Lifecraft Alpha #6 is now available!

  • Post published:January 2, 2023

Hello everyone!

We’ve just released v0.0.1f – alpha #6 of Lifecraft! This version contains a lot of QoL fixed and ehancements and it’s focused toward balancing the early game play and provide a more flowing experience.

You can download here: https://pixbits.com/lifecraft-builds/lifercraft-v0.0.1f-alpha6-win.zip

We hope you’ll enjoy it! Feel free to provide any feedback by joining our Discord(you’ll find us there!)

Changelog

  • Added overlong picker which can transport items across 2 tiles
  • Added starting size setting when generating new game
  • Added heat generation to energy suppliers and crafters when they’re working
  • Changed algorithm which manages slowdown of oxidable buildings to allow slow functioning until they’re exhausted
  • Enhanced oxidable building information window to show status
  • Tweaked a lot of energy and heat related values to have a more balanced experience (still deeply WIP)
  • Reworked tutorial
  • Fixed item balancer which was stucking the game under certain conditions
  • Added bright/dark cycle
  • Added game status bar
  • Added larger disposer which requires energy
  • Added DNA Nuclease and plasmide heap to provide stable source of nucleobases for research
  • Added mk1 and mk2 energy supplier to have a cheaper one and a more expensive but more effective one
  • Now small disposer has finite uses like small cytostome
  • Added hover on structures when item is held
  • Reworked early gameplay to be simpler and more flowing
Continue ReadingLifecraft Alpha #6 is now available!

Lifecraft updates

  • Post published:October 11, 2022

Hello everyone! We’re sorry for the lack of updates, we’re super busy developing and refining the third alpha version of Lifecraft, we’re absorbed by designing gameplay features!

We’re a bit more active on Discord though, where you can find dev updates and discussions, and soon the next Alpha free for download.

It will contain many bug fixes, QoL enhancements, gameplay tweaks and possibly it will come with the evolution enabled, so you’ll be able to research for new structures and objects to enhance the gameplay, you’ll be able to get the feeling of starting with nothing and grow little by little!

Lifecraft on Discord

Credits to the world go to our fellow follower Luaan from Discord

Continue ReadingLifecraft updates

Next Alpha

  • Post published:July 15, 2022
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We’re working hard to deply the next alpha. A lot of core mechanics got into place, many things have been redesigned or polished to slowly converge to a more definitive gameplay!
How energy is distributed inside the cells is totally rewritten, extracellular power network has been implemented, some circulation flow algorithms issues were fixed (but not all of them 😤), transporters have been added and implemented in a way similar to catalyzers.
Mitochondrion has been added and it’s literally the powerhouse of the cell!
The alpha is almost ready, but today we’d like to share the current evolution tree which has been improved and redesigned, many of the recipes will be tweaked according to the feedback during time but we wanted to structure it in the meanwhile.

Continue ReadingNext Alpha

Flow Graph Algorithms

  • Post published:June 23, 2022
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While working on alpha v0.0.1b (you can get alpha 0.0.1a in Discord just in case you are interested, we didn’t go totally public because it’s not ready for the outside world yet 🫣), I’m also spending some time in studying how to move substances between vessels, let them be blood (circulation, food (digestion), air (respiration), and such.

Each subsystem will work in a different way but there must be consistent way to define how things will move inside the network of vessels, especially because there will be freedom for the player to build any kind of layout they want. In addition there are multiple dimensions for each kind of pipeline, which adds to complexity.

It’s really hard to have something consistent and efficient at the same time, but it’s so cool to see the result directly draw inside the game!

Continue ReadingFlow Graph Algorithms

Chemical Reactions

  • Post published:March 13, 2022
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Chemical reactions play a crucial role inside cells, likewise in Lifecraft. Many biological reactions would require a lot of time to take place naturally, that’s why enzymes are required to catalyze reactions.

This translates into a simple gameplay mechanics: a special building called catalyzer is a special intracellular building that accepts and enzyme which will define which reactions the building will be able to perform.

Reactions can have multiple input, multiple outputs and even different steps, each reaction will be different! You can see a prototype of a (simplified) glycolysis reaction which will produce energy inside cells!

Continue ReadingChemical Reactions

Delivering with dispatchers

  • Post published:February 3, 2022
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One of the main aspects of the game is expanding and building structures outside cells.

This can be done through dispatcher which can deliver materials directly to growing zones or to extracellular structures.

In this example we’re building some collagen helices with ribosomes, which are then assembled into collagen flooring and delivered outside (that’s that floating bubble!).

Continue ReadingDelivering with dispatchers

Debugging Railing Movement

  • Post published:December 10, 2021
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It’s hard to find some bugs when there are fast items which are moving in a tile map, possibly locking some states to prevent other items from moving into same tiles or allowing routing when multiple choices can be made.

To our rescue, it’s possible to slow down time to track down what’s exactly happening under the hood. This, together with some visual hints, helps the whole process.

The cyan tile represents the busy state while the string over the item tells the direction which the item is moving toward and its internal state relative to the current tile.

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Producing and assembling proteins

  • Post published:December 3, 2021
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Living cells are all about producing proteins for all kind of purposes, joining amino acids which are the building block of all the proteins.

Even the structure which gives the shape to the cell (and has a lot of other functions), the cytoskeleton, is made by proteins.

Proteins are usually synthesized in ribosomes and then they assemble in complex structures.

This is what it’s happening right here in the animation! This small network is producing microtubules, which are used to route items on the ground of the cell, in two steps:

  • first simple amino acids (round spheres) are crafted into tubulin in ribosomes
  • then a red tubulin and a green tubulin are assembled into a finished microtubule

Continue ReadingProducing and assembling proteins

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