Anyway, as you know, the Ascension Stage is the last stage that many would call the end-game (or rather the after-end-game). I feel like there would be a need to reward the player. I know that ascending a species means giving god powers, and it’s cool. But there needs to be something else to reward the player. Unlocking a Hall of Fame in Thrive Main Menu (i.e. a section to honor all the player’s species that have ascended so far)? Or maybe even include them as part of a lore of the player’s next game (it would need importing a game save)?
I’ve saw somewhere in the old forums the idea of controlling individuals in Ascension Stage and make they do things that the other ones can’t. Like a Jesus…
I once jokingly suggested that the camera zoom out after an ascension gate is used to reveal that the universe of the previous game was all within a cell. The player would then control this cell and the game would begin again. However, after considering this, I think that might be a fun reward if it were a new game plus mode. Perhaps this new game plus would allow infinite mutation points or super speed or other silly changes.
I think in ascension, the universe becomes a sandbox, so you can make planets and stars and play around, creating supernovas for fun or annihilating civilizations by collapsing their star or raining down meteors.
I remember playing a game about a bunch of gardening creatures where the goal was to build a portal to the afterlife, and once your character passed through it the game would procedurally generate an image representing that afterlife. I’m not going to spoil it here, but the way it was done, those images could have real emotional impact.
Not sure if it should be another stage or just integrated in ascension, so I’ll post it here.
As we know, Earth wasn’t immediately lush and capable of sustaining life as soon as it was formed. So what if, instead of spawning on a planet, you start a “terraforming stage”, where you slowly bring your planet to sustainable levels. That way, YOU decide how your planet will be, instead of some sliders.
If this idea is bad, maybe that’s how you create a new save? After ascension, you sculpt a new planet on which you can start your evolutionary stage once again.
I like this idea, but I think that all life related terraformers should be in the stages the player is given. An example would be photosynthetic microbes converting carbon dioxide into oxygen, making life that requires oxygen possible.
Hmmmm. I had two ideas, one more probable than the second.
What about making the Ascension stage a mini 15 minute stage? For example, maybe the stage would be set quadrillions of years post space age when the universe is beginning to collapse. The goal could be to save as many of your species as possible and build some sort of Ascension device, where your species would ascend, say, to be part of the next universe, or gods, or whatever might fit there. This fits well the hall of fame idea from the original posts.
What if the game was recording gameplay as it went on, but only stored like 5 seconds. When a notable thing happened, eg, getting a nucleus, advancing a stage, etc, it would keep said 5 seconds along with the next five seconds, and after the species had ascended, you would have a 2 minute ish clip of all of the highlights of said species, which could maybe also be in the hall of fame, as a little bonus. If you really wanted to take this a step further, you could also record player audio and their reaction to said achievements
Ps. Devs please make this a category, it would be very useful.
The current official “plan” is that ascension is basically post game content, where you just are given a bunch of tools to mess with anything you like. I think ascension should happen as a cutscene of your creature entering the ascension gate, after that cutscene is done we’d have a fade to black and then the credits would roll. After the credits you would be thrown back into the game with a bunch of new tools unlocked.
As such there isn’t really much to discuss related to it. All the mechanics for reaching ascension are part of the Space Stage
How ‘detailed’ will the ascension tools be? Will you be able to start a religion on an awakening planet and acost nonbelievers with giant flying fish, for example?
we need both to develop the game, outreach attracts people to thrive, which may or may not increase the dev count, while programmers work on the game itself.
I think it would be nice to allow time travel in the Ascension Stage to see how thing change. For example, making a minor change in the past of your species to see what would happen. There could also be alternate timelines. Of course, at that point the game would be very complex and pretty much impossible to run in today’s computers properly, but I think, until there, we’ll have personal supercomputers that can handle it.
One of my ideas for Ascension stage is that after you unlock that stage you also unlock a mode called sandbox mode where you can control anything from when you are a cell to you reaching the Ascension gates yet again to increase replay ability and to reward the players for completing the game.
