"To be Drunk On Nectar, to flutter in the skies, joyous, unafraid"
Drunk on Nectar — The Nature Simulator is a Steam early access game developed by indie dev Venugopalan Sreedharan via Unreal Engine.
It features several different modes such as sandbox, survival, and a 1v1 duel against a chosen AI competitor. However its main attraction is its lifecycles feature, which allows the player character to experience the life of a tiny invertebrate from birth and through metamorphosis. Prior to its final conception, the game had already gone through various genre shifts; for a time it was intended as a eusocial bee simulation game and even developed as a tactical racing game set in a greenhouse for much of its early existence.
You can find the official website here
, the Steam page here, and Youtube Channel here
Provides examples of:
- Attack Its Weak Point: Some creatures utilize a more advanced pv system based around this concept.
- Color-Coded Characters: Each species has a certain colored pheromone to distinguish it by.
- Leitmotif: The soundtrack is based around various aspects of nature, with themes befitting for certain creatures or phenomena.
- Metamorphosis: The lifecycles mode allows you to enact this as your respective species.
- Pheromones: A very useful tool for each of the animal classes as they allow you to sense nearby predators, hidden prey, or nectar filled flowers. Certain animals will only release pheromones at certain times however, such as when mating or feeding, making them harder to track.
- Sandbox Mode: The game's sandbox mode lets you freely create the garden and ecosystem.
- Scenery Porn: The default map layout is a vibrant garden, and customizable further via sandbox mode. Maps can also generate pristine lakes and huge mountain ranges, although the latter usually requires some changed settings.
