even more personality to Nuggets. Here are some examples of Nugget Thoughts based on their daily activities:

GENERAL (IDLE) THOUGHTS

• Today’s forecast: no work, no pants.
  
• No work? Guess I’ll just stand here and look busy.
  
• How do we ever get things done with two circles for hands?
  
• It would be really awkward if there was some omnipotent being who could read my thoughts all the time.
  
• Last night I dreamed that I was a whale. I woke up looking like a beached whale. Sometimes dreams are scarily real.
  
  TREE FELLER
  
  
• I really should’ve become a painter…
  
• The trick is not to become emotionally attached. *Sniff* Goodbye, Bertha.
  
• Who needs anger management when you can hit things in the face with an axe?
  
• To fell a tree you must first become the tree.
  
  STONE MINING
  
  
• These vibrations are doing wonders for my arthritis.
  
• Sometimes I feel like my life is just a sequence of rocks of varying sizes.
  
• A pile of rocks coming right up.
  
  FERTILITY METER FILLS
  
  
• Is it warm in here or is it just me?
  
• If the hut’s rockin, don’t come knockin.
  
• I feel like someone is lacking some Vitamin Me.
  
  WITCH DOCTOR
  
  
• If it doesn’t clear up within three days, start making funeral arrangements.
• Have a good day!
  
• With all of these sick Nuggets, you’d think I’m not very good at my job.
  
• An apple a day is starting to put me out of business.
  
• Tell me, have you considered life insurance? You really should.
  
  NUGGET NEEDS
  
  Nuggets have their own needs, such as Food, Water, Rest, Happiness, and so on. These values are also being revisited by our team, as everything needs to be rebalanced according to new values and Nugget behavior. Game balance is a big challenge in a game like The Universim, as a lot of things are connected together and changing something in one of them can lead to everything falling apart. It’s like playing with a giant house of cards. Each card is equally important and if any of them were to fall out of place, the entire house would collapse. Thankfully, we have you, our community. Without you, it would be extremely difficult to balance things. Your feedback is massively important for this process, so thank you for supporting us and helping to shape The Universim into an amazing game.
  
  NUGGET'S REPRODUCTION
  
  This system is also going through some changes and we would love to talk about it a bit more in the future. We’re still approving some of the mechanics and don’t want to discuss them until we’re satisfied with the direction it’s going in. The challenge we are currently facing is that we want to keep the reproduction speed consistent and still make it feel natural. As the Nugget population grows, it starts to get a little out of hand due to the arithmetical progression (every Nugget pair can have children and the population booms). If you have any great ideas, please share them with us in comments below.
  
  
  
  TUTORIAL UPDATE
  
  Because we’re adding new content and changing the ones that we already have, certain tutorials have become outdated. We’re revisiting tutorials at the moment as well and making them more dynamic. We are also working on the game’s narration, which we will discuss at a later time.
  
  CAMERA CONTROLS IMPROVEMENTS
  
  We’re happy with how smooth and responsive our camera is, but we’re still experimenting with controls. We collected a lot of feedback and observed a lot of players during our exhibition showcases and it looks like we could do a better job by minimizing the amount of buttons you click to control your camera. It shouldn’t look like you’re trying to play the piano. We want the controls to feel intuitive and easy to learn. Let us know what we can do to make it better (like things that bother you right now).
  
  SEASONS
  
  We’re happy with how smooth and responsive our camera is, but we’re still experimenting with controls. We collected a lot of feedback and observed a lot of players during our exhibition showcases and it looks like we could do a better job by minimizing the amount of buttons you click to control your camera. It shouldn’t look like you’re trying to play the piano. We want the controls to feel intuitive and easy to learn. Let us know what we can do to make it better (like things that bother you right now).
  
  
  
  MOUNTAINS
  
  Our current mountains are static objects, meaning they were designed entirely by our 3D artists. We’re moving away from this concept and are planning to invest more time intoprocedural mountain generation. We hope to improve over other procedural mountain generation techniques used in other games. Mountains are usually generated by the noise found on the planet’s terrain, which makes all mountains look basically the same on all planets. Our goal is to build a system that will combine pieces of rocks, assign textures, and spawn flora and stones based on the planet environment. Mountains are the biggest objects on our planets, and this gives our artists a lot more freedom to give planets a unique character by changing the shapes and look of the mountains on the planet. We will talk more about this system in the future.
  
  
  
  EVOLUTION TOWERS
  
  You probably learned about these towers in previous updates. This is a highly-demanded feature and we’re working hard to bring it to the game as soon as possible. Evolution Towers will allow you to unlock features in the game and will be the main stimulator of progress in your civilization.
  
  SAVE & LOAD
  
  We definitely know how important this feature is and development in recent months has been highly concentrated around it. In fact, it was one of the features that benefitted best from us cleaning the project. The primary challenge for us is to save a massive amount of data in one all-encompassing game state. We not only have to save thousands and thousands of positions of all the objects on the planet, but also their statistics (in a procedural system). As you know, everything in The Universim is connected: even the most basic objects, like trees, hold dynamic values and understand the exact local temperature. Nugget stats are also connected with other parameters and needs to be saved. Overall, the main challenge is not the implementation of a save and load feature, the main challenge is that we want to make sure we have all of the bits and pieces in place in order to save and load them on demand (and efficiently). The approach we’re taking now is saving us from having to redesign or restructure systems, which will take a ridiculous amount of time, but it’s slightly tricky. However, progress has been excellent, so count on us - save & load is on its way!
  
  
  
  ART ASSETS
  
  All buildings- yes, every single one- had to be retouched and redesigned to some extent in order to make them fit into our future plans for city expansion and roads. Each building has to correspond to certain guidelines and rules introduced by our new system. Of course, we also used this opportunity to improve the overall quality of our models: better textures, mesh, and so on. We are also optimizing each building with a LOD system. This system will update the details of our buildings based on the camera’s distance from them. This will increase performance and allow us to have more buildings in future. We have also added more visual elements to buildings like night lights and visible degradation when in a bad condition.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  NUGGET GENERATION ENGINE
  
  We’re improving the Nugget generation engine. This is what is responsible for generating visually-distinct Nuggets with different hairstyles, clothing, colors, and shapes. We’re also improving animations and working on new ones. You’ll be able to pick Nuggets up and throw them or put back on the ground gently. Their actions will correspond with yours. Basically, we have better-looking Nuggets and a better system for generating them.
  
  
  
  WHY WE'RE STILL IN THE STONE AGE
  
  Man, you guys at Crytivo are the worst! You’ve taken years just to finish the Stone Age,
  so how long will it take for new eras?! (You might think)
  
  Well, it’s true, it has taken us quite a long time to implement the Stone Age era. However, it’s important to understand that the Stone Age is not just the first era in the game, it happens to hold a huge portion of all core game mechanics. During this age, we’re implementing all of the simulations that you’ll see throughout the game, connecting everything together, balancing all of the stats, creating AI systems, working on the research and progression aspects, ensuring that these systems are dynamic, and so on. Basically, this is our foundation for building things much faster down the line. This is our main testing platform to ensure we don’t design future eras around a bad system (which can be disastrous and basically require starting over). After we’re done with the core of the game, you’ll see more eras popping up very quickly.
  
  Initially, we planned to release an update on December 1st for the game, but we will probably need a bit more time to get things finished. We hate to keep you all waiting for a new patch and promise to get it into your hands ASAP. We will keep communicating our current status and remain entirely transparent. You are an important part of our world, and we would never abandon you. We have also put a rough roadmap together for you. Please keep in mind that some features might change in the future or their priority can change based on the situation. Also keep in mind that we’re not going into detail here, we’re just summarizing work that was done.
  
  
  
  As you can see, there is a lot of work happening behind the scenes and we feel you need to know about that. Your support keeps us motivated and inspires us every day. We always read your feedback and we would love to see a smile on your face when you play The Universim. We want you to care about the fragile world we’re building for you and hope you appreciate all the time and effort we spend on making this world dynamic and alive. Our team is hard at work every day. At times it can be tough, but we love what we do and hope you enjoy it as well. Please leave us your comments below and we wish you all the best for the coming holidays!
  
  
  STAY AWESOME!
  All the best, Crytivo Games
  

Attempting to initiate mating with a partner who is in a bad mood can often end in disaster. This is no different for our beloved Nuggs! The Happiness system affects Nuggets in numerous ways, and we’re going to give you a heads up on what you can expect from Nuggets when they’re a little moody.

Let’s start out by saying that each Nugget’s mood is unique. Sometimes there can be a general emotion blowing over your civilization, but every individual usually has their own mood, which can often be affected by their personality. We’re developing a system that will randomly assign personalities to Nuggets at birth. This system will make some Nuggets grumpy (you’ve met plenty of people like this, too, right?) and fill the lives of other Nuggets with sunshine and daisies. You may even see them skipping about or chasing the occasional butterfly. Nuggets with high Happiness levels will enjoy a slight productivity boost and will always be willing to perform tasks.



Happiness bars decrease at different rates for each Nugget. There are multiple stages of Happiness that change a Nugget’s behaviour. When a Nugget’s Happiness reaches 70%, their productivity decreases slightly and they move a little slower. Imagine yourself at work on Monday morning after a crazy evening the night before. That’s basically what Nuggets have to go through every time their Happiness hits 50%. Nuggets will start slacking off during their regular duties, decreasing their productivity even further. When a Nugget’s Happiness reaches rock bottom, that’s when it should really become your concern.

This is a critical state for Nuggets, causing them to become depressed and work very slowly. They may even take long breaks away from work. Nuggets can stop to have a bit of a cry next to a nearby tree or even go so far as to set something on fire to show their dissatisfaction with how things are being run. They might also do something even worse (yes, they may cause even more harm than setting a building on fire). After acting out, a Nugget’s Happiness will increase temporarily. Some Nuggets are just slightly psychopathic, it seems.



Now that you know what to expect from a Nugget’s mood, here is what you can do to improve their lives. Some buildings make Nuggets happier while others do quite the opposite. Stone Age buildings, such as the Community Bath, can increase Nugget Happiness. Their mood will improve while they enjoy a hot bath and a chat with their fellow Nuggs. The polar opposite to Community Baths, besides both warming Nuggets up to a certain degree, is the Crematorium. Crematoriums built too close to the city will affect Nuggets that travel nearby. Hey, nobody enjoys the smell of fried Nuggets, especially other Nuggets.

When a Nugget’s Happiness reaches 70%, a special task entitled “Go enjoy your life, little one” will be queued in the Nugget’s brain. When they complete their assigned task, they will go to a place of interest to increase their Happiness once more.



As a god, you can take a stand against grumpy Nuggets. An evil god can take care of the problem by launching the so-called “ungrateful bastards” into orbit, or throw them so hard against a mountain that it leaves a mark for generations to come. This is why passive-aggressive sticky notes were invented. Sticky notes save lives! Alternatively, you can be far kinder to them, because everyone needs a little love and attention sometimes, right? For example, you can task Nuggets to build a Cow Catapult that allows them to launch cows into space to begin a wonderful intergalactic journey. Nothing can raise one's mood better than seeing cows slowly mooooing across the stars, discovering new worlds and possibly meeting Matthew McConaughey along the way.
An idle Nugget’s Happiness decreases a bit faster than those who are busy with work. However, they also don’t need to complete a task before visiting a place of interest like the Community Baths to improve their mood. It’s a strange balance. Idle Nuggets get bored faster and thus begin to lose Happiness, but busy Nuggets don’t really get enough time to even think about their Happiness.

Buildings that increase Happiness:
Community Baths
Movie Theaters
Eateries

Buildings that decrease Happiness:
Cemeteries
Crematoriums
Coal Mines

MATING

As most of you know, mating can be a very sensitive and complex procedure, mostly because it requires two parties to participate in the act. When a female Nugget isn’t happy enough, she won’t mate. However, it’s different with male Nuggets, as mating will actually increase their mood slightly and they will always be willing to participate.

We promised realistic simulations, and we’re getting pretty close, right? Let us know down in the comments what you think. Can we add anything that will make everyday Nugget life even more entertaining to observe?

Thank You,
Crytivo Games Crew

Attempting to initiate mating with a partner who is in a bad mood can often end in disaster. This is no different for our beloved Nuggs! The Happiness system affects Nuggets in numerous ways, and we’re going to give you a heads up on what you can expect from Nuggets when they’re a little moody.

Let’s start out by saying that each Nugget’s mood is unique. Sometimes there can be a general emotion blowing over your civilization, but every individual usually has their own mood, which can often be affected by their personality. We’re developing a system that will randomly assign personalities to Nuggets at birth. This system will make some Nuggets grumpy (you’ve met plenty of people like this, too, right?) and fill the lives of other Nuggets with sunshine and daisies. You may even see them skipping about or chasing the occasional butterfly. Nuggets with high Happiness levels will enjoy a slight productivity boost and will always be willing to perform tasks.



Happiness bars decrease at different rates for each Nugget. There are multiple stages of Happiness that change a Nugget’s behaviour. When a Nugget’s Happiness reaches 70%, their productivity decreases slightly and they move a little slower. Imagine yourself at work on Monday morning after a crazy evening the night before. That’s basically what Nuggets have to go through every time their Happiness hits 50%. Nuggets will start slacking off during their regular duties, decreasing their productivity even further. When a Nugget’s Happiness reaches rock bottom, that’s when it should really become your concern.

This is a critical state for Nuggets, causing them to become depressed and work very slowly. They may even take long breaks away from work. Nuggets can stop to have a bit of a cry next to a nearby tree or even go so far as to set something on fire to show their dissatisfaction with how things are being run. They might also do something even worse (yes, they may cause even more harm than setting a building on fire). After acting out, a Nugget’s Happiness will increase temporarily. Some Nuggets are just slightly psychopathic, it seems.



Now that you know what to expect from a Nugget’s mood, here is what you can do to improve their lives. Some buildings make Nuggets happier while others do quite the opposite. Stone Age buildings, such as the Community Bath, can increase Nugget Happiness. Their mood will improve while they enjoy a hot bath and a chat with their fellow Nuggs. The polar opposite to Community Baths, besides both warming Nuggets up to a certain degree, is the Crematorium. Crematoriums built too close to the city will affect Nuggets that travel nearby. Hey, nobody enjoys the smell of fried Nuggets, especially other Nuggets.

When a Nugget’s Happiness reaches 70%, a special task entitled “Go enjoy your life, little one” will be queued in the Nugget’s brain. When they complete their assigned task, they will go to a place of interest to increase their Happiness once more.



As a god, you can take a stand against grumpy Nuggets. An evil god can take care of the problem by launching the so-called “ungrateful bastards” into orbit, or throw them so hard against a mountain that it leaves a mark for generations to come. This is why passive-aggressive sticky notes were invented. Sticky notes save lives! Alternatively, you can be far kinder to them, because everyone needs a little love and attention sometimes, right? For example, you can task Nuggets to build a Cow Catapult that allows them to launch cows into space to begin a wonderful intergalactic journey. Nothing can raise one's mood better than seeing cows slowly mooooing across the stars, discovering new worlds and possibly meeting Matthew McConaughey along the way.
An idle Nugget’s Happiness decreases a bit faster than those who are busy with work. However, they also don’t need to complete a task before visiting a place of interest like the Community Baths to improve their mood. It’s a strange balance. Idle Nuggets get bored faster and thus begin to lose Happiness, but busy Nuggets don’t really get enough time to even think about their Happiness.

Buildings that increase Happiness:
Community Baths
Movie Theaters
Eateries

Buildings that decrease Happiness:
Cemeteries
Crematoriums
Coal Mines

MATING

As most of you know, mating can be a very sensitive and complex procedure, mostly because it requires two parties to participate in the act. When a female Nugget isn’t happy enough, she won’t mate. However, it’s different with male Nuggets, as mating will actually increase their mood slightly and they will always be willing to participate.

We promised realistic simulations, and we’re getting pretty close, right? Let us know down in the comments what you think. Can we add anything that will make everyday Nugget life even more entertaining to observe?

Thank You,
Crytivo Games Crew