Wildlife Update!

Hi everyone!

The Wildlife Update is here! Introducing neutral wildlife to Primordial Empire, this update features 9 new species of microbes and plants, and a brand new mechanic that allows more meaningful interactions than simply fighting them. Here are the update highlights:

Wildlife

You can now find neutral wildlife scattered across the maps, sometimes forming a basic food chain or delicate ecosystems in various pockets. These new creatures possess their own unique abilities and habits:

• Cave Grass: Micro Agave in darkness have been replaced with Cave Grass (same mechanics but with a distinct look).

• Witherleek: A wild plant native to fungal biomes, producing poisonous food particles.

• Progenitor Cells/Pods: Ancestral wild forms of Stem Cells, often at the base of the food chain.

• Wild Hunter Cells/Pods: Predators that prey on local wildlife such as Progenitors.

• Nomad Cells & Egg Clutches: Scavenger-predators forming migratory routes between nests, often spanning great distances.

• Conjugator Cells/Pods: Exist in two types, A and B, which only reproduce when paired. How odd.

• Wild Glowplant: Native to the Cave biome, these plants can generate light.

• Uglets: Replacing Stabpoles as the spawn of the Big Ugly (identical stats).

Symbiosis

The neutral creatures are not always your competitors – they can be allies too! Incorporate them into your colony with the new befriending mechanic. Utilize their unique abilities and expand your microscopic empire with all the diverse life forms.

New Biomes

Biomes now have more distinct features that separate them from one another, including native wildlife and environmental modifiers. Play the bonus scenario to explore them all, now unlockable by completing the economic and combat scenarios at any rating!

These new creatures have been in the works since the combat update so I'm very excited to finally add them to the demo. And of course, this update contains a myriad of optimizations and fixes, which can be found in the changelog at the end of this post.

If you would like more insights to the new creatures and biomes, I'll be posting a couple guide videos on the Primordial Empire YouTube channel, so don't forget to check out the channel and subscribe to get the latest news of my game!

Full Changelog:

1. Wildlife:

   • Cave Grass: Micro Agave in darkness have been replaced with Cave Grass (same mechanics but with a distinct look).

   • Witherleek: A wild plant native to fungal biomes, producing poisonous food particles.

   • Progenitor Cells/Pods: Ancestral wild forms of Stem Cells, often at the base of the food chain.

   • Wild Hunter Cells/Pods: Predators that prey on local wildlife such as Progenitors.

   • Nomad Cells & Egg Clutches: Scavenger-predators forming migratory routes between nests, often spanning great distances.

   • Conjugator Cells/Pods: Exist in two types, A and B, which only reproduce when paired. How odd.

   • Wild Glowplant: Native to the Cave biome, these plants can generate light.

   • Uglets: Replacing Stabpoles as the spawn of the Big Ugly (identical stats).

   Symbiosis:

   • Many neutral organisms can now be approached peacefully via the “Befriend” action. Invest resources to gain wildlife-specific bonuses (requires Neurons/Complexity to “understand” them).

   • Example bonuses:

     • Free Stem Cell production (from Progenitor Pod),

     • Poisoned food becomes edible (from Witherleek),

     • Predators (Feeder Cells & Carnivorous Protein Factory) can hunt neutrals & enemies (from Wild Hunter),

     • Light sources activated in caves (from Wild Glowplant),

     • …and more,

   • Added Empathic Ganglion, a new growable plant (under "Development") that halves the Complexity cost of befriending neutrals,

   • Fighters (Lancet Cells, Hydras) received a configuration toggle to allow/ban automatic attacks on neutral wildlife. Shift-clicking toggles across all fighters,

   Tutorial:

   • Added Tutorial 7 to introduce the befriending feature. Note: Depending on UI scale settings, you may need to scroll the tutorial list a bit for it to show,

2. Biomes:

   • Biomes are now more distinct, featuring their own native wildlife and environmental modifiers (e.g., no natural light in caves). This will be most noticeable in the bonus scenario,

   • Bonus scenario now unlocked after beating the economic and combat scenarios at any star rating to make the wildlife and biome inclusions more accessible.

   Fixes & QoL:

   • Background rendering overhaul (parallax-ready) - adds dynamic blur to the background layer depending on zoom level,

   • Added Steam screenshot support (F12),

   • Build tool configurations (e.g., enabled/disabled production chains) now save & load with scenarios,

   • Hunting configurations (e.g., allow/ban hunting Stem Cells) can now be shift-clicked to apply across all organisms of the same type, making colony-wide behavior toggles much faster,

   • ESC now correctly reverts to normal cursor mode,

   • Fixed bug where pressing Ctrl to show movement paths also highlighted enemy movement paths,

   • Fixed bug where keyboard shortcuts (e.g. to replant remains) worked from within pause menu,

   • Fixed a rare crash when spamming R to rebuild multiple remains,

   • Fixed Carnivorous Protein Factories and Feeder Hubs rebuilt from remains not remembering hunting preferences.

   • Fixed a rare crash caused by the pathfinding system

   • Added second toggle to fighters to allow/ban attacking friendlies,

   • ProcGen avoids toxic patches during resource generation,

   • Tutorial 7 now remembers GUI element introduction steps after loading,

   • Added health indicator to friendly and own organisms' hover info panel (lower left corner)