How will the scale of what the player controls advance in Thrive?

Future Game
1

to clarify, you know how what you control changes in Spore? For the first two stages, the cell stage and creature stage, you control an individual instance of your species. In the next 2 stages, the tribal stage and city stage, you control your entire civilization, but command individual units like an RTS. then in the space stage you go back to controlling one individual person again, but through them you can manipulate your empire and the rest of the galaxy.
How is this going to work in thrive?
Currently, we only have control over a single instance of our species, but is that going to change as the game goes on? will we command our species like a strategy game in this game’s equivalent of the creature stage, or will it work more like spore?

1 Like
2

The plan is that tribal stage will begin a slow transition to a strategy game like layout, where you control your entire race. However, seeing as we are in the earliest beginnings of multicellular there is still a good ways to go, and really nothing can be said for certain until that stage arrives.

2 Likes
3

I think it’s pretty safe to split the game into two major parts to talk about: controlling individuals stages and the strategy stages. Society stage is planned (as basically the core new mechanic) to move to the strategy view.

Relevant wiki page:

Usually far off stuff is not very planned, but this time I think the answer to this specific far future question is quite clear already.

4 Likes
4

I totally love that. All previous and later stages feeling like a slow buildup of features, rather than distinct stages. They can feel distinct but they don’t like, have to.

5

Basically, the player’s point of view expands from a single cell, to a single creature, to a specific population, as they become larger in scope. In the societal stages you are no longer overseeing the evolution of a species, but the founding of a faction, therefore you are no longer an individual but the faction as a whole.

2 Likes
6

The awakening stage will probably start off in control of one individual and slowly expand into controlling multiple through that individual finding a mate or a friend and having children.