Unraveling a Pigeon's DNA

Dylan Valev

This month had a great focus on our DNA system. Throughout development we’ve been experimenting with how the player creates their own builds, and what that meant in the context of a “Pigeon’s DNA”. We had many levers at our disposal, including abilities, stats, consumables, and a multitude of score types that tracked what kinds of actions were performed in our sandbox environment. Taking this all together, we began to use what we had built and began to simplify. With this consolidation of systems and metrics, we landed on our newest iteration of player builds and progression, and are feeling pretty good about it!

The first major change is how the player actually influences their build. Previously, we had a generic XP system that would level up the player and reward them Stat Points to distribute between Swoleness, Thiccness, Speed, and Marbles. However we found that this progression didn’t feel much like a build, and swapped it for DNA Levels. Now, when a player enters a Flux Tape, the DNA they have equipped will gather XP derived from completing quests, killing baddies, exploring, and interacting with our sandbox world. As their DNA climbs in level, the Stat that they are associated with will also increase. This way, players who love their speedy abilities will in turn create a speedier pigeon, as their DNA (abilities) are evolving to that aspect of their build! This metric also provides us with room in the future to implement milestones once certain levels are reached, making discovering new DNA more exciting!

Speaking of DNA discovery, we also added a major update to how the player can discover new abilities to buy! Previously DNA was discovered by either consuming a specific item or from a quest reward, but this didn’t encourage exploration as much as we had wanted, so we added Discovery Criteria as another method of discovery. This way we reward the player’s experimentation. What happens if you completely level a building? What about eating 15 batteries? Destroy 25 gas-guzzling vans? Help a pedestrian in a random encounter? With these criteria, the player will be incentivized to explore all that Pigeon Simulator has to offer!