I hired a David Attenborough impressionist to narrate my game about ecosystems and evolution
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- Опубліковано 27 лис 2021
- To celebrate 1000 subscribers, I created a David Attenborough version of the previous video just for fun.
Steam: store.steampowered.com/app/99...
Itch: woseseltops.itch.io/thesapling
Twitter: / thesaplinggame
Website: thesaplinggame.com/
Fan initiatives:
* Discord / discord
* Reddit / thesapling - Ігри
It would be cool to run a continuous evolution sim in this for months (preferably with as much timewarp as the game can handle) and do episodoc "walking with dinosaurs" style documentaries about the creatures that evolve.
Ye and even some mass extinctions if you lower the effieceny of photosynthesis over a bit of time
@@obiomajronyekwere4469 that might just kill everything. Depending on how optimized the plants are.
@@obiomajronyekwere4469 maybe a selective extincion like what we've seen in earth's history such as one that targets certain leave types, temporary change temperatures, or make things harder for certain animals like the cretacious extinction
@@lesussie2237 Exactly my thoughts. for example a great freeze after day 7 that could erase the other plant families and psuedo reset things for the animals and cold plants to take over and then slowly warm the place back to normal and see what evolves.
I think we should wait for the next update for that
Id love to see Another one of these 7 day video's but with 4 entries. 2 plants and 2 animal. 1 herbivore and 1 carnivore.
Same, it would be really cool seeing what complexity of a creature could evolve. maybe a balanced ecosistem ideally
i kind of want a more long simulation
You might be right. On the hand, I like the idea of everything descending from one species, and carnivory evolving on its own, on the other two base species add variety and interesting interactions from the start.
@@TheSapling a good way to make evolutions more complex would be things like events trigered by the player or other things like compunds in plants that make them less likely to be eaten but a species its resistent to that so just like in real life the plant make itself more poisonus and the animal make itself more inmune to that i forget what the name of that tipe of evolution
I think evolutionary armies race or something like that
As an evolutionary biologist, I really enjoyed to see this things:
1) The division of animal population into two separate clades when spiky plants emerge and subsequent evolution into something very different from each other. Classic allopatric speciation.
2) The moment when very effective, but ecologically locked plant species spread through loss of efficiency of leaves. An interesting illustration of how descent on local adaptive landscape can actually be positive for species in heterogenous world.
3) The moment when compound eyes "preadapted" western species to evolve positive taxis to green colour and then this new instinct in turn made more complex eyes (stalked ones) beneficial. Looks like positive feedback loop, though it needs to be tested few more times to be sure it is not just coincidence.
About your plant spike problem - if I understood from this video correctly, as for now they are implemented as some sort of separate structure. In nature, however, they are always made of something - and very frequently they are made from leaves. In fact, southern and especially steppe and desert spiky plants are spiky not only to deter herbivores, but also to loose way less water (as leaves are used not only for photosynthesis, but also for gas exchange, H2O vapor included). So think about implementing them as a variation of other plant structures.
Also if you remake them as a leaf-derived structures, you can add few different spike-leaves with gradations of "spikyness" and photosynthesis efficiency (negatively correlated obviously), and also add few gradations of resistance to animals (better to do that not as one progressing adaptation, but as a few independent ones with overall resistance being calculated as a sum of separate resistances they grant). This might end up in an interesting ecological interplay.
Hi Cinericius, thanks for compliments and useful feedback! I have indeed divided some bodyparts up into categories, while in real life these bodyparts actually evolve from each other (flowers being another good example). It is one of these situations where realism and 'intuitive and clean UI' conflict with each other, and haven't been able to solve this conflict yet.
@@TheSapling it is true, realistic simulations of evolution is highly complicated even for scientific modeling purposes (the problems are mostly fundamentally rooted in how sophisticated genotype-phenotype interplay actually is in real life, though not only in that), let alone games and other stuff that require simple and intuitive UI.
However, I believe that general idea of evolutionary trade-offs can be implemented even in simple simulators, the question is only how to do that properly so it would fit logically in the structure of simulator and wouldn't be seen by players as "just balancing" (though "just balancing" is indeed still better than completely unfixed broken balance). That's the main reason why I proposed remaking leaves and spikes as different forms of one structure, not for the sake of realism itself. In fact, as someone who likes to watch videos about gamedesign on youtube I am actually an "anti-realist". Because realism for the sake of realism is not just hard to do in games, it might also be really really boring sometimes.
@@TheSaplingMaybe have spikes mutation locked behind leaves?
100k will be the real David Attenborough, yes?
made me chuckle but if that irl happened that would be really cool
Man I wish.
Lol
anyone here can show this video to Sir Attenborough? can you imagine something like this happening, omg.
Maybe at 1M
Claim your 'Here before this blew up' certificates NOW!!!
Here before this blew up
Maybe it would be a good idea to just make the most basic plant & animal possible and that would mean that they would diversify more.
here we got 2 dots one its a shitty plant and the other a shitty animal lets evolve them until we get shitty cactus and shitty dinosaurs... i like that idea
@@gasparg643 isnt evolution the process of going away from the shitty parts
I would support this with mutliples.
Seeing one incredibly basic species mutate and migrate is interesting, but how diffrent will two or three will become?
@@davekachel in some of my playtroughts the plants evolved quite fine but it took a lot to evolve the animals.
They atleast divided in two groups, nectar/plant eaters with 4 legs and plant/meat eaters with 6 legs
@@gahelo Interesting. In my playthrough, it was the exact opposite. Animals evolved like CRAZY whereas the plants were basically living fossils with comparatively low speciation. I guess that's just how natural selection works though. Random mutations that occur at random times gradually allowing populations to more effectively survive in their environments.
Oh Yes! The Attenborough impression is the finishing touch.
wat if the plants mutated to not be green so the herbivores don’t see em
Would make them photosynthesis’s less efficiently, but if that means not getting eaten as often might be worth it
I'm honestly kind of surprised the game doesn't consider woody plants brown instead of green when you select them for herbivore sight
Years ago i searched for months for a game like this but found almost nothing and just wrote it off as impossible or too niche for a game
I can't believe it's actually happening
Same here.
If you could ever make that David Attenborough impressionist to narrate the game, like in Bastion, it would an absolute hit!
Your game is so underrated, there's so much love in it!
Haha it's an interesting idea. Imagine having a 'documentary' mode that just tells you random things about your ecosystem ;).
@@TheSapling Theme Park World
@@TheSapling Procedural information when you pull up a plant or animal species in sandbox mode, maybe a line about its expected niche based on its information. Since it looks like species names are pulled from a database you could torture the poor man by making him pronounce names like "Heever" to complete it
@@doomyboi it is actually designed by mixing random Latin sounding sounds
I love this game and videos, it has so much potential yet is so underrated... keep it up friend!
That's the soul we need!
I didnt know i needed this in my life
now THAT'S a game i'd like to buy if i didn't live in a third-world country, i won't crak it also as my PC definitely can't run it
but i also really want to try and recommend this game to my favorite lets players
subscribed btw, keep up the amazing work, i know how exausting it is, everytime you feel like giving up remember: you don't know if it can turn your life up, keep your head up and keep going!
Looking at the game it looks like I can run off an office pc, give it a go
I've run the sandbox mode for over 200,000 simulated years so far. It's amazing to see how much the animals have changed. One thing I thought was cool that occurred in my game is that although the common ancestor of all of my animals species (BTW, there a LOT of extant ones by now and way more that have gone extinct than I can even count at this point) had four legs, the vast majority of animal species currently in my game ditched the front legs in favor of bipedal movement with long necks for grabbing leaves high at the tops of trees and long tails with back-end mouths so they can eat leaves from either end. Although flying species haven't emerged yet, I'm sure it's bound to eventually happen if I just stay patient. It'll also be interesting if the animals evolve to exploit the game's physics engine. I've seen it happen before in BoxCar2d (not in any of my own playthroughs, but I've seen videos of it). Our own planet has shown us that if there's a way, provided enough time, life will find it. :)
2 thousand subs, it's a lot but this projects deserves more attention, more people.
Can’t wait to buy the game next week!
In the next update it would be great if grass would also grow due to the increase of forest or plants in the area
basically terraforming (just like in real life)
they dont even have to be modeled either it could just be a green texture that spreads around the map (now that realize, it sounds just like a virus lol)
Grass is an often requested feature indeed! I think I personally prefer to simulate it a bit more, but not sure yet how to do that without frying everyone's CPU ;)
@@TheSapling tru tru
I'm surprised your channel hasn't gotten more attention. This game is a really cool concept and development of it seems to be going very well. Some might compare it to Spore, and loose interest that way, but they're failing to see how new and different this is. Keep up the good work, I can't wait to see where this project goes.
This reminds me a bit of the original concept of spore a little bit. This is just done better I feel.
Wow 2k subs already keep up the great work
This is indeed a very good showcast of how evolution happens. As a person who study paleontology/geology, one issue with the current simulation is that habitat are pre-set values and organism do not terraform their environment, eg fertility values. The unhanged environment would lead to the birth a a dominant species that outrace others. I know that this is still work in progress, and I am looking forward to the days this project shines!
I agree, right now, it seems like there will always be one dominant species. In fact, this is always what happens when I play this game. One dominant plant (possibly constrained by temperature or their root depth), one dominant herbivore, and one dominant carnivore. The only diversity that can happen is the different zones of the terrain.
So right now I feel the game lacks 3 things (for me personally):
1) Scale - the world the lifeforms inhabit are very small. I don't know how possible it is for the game to balance performance with the increase in size, but man it would be cool to see some larger terrains to play in.
2) Diversity/ balanced strategies - The real world shows that its possible for ecosystems can support many different kinds of creatures so long as they have their own niche. In this game there tends to be one strictly dominating strategy that wins out all the time (providing the best parts for your creature).
3) Complexity - The game will always be struggling to provide enough complexity. I think this is the number one thing holding the game back right now. The crowd that is drawn to this sort of thing wants complexity. Complexity might make diversity possible even without hard limits such as temperature.
For example, I would like to see some behavioral creature to creature interactions. Maybe there is a type of carnivore that has some sort of behavioral trait to make it PREFER to go after eggs over grown creatures (along with something like, if see white, go towards it). Some herbivores may evolve, simply having had their eggs change color from white to something else, thus making the creature thrive a bit more. Perhaps some herbivores begin burying their eggs (another behavioral trait), which does protect their eggs, but the herbivore offspring doesn't always manage to reach the surface, their body isn't suited for the dig out. Neither species necessarily outright beats the other, unless the carnivore evolves into something more tuned towards one or the other. There's clearly room for all the species here to continue to evolve into something else. And just by adding some egg mechanics (such as burying eggs), you open up a whole new world of things. Long story short, I would like to see some more radical abilities being given to creatures (and maybe even plants, Venus Flytraps anybody?), and some of them should be related to body parts. This makes the problem of some body parts being completely irrelevant a bit less. I'm not oblivious to the fact that what I want may be too much for a single developer, but a guy can dream (I think this is why Spore ended up the way it did even with a team behind it). I also want to mention that I don't feel the solution would be locking certain behaviors behind body parts (unless the behavior wouldn't make sense otherwise). Let bad evolutions happen, such as a creature that buries its eggs but the resulting offspring has a 10% chance of "digging" its way back up. Sometimes that bad evolution could be what saves a species.
I spent this comment talking about the things I wish the game had, but don't get me wrong, it's still a ton of fun for it's price! Just thought I'd mention that because I feel a bit bad about going crazy with my imagination and making it seem like the game is somehow less because it doesn't satisfy me in those regards.
If anyone actually reads this word vomit, I'm impressed with you!
@@cricticalthinking4098 vomit
I like your ideas they would be cool to see
Just discovered this channel and game and I love it. It gives me the same sense of wonder and creativity as spore but with it's own fun spin on it. I know what I'm getting for Christmas, lol.
I love the game idea I have an idea for defense shells to allow people to make turtles and tortoises and to add omnivores along with sea stuff just some ideas cant wait to play the game I'm getting it around Christmas
Username checks out :). Thanks for your ideas! Without making any promises, these are indeed cool ideas.
Completely underrated game, all of what this man does is a lot harder than most people think when it comes to game development.
Ngl I like your voice more, it's unique and very calming
I really like this game my fingers come a long way!
._.
also please add aquatic ecosystems
Hey Noah, I try to never make any promises so I can change my mind without disappointing people (and I indeed change my mind all the time). Having said that, I like the idea of roughly following what players are interested in, and aquatic organisms are the most requested feature BY FAR ;)
Ooo thats gonna be hard but id love to see the ability for multiple niches to exist on land like certain herbivourous teeth can eat through spikes but need a small body
Bought game a few days ago. Absolutely amazing. Keep it up!
I made one too for Timberborn, but I'm not as good as this narrator at all ^^ I Had fun with it anyway. Nice video mate
This video came out right after I found your channel and watched all your videos!
Its so sad that kost herbivours got extincted its kinda like a massive exticntion
Survival of the fittest I guess 🤷🏽♂️
@@rassivoro9416 seems legit
WOOI THATS WHAT IVE BEEN WATING FOR!
I'll recommend this to a few Twitch streamers who played Spore recently.
This is great
Will future updates allow you the opportunity to create an aquatic or coastal ecosystem that transitions onto land overtime or vice versa?
Hey Donovan, the content of the next update is still a secret, but I can say that aquatic stuff is requested on a daily basis for months now ;)
@@TheSapling oh, okay, you should also consider introducing larger maps or maps with terrain that is determined by a seed, like in Minecraft.
Their are a few experiments and things id likr to see more from this game.
One is multiple niches animals being able to coexist and not completly compete for eachother this could be temperature ranges like shown in this vid (Good job!)
Potentially types of mouths that could negate the spikes somehow but needs specific sizes like a small size or meduim.
I understand how hard a pred prey relationship would be and for now id be best to jist experiment as preds need huge prey populations to feed them and i dont think the game can supply that.
A experiment you could do would be if you could try and test if the arboreal ability poses any strategies.
There are no preds so so far no escaping strats are needed but for birds to evolve they need to become arboreal and itll be rare they come by chance so maybe adding a general purpose advantage?
Maybe they can auto eat fruits basically spawn camping resources or something else along those lines.
Also a major request youve probably been ask but a mass extinction mode or maybe a button that can change temperature values instantly maybr not custom but very fast so that things enviromentally change rapidly causing exticntions to both plant and animals.
For example super frost would cause the icy animals to take over the map and diversify more or for hotter animals and plants the same thing could occur.
It eould allow a bunch of what ifs to occur like what if the cold hardy animal we saw at the end spread across the land due to an iceage.
this is long and idk if youll mind the spelling mistakes but ye thanks for
Reading
Hi Obioma, thanks for writing all of this down! There are some scenarios that task you to create predators, but indeed, they always have small populations. And indeed, hiding in trees is a good strategy when there are predators.
Also, the temperature change buttons are already there in the sandbox (top right) :)!
@@TheSapling Thank you for the reply so much after rewatching your videos i see that temp changes are in there!
I cant wait to see what changes that could have for exticntions.
some have already commented about a walking with dinosaur like series where you have multiple timer periods describing the life and evolution of these creatures and if done right i belive could bring even more attention to your game.
kudos and thanks for replying cant wait to try and get it for christmas.
btw does it support linux??
Can’t wait for the next update, whenever it comes or whatever it is :)
This was perfect 😂
Here you are talking about 1,000 subscribers and 2000 subscribers. but look at you now. Good job and good luck for the future.
This was awesome 😎👍👍
I found the video before this a few minutes ago and I have to say I’m absolutely enamored by this project. This is absolutely insane. I’ve seen evolution simulators before so I didn’t think it would be any different, but just WOW. It takes temperature into account, as well as amount of sunlight, leg strength and weight, and there’s wings. What’s more, plants develop defense mechanisms like the spikes. This is absolutely incredible. I would LOVE to buy a copy of the game whenever you’re done with it, and I’m proud to say I’m following this development journey. I’ve never seen a game like this, and it’s a SOLO PROJECT. Just WOW. I don’t care if it’s free, $10, $25, or even $50+, this is so incredible that I feel it’d be worth it. Keep up the good work!
Oh man, this makes me nostalgic for the old BBC documentaries.
UA-cam algo bring me here, love the project, subbing and looking forward for future development
This was beautiful and amazing
gonna need a mouth type that counters the spikes
You should allow for mixing animal and plant parts. I so no reason to prevent hybrids from development :) Flying trees, animals with flowers and leaves on their back etc :D
Add termites, and allow large herbivores to destroy sapling, thus forming mammoth steppes
Hey HexCake, thanks for your suggestions! Without making any promises, indeed very cool ideas. TIL about mammoth steppes :)
I honestly like your voice-over waaay more lol
This was amazing, im buying rn
Very cool idea for a game i hope it gets the support you need to make it what you imagined when you first began.
Just found this now. Looks like the next 2 months equated to 8k more subs! Congrats. This game seems so cool I'm giving it a buy to have some fun with it!
Love this series
Oh wow, this is genuinely super cool! I'm going to buy the game to play and support development :)
Honestly another one of these will be so freeken cool
LOL. Awesome job on both the video and the game.
keep up the good work dude. You're kind of like a pioneer for this genre of games
He did it
love it! very fun vid!
love it... more simulations with the narrator please!
Some ideas for features:
-Networked plants or fungi that can transport resources between themselves to improve resistance against predation and aging, with the downside being that it takes a lot more time and resources to expand.
-Water as a resource, more ground water (determined by proximity to a source of water and by altitude) allowing a faster growth rate of plants, letting them reach maturity quickly and potentially giving them more chances at reproduction during their lifespan.
-Heat and cold impacting the overall shape of a plant, where hotter, dryer areas would necessitate the reduction of surface areas to prevent evaporation of moisture, as well as a layer of protective bark. In colder areas, on the other hand, insulating 'fluff' often forms around plants, or loose layered bark, to capture and retain heat and prevent frostbite. In wetter areas, the danger of losing moisture to heat is less of a concern, so more resources can be dedicated to maximising leaf surface area to capture sunlight.
-The location of spikes, fruits, flowers and leaves mattering to their effectiveness. This way, a spike that's lower down on the plant can be avoided by an animal growing taller, and flowers that are accessible to more nectivores are more successful. That way, not all life on one half of the map will be wiped out because they spike themselves as they try to eat, and we may see interesting relationships forming between different species, as well as a diversification of ecological niches.
-More ecological niches in general would be helpful for seeing interesting relationships and interactions. I'm not sure how these might all take shape, but it's something to bear in mind as development continues. Obviously, it'll be a balancing act to try to make it run well, too. I'm afraid I lack the expertise to advise on that part, though.
Hey Zap Gun, thanks a lot for your suggestions! Very inspiring, studying them in detail :)
Your impersonator did a great job, With a script that seemed slightly off it felt totally AI generated which somehow made it even funnier.
I wonder what's the next major update will be all about...
Can’t wait to see the game evolve
Dang,this is so sick. Whats cool is how the creatures grew stock eyes. To me it makes sense because the location they are at is very open and somewhat flat,so being able to see far and from up a little high is perfect for exactly what they are made to do. Go to green
Amazing video!👍
Literally found out about this game today, definetly on my list of must buy
Very nice to see.
I like it.
Congrats on the 16k subs
Thanks, nearly 17k :D
I'm very very interested in this becoming more than jsut a simulation/game..but entertainment
Love this
im so happy i saw this in my recomended
That was awesome
I love this video but I think your voice is perfect for your videos, it's just really nice I think.
Sinceramente, com essa narração deu para entrar muito melhor na história dos 7 dias. Parabéns. E que jogo lindo. Sempre sonhei em fazer um jogo de evolução. Esse está ficando fabuloso.
This is so cool!
Make more incentives for multiple sizes, such as digging holes for smaller animals, and a higher food cost, also add chances of forest fire
Hey HexCake, thanks for your suggestions! Without making any promises, indeed very cool ideas :).
Hmmm idk if this is too difficult but make it so at least at some point they gain sentience and build communities. But keep it to like stone, bronze, and iron to keep the simplicity. This could happen over a large amount of time and it would need a lot of requirements. But could be very fun and interesting tbh.
Oh and bigger maps
There's an interesting discussion/disagreement in the community about whether this should be inside the game's scope or not :)
idea: closely related animals in the evolution game can make hybrids
You've earned a sub
This is so cool that guys impression is spot on
He got to 5k pretty quickly nice one
Yeah I noticed that as well. The UA-cam gods are in my favor this month.
@@TheSapling I got you recommended as well, I'm glad UA-cam recommended you!
ooooh this is almost like that idea ive had.
I have always thought, if we are going to make CG all hyper realistic... Why not pull back the realism a little and use that to make fantasy creatures? But not just that, but now make a nature documentary with fantasy creatures. Have it narrated by some kind of David Attenborough voice and everything.
You're gonna like Alien Worlds on Netflix ;)
Really nice!
Your version was really cool, but this is nice to have
I would love to see a "Symbiosis" update, where plants and animals are able to evolve together instead of fighting each other. So, a plant can mutate with a symbiotic trait like acid resistant seeds, meaning they spread by animals eating them, or it could have spores that animals carry on them by getting near the plant. And for animals, you could have them become defensive of a species of plant, targeting other species instead of that one.
Hi Bigcd34, thanks for your suggestions, I'm indeed thinking in a similar direction! Symbiosis is sort of possible in the form of flowers, pollen and nectar eaters, but not really for the seeds yet as you suggest.
Lol nice video idea
I love this game so much! I wish the sandbox mode didn't break my computer. XD
Brilliant!
This is awesomeeee
Super cool
It's interesting to see in the first 7 days simulation the plants developed a cute relation with the animals, but in this one the plants decided to massacre the animals lol
Holding out for a bit of a lookback on plants now that the size update is live. While full ground cover may be a bit much now, smaller plants being able to thrive and being affected by having larger plants blocking the light above them would be great. And perhaps setting up some environmental effects of plants so sets of plants can thrive together? Such as one plant not being able to survive in soft soil, while another plant hardens the soil around it, so if they’re near each other the one plant can survive in an otherwise inhospitable environment. In terms of animals, undergrounder/digging adaptations are something I’m looking forward to as well! A lot of animals (especially prey) rely on those strategies, and it may be a good segue into introducing hibernation as well. Tunnelers also change the environment around them: Really I suppose what I’m looking for is mechanisms so that the environment is ever-changing just as much as the creatures are, *through* the mechanisms of the creatures you create.
Hey Darwinist, without making any promises, I like your way of thinking :). Thanks a lot for taking the time to write this down.
It took me years to get to 1k... Congrats!
man i love this game, it would be cool if we could edit the terrain of the sandbox more or make really small animals or aquatic animals
Hey Cedesect, thanks for your suggestion! Without making any promises, fully agree! Aquatic animals in particular are requested very often :)
I just got this game. It's gonna be great.
EPIC (i'm impressed by the impressionist)
Yep, I’m convinced. Buying today 😘
I noticed that when Attenborough narrates, there’s usually pauses, and I noticed that on reflection because this sounded a bit wrong. Just sounds like he’s talking rushed and there’s no pauses. Just some constructive criticism if you do something similar in the future. Cool idea and good work
Hi Liam, thanks for the feedback, I fully agree. Attenborough has a narration style with a lot of pauses, and on top of that in real documentaries there are often long periods of silence so you can watch the animals... I couldn't replicate that because I didn't record that much visual material, so I was forced to by cut a lot of silence out of the performance by Scott.
Would be cool to see aquatic ecosystems at some point. I appreciate that would be a lot of work as terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems are very different but life did begin the oceans and I reckon life would transition pretty reliably onto land with the game's logic.
Hey SoManyRaquazas, thanks for your suggestion! Without making any promises, it's indeed a cool idea, and also the most requested feature by far :)
It was a bit sad that there weren't any carnivores or smaller species but atleast its realistic like that all animals share a common ancestor,really felt like a documentary i would see on TV,mainly because he got a very good narrator voice but also a litlle like one of my science teacher
Just got it, very good game