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Equilinox by ThinMatrix (in devlopment)

#1
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I have recently stumbled over a nice indy game in the making called Equilinox .
Its basically simulating a procedurally generated world here the player can manage all the vegetation and fauna of a simulated dynamic world.
The player can breed the species to change their genetic traits and watch them interacting in this sandbox game.

There are many interesting video dev-logs, where the author also goes into the programming side of things.

Game development Logs and regular updates:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdUnEEZ ... xLe1Hlg6s-

and a parallel channel called "Behind the scenes", going a bit deeper into the development side.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THBFWQI ... 3tz7PsNmpR


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Re: Equilinox by ThinMatrix (in devlopment)

#3
(The style is a smart choice to get lots of content done without beeing a dedicated artist)

I like that the developer is explaining his development regularly, and even does not fear to show the sourcecode, and discuss the issues in the development process.
Its quite an open development. (learned something about component entity system here)

So if anyone want to back him on patreon (to get a propper working desk for example) head over to https://www.patreon.com/thinmatrix
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Re: Equilinox by ThinMatrix (in devlopment)

#4
This sounds intriguing, from your description and the images posted here.

I went looking for an official source of information about Equilinox (that isn't a video I have to wait to sit through). But the Patreon just asked for money; Facebook just had the latest article; Tumblr and Reddit just had what looked like devlogs. I can't seem to find any site with an official FAQ, or detailed feature list, or development schedule, or other consolidated description of the developer's goals and plans.

Does something like that exist somewhere and I just can't find it?
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Re: Equilinox by ThinMatrix (in devlopment)

#5
Well I have mostly watched the two youtube channels he uses to talk about the game

here a recent one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kBvE7tn83c

Maybe a forum like this would be a good idea for the project.

here an article on indyDB

http://www.indiedb.com/games/equilinox

From what I have seen, he changed some mechanics (naturally), but the basic gist it, that the player can alter a species by selectively breeding them, to give them an advantage. Or let natural evolution take its course wich will cull out mal-adapted individuals, and further traits that prove to be successful in the local habitat.

The player can gain points that allow him to unlock new species or change the traits of the current ones. (like the personal goal to make everything evolve to be purple and large)

Together with a cute way to animate the animals and inject each species with a unique AI.
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Re: Equilinox by ThinMatrix (in devlopment)

#7
I periodically watch the dev updates from the creator. Im always interested to follow smaller / tiny game development studios, and so their workflow and the various systems they have to work on.
The creator of this game also made some nice tutorials regarding OpenGL, creating shaders, animations and general architecture.

In contrast to most other indies, he is not just using Unity/Unreal as engine, but developed a Java-based engine from the ground up.
Lets see if all that effort pays out.

Creating ones own engine on the other hand drains a lot of energy, that could otherwise go into features and higher level systems of the game, so Im a bit split on taking such a risk on his side.
Especially when the engine is not doing something that the "big market Indy engines" couldt archive.
But its more interesting to see how an engine grows from the ground up.

Another thing: he made the right choice for the artstyle to choose. (As the art in his previous project did not look very pleasing.)
Choosing this low poly style fits much better with what art he can create.
For someone who is not a dedicated professional artist, its good to find a style that one can be creative, but also have restrictions, to keep a coherent style.

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