Lifecycles Act 2 - The Great Outdoors
Drunk On Nectar's biggest and most ambitious update is ready to hit your screens this weekend!
On 22nd September 2018, prepare to be dwarfed by a massive open-world sandbox experience that puts you in a staggering 0.1 mm scaled world with amazing creatures and adventures at every step.
Lifecycles Act 2 - "The Great Outdoors" is the second lifecycles installment of Drunk On Nectar, which aims to become gaming's first full-fledged nature simulation experience ever made.
The Lifecycle of a Jumping Spider - Act 2
Taking center-stage again, is the female Jumping Spider (or male depending on your choice!), who sets off on an epic life journey, growing from a tiny 1mm speck to an astonishing 20 times larger, eventually becoming a mature adult over 9 unique life stages (known as instars).
Learn to overcome fierce predators, tackle tricky prey, explore a huge map by gliding on a thread of silk. Invade massive swarms of grasshoppers, leafhoppers that grow along with you (parallel lifecycles!) outwit, ants who will fiercely guard their cattle of Mealybugs, escape from giant Dragonflies and Tiger Beetles who will happily add you to their varied menu and survive tense nights with the air teeming with Parasitic Spider Wasps who are on the lookout specifically for you.
As you grow bigger you will learn to build silk nests of your own to rest and stash food. Gain the experience to tackle new prey such as pollinators: Butterflies, Bees, Blue Mud Dauber Wasps, etc.
Predators like the Dragonfly that you may have thwarted with ease in Survival mode (as an adult) are now huge and imposing giants that tower over you.
Even prey such as Grasshoppers can easily dwarf you thanks to the game's parallel lifecycles feature which depicts simulatenous lifecycles for different creatures at different lifestages!
Swarm Lifecycles - Huge, Living Populations
Perhaps the standout feature of Lifecycles Act 2 are the massive new swarms.
Backed by a smart "population density simulator" that allows this game to populate thousands of creatures in the map, WITH LIFECYCLES!, with high performance, this is an absolutely game changing feature that has buoyed Drunk On Nectar's core gameplay to new levels that players are sure to enjoy.
Because the prey grow along with you, the hunting dynamics are ever-changing; you'll need to constantly refine your approach and think of new ways to tackle prey. Eg: Grasshoppers that you may have bullied when they were small will swiftly grow bigger to the point where they can crush you with their mighty legs if you're not careful!
Many such surprises are in store for Act 2 which even veteran players of the game are likely to be surprised and enthralled by!
DoN's Lifecycles Journey has only Begun!
There's obviously tremendous scope for further growth (quite literally!) in Drunk On Nectar with a multitude of creatures, life stories and various community requests waiting to be acted upon.
In the short-term, Lifecycles Act 3 will release later this year (with mating and reproduction for the Monarch Butterfly and Jumping Spider!) followed by Lifecycles for the rest of the roster including Ladybug, Solitary Bee, Grasshoppers (for players; AI Grasshopper lifecycle is coming with Act 2) and of course the fabled Dragonfly lifecycle - which in some ways will be a milestone update for the game's early access phase.
More Lifecycles Act 2 Goodness!
Let's take a look at a few more pics while we wait for this weekend's epic release!
Join the fun this weekend!
Thanks for reading! I'm really excited to see players play this update this weekend and to watch the ensuing youtube videos (DoN now has around 10 million views on Youtube and counting!)
Finally, I earnestly hope that you, the reader, will also join the fun this weekend and give Drunk On Nectar's unique depiction of life a whirl. Come join the fun! :D
With ❤,
Venugopalan Sreedharan
(Developer of Drunk On Nectar)
