Note: Thank you to Draugwyn for being my first new paid member! And also for finding a showstopping problem! The problem is fixed now, and the current download is 0.0.2.
In principle at least, you can at last download the software and take a look! Woo-hoo! Here’s what you need to do:
If you’ve been with me ever since the Olden Days (i.e. you had an account on the previous grandroids.com website), then look in your account on this site (it’s on the menu bar, above) and check that you’re now listed under “My Memberships” as “Member – kickstarter“, rather than as a Visitor. I’ve successfully upgraded most of you, but some of you used a different email and/or username for this site, so I’m certain to have missed a few. If it still shows you as a Visitor and you believe you’re entitled to be a kickstarter member, just drop me a quick email at steve@grandroids.com and let me know your real name, username, and the email you’ve used on here. I’ll upgrade you asap and let you know when I’ve done it.
Alternatively, you can sign up as a normal member instead (either now or later), if you feel that you would like to continue supporting my work. The kickstarter tier is just to fulfill my promise to people who backed the kickstarter, that they would get a free copy of the game. Being on it means you don’t have to pay, but there are no other benefits beside that.
If you’re a newbie and you’d like to sign up as a paid member, then you can do this from your account page. I’ve set up two tiers – $5/month or $50/year (US dollars, but it should automatically convert). If you find that things just aren’t working out for you for any reason, you’ll be able to cancel using the same page in a few clicks, and it will only cost you your first payment. So, if you’re not sure yet, you could always sign up for the $5 tier now, and change it later if you want to.
Having sorted out your membership, you should then be able to download the software from the dashboard (it’s about 2GB). I’ve put up a Windows version and a Linux version. I’ve tested the Linux build on a native Mint install, and it runs fine (through Vulcan) without messing with any permissions, etc. But given that there are a million varieties of Linux and it’s not my thing, I’ll have to trust that you know what you’re doing!
I have attempted a Mac version too, but I don’t actually have a Mac, so I can’t test it! The chances of it working, therefore, are probably pretty slim. It seemed to work before, but a lot has changed with this version and I have no experience with mac development, so I guess it would be best if at least one kind kickstarter backer would try it out first, for free, and then let us know what happens! I could also build an Xbox version eventually, I guess, but again, I don’t currently own an Xbox. The quantum computer version will have to wait.
The program can be unzipped to anywhere you like and run from there. There’s no installer yet. I’d like to sort out an auto-updater eventually, but that’s complicated, so for now you’ll have to download the whole thing every time I put up a new build.
The first time you run it, the software will ask you to sign in with the same email you use on this site (no password needed), and then it won’t nag you again for a month.
That’s the theory, anyway! I’m bound to have forgotten a million things, and I know there are LOADS of minor bugs and issues, but it should run okay on 64-bit Windows and Linux. The whole point of all this effort was just to get things to a stage where I can start producing new builds at steady intervals – I’m aiming for one every month or so. There will probably be a hotfix for this one, though, once I find out how everyone gets on. For now, I’d like to focus on showstopper problems only, but I’ll try to get a bug-reporting tool in place eventually. I’ve reset the version number to 0.0.1, because that will make it easier for me to produce versions that either do or don’t require a reset of the world, and/or the heartless deaths of your creatures, since they involve breaking changes in the code.
My PC here is a low- to mid-level gaming machine: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X (4GHz), NVIDIA 3060 gpu, 64GB, Windows 11. Memory shouldn’t be an issue at all, but a low-end graphics card might well be. I’m getting 40-60fps here, and I’d be interested in hearing what results you get. There are a few things you can fiddle with in Settings, but they probably don’t do much yet to speed things up. Hopefully I can optimize the code and add more configuration options for slower machines in the future. I should be able to add DLSS, for instance, but I haven’t tried yet.
The creatures themselves are absolutely stuffed full of bugs, but they’re mostly biological ones. They still walk into walls more than they should, and fail to pay attention to things I’d expect them to. They still have trouble even learning to eat, and they tend to suffer from ADHD, including getting fixated on things. For some reason, babies often start out looking like they’re dead, and then randomly spring into life after a few minutes. I’ve no idea why. You wouldn’t believe how complex their biology is, given how stupid they still are. But there are many hundreds of interacting genetic, chemical and neural parameters to tweak, and sometimes there’s no easy way to figure out what’s actually going on inside their bodies or minds. I have to be a biologist, ethologist and neuroscientist, more than a programmer! It’s going to take some interesting sleuthing to understand them and tweak genes so that they eventually behave the way they should, which I really hope you’ll enjoy helping with.
In this version, you’ll get two families of creatures (each with two parents and 0-2 children). I’ll leave you to search for them. The children are realistically genetically related to their ‘parents’, but the parents have never actually met each other before! There’s no reason to suppose they’ll even like each other. And bear in mind that even though they’re adults, they know absolutely nothing, as if they’ve just been born (because they have). One day I hope to have a proper adoption agency, where people can upload and download experienced creatures with a real life history, but for now, I’ve just created pairs of creatures at random, forced them to instantly reach adulthood, and created some children by combining their genes. They don’t vary all that much yet, either. Different hairstyles and skin coloring, and a few differences in their genes, but adding a wider range of alleles into the gene pool is a job for later.
Pressing F1 should open your browser at some basic help. If everything goes pear-shaped, try hitting ESCAPE, and select the little checkbox in the dialog box. This will give you the option to exit the game and reset the whole world, starting with some new creatures. Alternatively, you can hold down the R key while the initial load screen is appearing, and that will reset everything too.
Once I’ve ironed out the worst kinks with this release, the two main things I want to focus on next, I think, are:
1) Documenting some of the biology in the Encyclopedia and on this blog. How do their brains, genes, biochemistry and emotions work? There’s a lot of interesting stuff to explain!
2) adding some better science equipment in the house, so that you can monitor and support the creatures’ health, etc.
OMG! Okay, deep breath, here we go! Good luck everybody! Let me know in the comments if you have any questions or problems. I mean, there are only a hundred million ways this can go wrong…
wpDiscuz
