Recent reviews by Illumina

It was genius storytelling when Radahn said "its starscourging time" and starscourged all over Miquella

married Ranni, 10/10 game

This is my second review on Thrive, as I decided tonight to do a fresh play through to play test the skeleton they have built so far. I think the cellular stage has definitely improved. Single celled is MUCH better, it feels way less revolved around a single thylakoid hex, and I didn't struggle at all to find enough compounds with the default settings. Once it gets to multi-cellular, however, we see a flaw. The different cell type system is a really interesting idea, but the transition is atrocious. It costs way too much mutation points to properly evolve multiple cell types, and even when you do, the massive speed decrease practically eliminates any predatory gameplay, and makes compound-seeking a nightmare. The strategy I found the most engaging was what I'd call the Scythe, in which you design your multi-cellular organism as a long stick protruding from the main cell, along with a hooked tip to the end. This design allows you to use rotational speed to efficiently engulf them, with the hook tip allowing you to "grapple" off iron chunks, providing even more speed. Cilia also seem to IMMEDIATELY lose any function after having two or more cells on your organism, which definitely keeps the Scythe strategy at bay, but, in a world without said strategy, would call for some annoying gameplay of hearing a loud stone grinding noise while rotating. Once we reach Macroscopic, I can't say theres really much room for review, it's very much a skeleton. I feel that the Awakening stages have IMMENSE potential, I love the direction the game is going towards that. I'm interested to see how they incorporate muscle cells, on if its going to be a "you need 5 muscle power to advance" or if we'll be tasked with developing our own muscular systems. I'm excited to see the proper implementation of Spore's Animal stage, as currently its a 3d space of nothing, and serves as a midpoint between 3d land and the Multi-Cellular. Thats my current thoughts on Thrive as of October 21st, 2023. To summarize, I'd like to see a cheaper, better optimized Multi-Cellular cell specialization system, faster turning/movement for Multi-Cellular organisms, maybe some AI-controlled Multi-Cellular organisms to hunt and interact with, and I'd like to see cannibalism, because god my own cells love to get in my WAY, please make them stop walking in front of me and taking my compounds, or let me KILL THEM, either one would be amazing. Like always, I appreciate the work you guys are doing, and I'm hoping this game becomes what Spore never was. Thank you for undertaking this, someday, I pray we see you at the finish line.