Ynys: The Commons Equilibrium

Ynys is an ecosystem simulation / god game / sandbox where your goal as a player is to carefully tend to the landscape and allow flora, fauna and humans to thrive. 

Right now it is still in prototype / sandbox toy-like stage, but we're working on adding the functioning game loop soon. 

We're designing bottom-up, adding mechanics as we go where we find interesting interactions. 

Join our Discord channel and check out our Twitter account!

Current features:

• water simulation driving soil moisture and fertility
• vegetation lifecycle with growth, fruit yield and plant health
• animal lifecycle & needs - rest, food, habitat conditions, reproduction cycle
• human lifecycle & needs
• autonomous placement for human-made buildings
• resource collection, storage & transport
• placeholder UI & general player controls
• expanding the island with new pieces

All of this is achieved via custom engine with custom render pipeline, our own water sim, proc-gen terrain & some other bells and whistles. 

 We've got a lot of ideas in the backlog but we would love to hear out your opinion on the game before we move forward and decide on the priorities.  

---

Controls

• LMB to select humans/animals/buildings/Obelisk/water sources/Island Pieces
• Mouse scroll to zoom in/out
• Mouse scroll press&hold to tilt camera
• [W]/[S]/[A]/[D] to move camera around
• [1]/[2]/[3]/[4] to change game speed (press twice to pause)
• (when Island Piece selected) TAB to rotate the piece
• Esc to cancel Toolbox tools / deselect object
• Alt + F4 to close

How to grow your island:

Clicking the Obelisk in the middle of the island allows you to increase the size of your active zone - down the line this will cost some mana, but now is free, just click "Expand" to increase possible size. Larger area allows you to attach more Island Pieces.

---

Menu Tabs:

Toolbox

• Terrain tab allows for changing the terrain's shape.
•  Vegetation tab allows for painting vegetation on terrain. It will start growing if the soil moisture fits requirements.
• Agents tab allows you to spawn Humans or Deers that will interact with the ecosystem
• Water tab allows you to spawn water sources
• Island Pieces allows you to spawn new fragments for the Island. Their names suggest what type and size they are. After these are spawned, you can attach themto the main island!

Overlays

• Click a checkbox to turn an overlay on. 
• Overlay reference guide:
• Housing Conditions will show you where Humans can set up Tents
• Herbivore Habitat Conditions will show you where Deers prefer to live
• Grass shows how mature is the grass specifically
• Fruit Yield shows bushes producing fruit
• Soil Moisture will show you how wet is the soil
• Vegetation Density will show you where plants are mature
• Fertility shows how fertile is the soil
• Altitude shows altitude 

Inhabitants

Here you can have a quick look at buildings, humans, deer and water sources on your Island.

World Settings

You can choose one of few presets here, although they are not really that much different for now and restart your Island via rebuild buton. 

Game Settings

You can choose resolution / windowed mode here. 

---

Roadmap:

• Finalizing the gameplay loop and moving beyond sandbox (partially done)
• More plant & animal species
• Resource economy (partially done) & more buildings
• More Inhabitant tribes with various preferences for settlement, diet and buildings
• Dynamic weather with rainfall and fires
• Proper UI
• and much more!
  
  We will update the roadmap in the future as things get implemented. 

---

Special thanks to incredible people in our life that have been our greatest supporters:

• Adeline and Anna for their trust and understanding during late-night videocalls between us
• Krzysztof for being a huge inspiration in the concept process
• Pawel AKA Zajwert for letting us use his music for this demo
  (https://zajwert.bandcamp.com/music)
• jarekko. for his participation in the first ever hands-off playtest

Credits:

Barto - programming
Rado - design
Eren Aday - socials & community 

AI Disclaimer:

We're using AI for code generation to speed up parts of the development process, mostly in current placeholder UI - however the game is NOT vibe-coded.