I heard a bit of discussion about starting at different stages, and I wanted to put in my ideas.
The world would definitely have to be a preset or save because of how many things would need to already be there.
The player would pick from a species list, perhaps ordered from closest to the chosen stage to the farthest, and then either get sent straight to the editor or play at least one cycle with that species, if they’re not at the player’s chosen stage. The player would have a little more freedom to edit their creature compared to them evolving to that stage, but not total, in order to keep the player from making somthing that can’t survive in their environment. After they reach the stage, gameplay resumes as normal.
Edit: I got more ideas
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During early multicellular, what if instead of duplicating cells in the organelle tab area, thing (forgot the name), you use the modify button on a cell to turn it into a different cell type? It would make more sense then using all your mp on something thats not even on your organism and helps players add new cells without having to place and delete any or wait until next editor session to place it. Expanding on this, we can also make it so the player can’t edit a cell that is not a part of their organism.
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So I heard that there’s a problem with players disabling the tutorial and not knowing what’s going on during new updates. This game https://thewanderingvillage.com/ has a system where the game adds tutorial stuff for new updates even if the player already finished it. Perhaps on top of this, when the player disables the tutorial and starts a new game, there could be a pop-up asking if the player wants a tutorial for the new updates. This could help with the skipping tutorial issues.