i have an idea for an update that makes ecosystems interact more with each other: mushrooms can be edited, they would have a poison system to avoid some animals eating them, they can have patterns and be poisonous for animals, or make the animal resistant to a poison type or to lower or higher temperatures but animals will evolve to be resistant to that poison type or that temperature, that can unlock new body parts that can only evolve by eating mushrooms, they spread by spores which can attach to animals and each specific amount of seconds a mushroom will grow where the animal is in that current time, mushrooms can grow mycelium that can make plants help each other, like passing water to another plant that needs it, also mushroom spores can grow into moss, a new plant type like grass that can increase a place's shallow water, which will mean that now places get dryer over time, then moss can evolve into grass or ferns and ferns can evolve onto plants. Plants will also change, making them instead of evolving seeds evolving spore droppers which are like mushroom spores, the spore droppers can evolve to drop more spores or evolve into seeds. And the last thing is a fruit growing animation, if a fruit is curved it will grow straight and then it will curve or a round fruit just growing bigger or a long fruit that gets longer, fruits changing colors while they grow like strawberries and that fruit poison is low and while the fruit gets older the poison intensity rises so animals have to eat the fruit while its still young and a sugar level for fruits that can make the fruit give more energy and body parts that make the animal more or less sugar resistant to absorb more sugar. I would like to see some or one of these features or something similar.
and also amphibian animals that can evolve from aquatic animals with special feet that can swim and walk and then evolve onto land animals or onto aquatic animals again but being able to stay more time in land, aquatic plants that are just plants that evolve back onto water and have leaves and flowers, also corals in the ocean that can evolve from algae and change color and size.
I absolutely adore this game, but I keep on running into an issue in the tutorial game: at a certain point, everything seems to freeze, but I still have free motion and can click on and select things. The years do not pass, and nothing moves or interacts. I suspect this is because of my admittedly limited computer's setup, but I just wanted to know if there was a way to avoid this.
Hey Lorewise, thanks for your report! This sounds very much like the game ran into an internal problem. I might be able to see what is going on in a log file (C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\The Sapling\the_sapling_Data) or crash report (C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\LocalLow\Wessel Stoop\The Sapling). Are you by any chance willing to send these to thesaplinggame@gmail.com ?
when i try to play for first time with the plant i cant because it says the ocean depth is not enotuh so will not survive i dont know what to do i cant edit it and i cant edit the terrain, please help, i just want to play sandbox i will learn on the while im playing to be honest i dont want to play this one about the plant is becoming a headache to know why the ocean is too depth :S
Hey Krory90, the game only makes you go through the first scenario to avoid the sandbox being too overwhelming. If you want to place an alga, and the game says the ocean depth is not correct, you can either make it 'longer' (dragging up the red arrow in the editor) or shorter (dragging down the red arrow)... does that help?
Idea: once the game is more done you could make it mobile friendly to reach out to more new players, it doesn't have to be free it could still cost money but yeah.
Hi, I just bought the latest version on Windows. The rotate control doesn't really work. I got it to work briefly but then it failed again. This happens in full screen and "windowed" versions. I also recommend adding a dedicated rotate button and control options menu. Thank you
I notice that players with smaller amounts of RAM have crashes more often, but other than that the performance is mostly determined by the map size and less by the hardware ;)
Hey, don't listen to what others are saying, what you're creating is incredibly cool! I'm sure this game has a great future! It's even more impressing that it's made by an indie developer!
Hey Hiimreg, there are no short term plans to support other platforms, but (as you can see below) Mac support is often requested, so if I ever want to expand, Mac will definitely be the first choice.
Hi Rodand, thanks for buying, and sorry to read you don't have access to the supported platforms. I think itch.io supports refunds: https://itch.io/support . Feel free to cc thesaplinggame@gmail.com, I'll help out.
Hi Rodand, thanks for buying, and sorry to read you don't have access to the supported platforms. I think itch.io supports refunds: https://itch.io/support . Feel free to cc thesaplinggame@gmail.com, I'll help out.
i have tons Of ideas for the sapling so get ready,giving birth, new fruit for plants and seeds, poison on teeth to attack prey, new sea weed texture like on Land plants, making animal sleep once in a while, selective breeding plants, fresh water and Salt water, new fish parts like gills, poisones plants or fruits, deasises and imune system, young following moms and more:)))
Hey Caden, there are no short term plans to support other platforms, but (as you can see below) Mac support is often requested, so if I ever want to expand, Mac will definitely be the first choice.
I saw your youtube channel 2 days ago and knew i had to get the game so here i am after 2 days of playing it and i have to say it is a great game i also keep finding strange phenomenon while playing but ill probably make another comment on that keep up the good work awesome game
Hey Drake, I can't guarantee it will run on a Chromebook, but I can tell you there is a dedicated Linux build, so that should make life easier for you!
Is there a way for the game to run in the background when the window loses focus? I was looking forward to letting the simulation run while I work, but it stops as soon as I click out of the window. Please add this feature if not available.
Hey, sorry for the late reply! This is not officially supported, but if you open the cheat field with Shift+C, and then type 'continuous', the game should continue when out of focus... hope this helps1
I absolutely adore this game- I've spent HOURS just meddling in ecosystems to see what happens. It's fun to make alien-looking creatures and set them loose on each other, and the environments can make things challenging in a way that keeps things interesting! Thank you so much for making this and continuing to develop the game!
And a double thank-you for supporting Linux. It might not seem like much, but it means a lot to those of us that use it.
Hey RoyalDragon, sorry to hear you have problems running the game on Linux, and thanks for reaching out! I can see from the Steam stats that the game is frequently being played by Linux players, so there must be something special for your situation; could you perhaps elaborate a bit on what happens exactly?
Hi Victor, that is indeed weird! I heard from some players that having Citrix installed might block the game from starting... perhaps that's also the case for you?
also, side note- this game kicks butt! it gives me memories of late bleary-eyed nights playing Spore: Galactic Adventures and creating theorems and diagrams for the ecosystems of every planet i terraformed, plus it's just darn well designed.
I got your game when you released your latest video and I am in love. There is something profound that strikes me when I see the end of day long simulations. This game has been my obsession and the hours on my steam account show that. With that however I'd like to add a few things.
I'm not sure if you take suggestions or anything but it would certainly be neat to have more sandbox maps. Or alternatively different settings that help make the map more extreme. The temperature setting is a good way to encourage change.
However change across a species into very different ones can take a long time through mutations. I'm not sure how possible it would be but a map that has some form of a continental drift could help encourage mutations that drastically alter a species into several in a shorter amount of time. I see water level changes already with temperature so altering that to follow some sort of noise as well could work.
I also think aquatic life as animals and plants would rock, especially if they are able to transition onto land. I have no idea if this would be possible or how you would even begin to implement it.
This game is amazing and you should be immensely proud. I am so glad it is early access not because I think it needs more, but because I am excited to see it grow.
The Sapling is something I will come back to time and time again and is an absolute bargain for the price you are selling for. You could easily double the price and the quality of your work and the entertainment of your game would still be worth it.
I am also excited to see the option for player content and will probably spend the next week making things. I've already spent 30 hours playing and for the price I paid all I can say is thank you.
Thanks a lot for making my day with your lovely comments; at times I am flooded in bug reports and a message like yours is exactly what I need to keep going... so thanks!
And I indeed take suggestions! In fact, I get 10+ lists of feature requests every day on various platforms, and I study them all in detail. Your ideas are very interesting! Without making any promises, more flexibility in the sandbox map is indeed often requested and an idea I really like, and aquatic life is the most requested feature by far ever :P.
I'll say the same as pahl software above; thank you so much for creating this
I've gotten more content than so many things for 8$, and to be completely honest, if this was considered finished, I would've still loved it.
This is a passion project and it shows; keep up the good work and don't stress over trying to meet expectations because (in my own case), they have been outdone.
Hey so, I like the game alot. When is the next update or, if you don't have a date how is the update going. You haven't really done much of any communication for a while now.
The Linux-Version is completely broken. Graphics are glitchy (missing things) and you cant complete even the first scenario, as you cant put leaves on your plant (just an example).
I tried the windows version in wine - this works, but has a massive frame rate drop when putting your first animal (~1 fps).
Tested the Linux version on 3 PC's with 3 diffenrent distributions (LFS, Ubuntu 18.04, Debian 7)
Hi Sebastian. First of all, thanks for reaching out and sorry to hear you have so much trouble with the game; I would totally understand if you would request a refund.
About your Linux problems: there must be something special going on in your case because dozens of Linux players have already completed the game with no problems. One thing I noticed is that the draw distance for body parts is extremely short for the lowest quality setting, also in the editors. This will be fixed in a future patch somewhere in the next few days... but for now could you try a higher quality setting to see if that improves things?
About the frame rate drop with animals in Windows: I discovered today that it is possible to create animals that give problems with the animation system, resulting in the game basically becoming unplayable: it's a combination of two types of feet and very thin animals. Perhaps that's the problem for you too? This will also be fixed in the next few days.
No, i don't want a refund - it's an early access game. And i love the concept of it!
I tried v7.17 today on 2 Linux machines - still the same problem. I tried any graphic options and resolutions
Also, i notices that some stats aren't right. For example: the temperature on the first island is 5950°C. Also the stats of leaves etc. are very different from the windows version (all have 5 suns, etc.).
For the windows-version, it was exactly the problem you described - it works fine with all other animals.
Wow in that case thanks for the trust and the bug reports! Really appreciated :). I just tried to reproduce your stats problem on Linux with v7.17, but no luck. I think your installation must have trouble reading the asset bundles, but I'm unsure how this could result in weird stats rather than just a crash.
So we now have two Unix problems (glitchy graphics and glitchy stats) that I cannot reproduce :(. If you have some time, would it be possible for you to send me a screenshot of the problems, and the error log? Can be found at "~/.config/unity3d/Wessel Stoop/The Sapling/"
Just a thought: Old Unity engine versions had problems with non-English locales, often leading to completely random problems. Could you try to start the game by prepending `LANG=C LC_ALL=C ` and check if that changes something?
Wow, unbelievable, thank you so much ifo and SebastianPetters... if there's anything I can do for you to thank you, let me know. There will be another patch this week or next week, I'll make sure this is included.
Hi, I use a mac and mistakenly bought the game without checking the compatible platforms (completely on me). Is there a way for me to refund the purchase or do I have to just live with my mistakes 🙃
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i have an idea for an update that makes ecosystems interact more with each other: mushrooms can be edited, they would have a poison system to avoid some animals eating them, they can have patterns and be poisonous for animals, or make the animal resistant to a poison type or to lower or higher temperatures but animals will evolve to be resistant to that poison type or that temperature, that can unlock new body parts that can only evolve by eating mushrooms, they spread by spores which can attach to animals and each specific amount of seconds a mushroom will grow where the animal is in that current time, mushrooms can grow mycelium that can make plants help each other, like passing water to another plant that needs it, also mushroom spores can grow into moss, a new plant type like grass that can increase a place's shallow water, which will mean that now places get dryer over time, then moss can evolve into grass or ferns and ferns can evolve onto plants. Plants will also change, making them instead of evolving seeds evolving spore droppers which are like mushroom spores, the spore droppers can evolve to drop more spores or evolve into seeds. And the last thing is a fruit growing animation, if a fruit is curved it will grow straight and then it will curve or a round fruit just growing bigger or a long fruit that gets longer, fruits changing colors while they grow like strawberries and that fruit poison is low and while the fruit gets older the poison intensity rises so animals have to eat the fruit while its still young and a sugar level for fruits that can make the fruit give more energy and body parts that make the animal more or less sugar resistant to absorb more sugar. I would like to see some or one of these features or something similar.
and also amphibian animals that can evolve from aquatic animals with special feet that can swim and walk and then evolve onto land animals or onto aquatic animals again but being able to stay more time in land, aquatic plants that are just plants that evolve back onto water and have leaves and flowers, also corals in the ocean that can evolve from algae and change color and size.
Thank you for so many ideas! Without making promises, these are all ideas I like! I will now go and google 'spore droppers' :)
with spore droppers i mean a body part for plants that drops spores because i dont think that those body parts even have a name
they could have a lot of like hairs in them like in real life in some images i have seen
an example picture
I absolutely adore this game, but I keep on running into an issue in the tutorial game: at a certain point, everything seems to freeze, but I still have free motion and can click on and select things. The years do not pass, and nothing moves or interacts. I suspect this is because of my admittedly limited computer's setup, but I just wanted to know if there was a way to avoid this.
Hey Lorewise, thanks for your report! This sounds very much like the game ran into an internal problem. I might be able to see what is going on in a log file (C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\The Sapling\the_sapling_Data) or crash report (C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\LocalLow\Wessel Stoop\The Sapling). Are you by any chance willing to send these to thesaplinggame@gmail.com ?
when i try to play for first time with the plant i cant because it says the ocean depth is not enotuh so will not survive i dont know what to do i cant edit it and i cant edit the terrain, please help, i just want to play sandbox i will learn on the while im playing to be honest i dont want to play this one about the plant is becoming a headache to know why the ocean is too depth :S
Hey Krory90, the game only makes you go through the first scenario to avoid the sandbox being too overwhelming. If you want to place an alga, and the game says the ocean depth is not correct, you can either make it 'longer' (dragging up the red arrow in the editor) or shorter (dragging down the red arrow)... does that help?
MAKE GAME FOR MAC, OR ELSE I WILL:
Thanks for your input! There FAQ also addresses this if you're interested: https://thesaplinggame.com/faq
Idea: once the game is more done you could make it mobile friendly to reach out to more new players, it doesn't have to be free it could still cost money but yeah.
Thanks for your input! There FAQ also addresses this if you're interested: https://thesaplinggame.com/faq
Hi, I just bought the latest version on Windows. The rotate control doesn't really work. I got it to work briefly but then it failed again. This happens in full screen and "windowed" versions. I also recommend adding a dedicated rotate button and control options menu. Thank you
Thanks for your feedback! What 'rotate control' are you referring to exactly? The camera in the editor perhaps?
what are the requirements to be able to play like do you need a graphics card or a lot of storage?
And also a demo I kind of would like so you get the feel of the game before you buy it and it has it so you can only play for 50 minutes
Thanks for your input, much appreciated!
I notice that players with smaller amounts of RAM have crashes more often, but other than that the performance is mostly determined by the map size and less by the hardware ;)
I'm really excited for the incoming update mentioned in the devlog, it looks really cool!
Hey, don't listen to what others are saying, what you're creating is incredibly cool! I'm sure this game has a great future! It's even more impressing that it's made by an indie developer!
<3
You should add a new kind of creature, viruses. Viruses could be represented by particles in the air and could spice up any ecosystem
Without making promises, it's an idea I like, thanks!
can you make pay yourself and have Discord plz
Hi TurtleCroc, what do you mean by 'make pay yourself'? There is a community Discord: https://discord.gg/Dg87jbWkPQ
allow people set price
Ah right, but wouldn't that mean most people would pay way less?
get Patreon or Kickstarter or GoFundMe
can you make it mac friendly
Hey Hiimreg, there are no short term plans to support other platforms, but (as you can see below) Mac support is often requested, so if I ever want to expand, Mac will definitely be the first choice.
i wish Wessal was Here to get some help:(
I'm here and responded below :)
Does the game work on moble because it doesnt work :( and i wasted 10.00$ dollors
it only works on windows and linux
Hi Rodand, thanks for buying, and sorry to read you don't have access to the supported platforms. I think itch.io supports refunds: https://itch.io/support . Feel free to cc thesaplinggame@gmail.com, I'll help out.
add bug parts in the animal maker
add animal that has no legs
add semi-aquatic plants
Thanks! Without making promises, all of these are ideas I'm interested in!
nice
Truly incredible gameplay. Although my PC can barely run it, I do enjoy this game a lot. Any ideas on what the next update is?
Thanks! Next update will be presented in Youtube devlogs in a few weeks
Does it work on moble? I wasted 10.00$ dollors. Is there a way? It doesnt work
Hi Rodand, thanks for buying, and sorry to read you don't have access to the supported platforms. I think itch.io supports refunds: https://itch.io/support . Feel free to cc thesaplinggame@gmail.com, I'll help out.
i have tons Of ideas for the sapling so get ready,giving birth, new fruit for plants and seeds, poison on teeth to attack prey, new sea weed texture like on Land plants, making animal sleep once in a while, selective breeding plants, fresh water and Salt water, new fish parts like gills, poisones plants or fruits, deasises and imune system, young following moms and more:)))
Without making promises, nearly all of these are ideas I'm very interested in :)
I don't think gills will be added because the mouths already allow you to control how they breath
This game is amazing! Always wanted to play a game that evolves over time. -- Can you please make a Mac build though so I can play?
Hey Caden, there are no short term plans to support other platforms, but (as you can see below) Mac support is often requested, so if I ever want to expand, Mac will definitely be the first choice.
I saw your youtube channel 2 days ago and knew i had to get the game so here i am after 2 days of playing it and i have to say it is a great game i also keep finding strange phenomenon while playing but ill probably make another comment on that keep up the good work awesome game
<3
<3 Also good to know you would be interested in a Mac build!
Is there any way to run this using Linux on Chromebook?
please tell me there is a way
Hey Drake, I can't guarantee it will run on a Chromebook, but I can tell you there is a dedicated Linux build, so that should make life easier for you!
Is there a way for the game to run in the background when the window loses focus? I was looking forward to letting the simulation run while I work, but it stops as soon as I click out of the window. Please add this feature if not available.
Hey, sorry for the late reply! This is not officially supported, but if you open the cheat field with Shift+C, and then type 'continuous', the game should continue when out of focus... hope this helps1
I absolutely adore this game- I've spent HOURS just meddling in ecosystems to see what happens. It's fun to make alien-looking creatures and set them loose on each other, and the environments can make things challenging in a way that keeps things interesting! Thank you so much for making this and continuing to develop the game!
And a double thank-you for supporting Linux. It might not seem like much, but it means a lot to those of us that use it.
<3
Mac update plz
macos update when :(
You should make the feet look better, probably take inspiration from the animals that actually inhabit Earth
Also , give the plants and animals more customization
It looks cool, I wish it was free.
Do you get a steam key when you purchase thi
Hi Bharris, it will be a Itch.io download only.
sorry
The game will not start on linux at all
Hey RoyalDragon, sorry to hear you have problems running the game on Linux, and thanks for reaching out! I can see from the Steam stats that the game is frequently being played by Linux players, so there must be something special for your situation; could you perhaps elaborate a bit on what happens exactly?
Pls add more customable bodyplans
Thanks for the suggestion TeDe3! Any body plans in particular you had in mind?
hey wessel, i know this is weird but
the game just kinda... doesn't start? ive tried everything, but it just doesnt open properly, or even at all?
it only properly runs when executed from the zip, and not from the unzipped file
it is truly wack
Hi Victor, that is indeed weird! I heard from some players that having Citrix installed might block the game from starting... perhaps that's also the case for you?
I do not believe so.
also, side note- this game kicks butt! it gives me memories of late bleary-eyed nights playing Spore: Galactic Adventures and creating theorems and diagrams for the ecosystems of every planet i terraformed, plus it's just darn well designed.
Thanks a lot, very good to read :) . Let me know if there's anything I can do to help with opening the game the 'normal' way!
I got your game when you released your latest video and I am in love. There is something profound that strikes me when I see the end of day long simulations. This game has been my obsession and the hours on my steam account show that. With that however I'd like to add a few things.
I'm not sure if you take suggestions or anything but it would certainly be neat to have more sandbox maps. Or alternatively different settings that help make the map more extreme. The temperature setting is a good way to encourage change.
However change across a species into very different ones can take a long time through mutations. I'm not sure how possible it would be but a map that has some form of a continental drift could help encourage mutations that drastically alter a species into several in a shorter amount of time. I see water level changes already with temperature so altering that to follow some sort of noise as well could work.
I also think aquatic life as animals and plants would rock, especially if they are able to transition onto land. I have no idea if this would be possible or how you would even begin to implement it.
This game is amazing and you should be immensely proud. I am so glad it is early access not because I think it needs more, but because I am excited to see it grow.
The Sapling is something I will come back to time and time again and is an absolute bargain for the price you are selling for. You could easily double the price and the quality of your work and the entertainment of your game would still be worth it.
I am also excited to see the option for player content and will probably spend the next week making things. I've already spent 30 hours playing and for the price I paid all I can say is thank you.
Thanks a lot for making my day with your lovely comments; at times I am flooded in bug reports and a message like yours is exactly what I need to keep going... so thanks!
And I indeed take suggestions! In fact, I get 10+ lists of feature requests every day on various platforms, and I study them all in detail. Your ideas are very interesting! Without making any promises, more flexibility in the sandbox map is indeed often requested and an idea I really like, and aquatic life is the most requested feature by far ever :P.
Keep up the good work man, but don't burn yourself out!
yo this shit is cool as fuck I purchased it off here because you deserve more money than a 70% cut
Thanks a lot Castrel :)
I'll say the same as pahl software above; thank you so much for creating this
I've gotten more content than so many things for 8$, and to be completely honest, if this was considered finished, I would've still loved it.
This is a passion project and it shows; keep up the good work and don't stress over trying to meet expectations because (in my own case), they have been outdone.
<3
Good to hear! It was a wise decision to support Linux; there were a lot of Linux users among the early adopters :)
Hey so, I like the game alot. When is the next update or, if you don't have a date how is the update going.
You haven't really done much of any communication for a while now.
Hey Morgimely, indeed, but only because I am focusing on getting the next big update out the door... which I by the way had just announced, a few hours before your question ;) https://twitter.com/thesaplinggame/status/1388763094130778112
The Linux-Version is completely broken.
Graphics are glitchy (missing things) and you cant complete even the first scenario, as you cant put leaves on your plant (just an example).
I tried the windows version in wine - this works, but has a massive frame rate drop when putting your first animal (~1 fps).
Tested the Linux version on 3 PC's with 3 diffenrent distributions (LFS, Ubuntu 18.04, Debian 7)
The same for v7.13 and v7.15
Hi Sebastian. First of all, thanks for reaching out and sorry to hear you have so much trouble with the game; I would totally understand if you would request a refund.
About your Linux problems: there must be something special going on in your case because dozens of Linux players have already completed the game with no problems. One thing I noticed is that the draw distance for body parts is extremely short for the lowest quality setting, also in the editors. This will be fixed in a future patch somewhere in the next few days... but for now could you try a higher quality setting to see if that improves things?
About the frame rate drop with animals in Windows: I discovered today that it is possible to create animals that give problems with the animation system, resulting in the game basically becoming unplayable: it's a combination of two types of feet and very thin animals. Perhaps that's the problem for you too? This will also be fixed in the next few days.
No, i don't want a refund - it's an early access game. And i love the concept of it!
I tried v7.17 today on 2 Linux machines - still the same problem. I tried any graphic options and resolutions
Also, i notices that some stats aren't right. For example: the temperature on the first island is 5950°C. Also the stats of leaves etc. are very different from the windows version (all have 5 suns, etc.).
For the windows-version, it was exactly the problem you described - it works fine with all other animals.
Wow in that case thanks for the trust and the bug reports! Really appreciated :). I just tried to reproduce your stats problem on Linux with v7.17, but no luck. I think your installation must have trouble reading the asset bundles, but I'm unsure how this could result in weird stats rather than just a crash.
So we now have two Unix problems (glitchy graphics and glitchy stats) that I cannot reproduce :(. If you have some time, would it be possible for you to send me a screenshot of the problems, and the error log? Can be found at "~/.config/unity3d/Wessel Stoop/The Sapling/"
Just a thought: Old Unity engine versions had problems with non-English locales, often leading to completely random problems. Could you try to start the game by prepending `LANG=C LC_ALL=C ` and check if that changes something?
THIS!!!
All problems with the Linux-Version are solved now!
Even the problems with missing graphics, flickering and wrong stats.
Thank you very much for this tip.
@Wessel Stoop:
You should put a starter with "LANG=C LC_ALL=C ./the_sapling.x86_64" in the Linux-package.
Wow, unbelievable, thank you so much ifo and SebastianPetters... if there's anything I can do for you to thank you, let me know. There will be another patch this week or next week, I'll make sure this is included.
Hi, I use a mac and mistakenly bought the game without checking the compatible platforms (completely on me). Is there a way for me to refund the purchase or do I have to just live with my mistakes 🙃
I just googled what Itch does with refunds, and I think it should be possible: https://itch.io/docs/legal/terms#refunds . Let me know if you need help.