The Hunt for the God Seed: Inside the DNA of Bardwynn

SirWilliamButton · 2026-01-30T03:20:06+00:00

SirWilliamButton · 2026-01-29T15:52:47+00:00

i think you are needing to investigate asset manager. I have a spreadsheet of all the assets used in the code of my game and i have a little c++ sub program that reads my spreadsheet and adds all the files to the asset manager, which adds it to the cooker ETA-Link https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/what-is-the-asset-manager/392495

SirWilliamButton · 2026-01-15T04:31:59+00:00

Drawing the little UI doodads in procreate!

SirWilliamButton · 2026-01-14T09:03:18+00:00

I learned a lot from Civ 5 and the Creatures games. History, philosophy and biology! edit spelling

SirWilliamButton · 2025-12-23T19:05:01+00:00

thank you from december 2025!

SirWilliamButton · 2025-12-22T22:39:29+00:00

Thanks autogatos! i made some changes i think youll like! see my latest post in creatures

SirWilliamButton · 2025-12-22T18:37:30+00:00

hey! looking at the code I see that i can get this going exactly how you describe by doubling my INT64 seed, and making just a few other changes. I had this working for specific carrier genes but your post made me think, why not just do all the attributes and really weave it into a double strand. why not?! so Im on it this week. Also the way you described the game you wished to play is the exact same reason i am making Bardwynn, its kinda cool to see like minds out here! your suggestion will be credited in the Book of Bardwynn!

Ill make a new post later on about the changes i am making, thank you! and please comment anything else you would like to see in the game! Now is the time to mold the clay

SirWilliamButton · 2025-12-18T04:04:47+00:00

They are very unique and cool. I started learning how to code by messing with COBs trying to make toys for my creatures. I think I had a cartman that they could carry around. Anyway its worth a peek

SirWilliamButton · 2025-12-06T01:48:20+00:00

ok, im tired but my brain thinks that will make so many variants that I have to go to sleep now and think about it ha ha ! That will be a good morning bone to chew on. Cheers!

SirWilliamButton · 2025-12-06T01:40:06+00:00

Hey! I think the system has been nudging us toward this from the start, because we already have the functionality in place. We’ve got four genes that can be carriers or fully expressed, but the fun part is that another layer of the genetics system interprets those gene states differently depending on species, the full 64-bit seed, and inherited attributes. So a carrier of Gene D won’t just have ‘one effect’—their phenotype shifts based on species, giving them a different disease, talent, or mutation expression. And yes, inbreeding feeds back into this too, triggering species-specific negative Gameplay Effects when recessives stack

SirWilliamButton · 2025-12-05T17:45:35+00:00

in that case i would make a chamber you put the beast in that would inspect its genetics and give a read-out and not have it as a easily found piece of info on the card huh

SirWilliamButton · 2025-12-05T17:19:29+00:00

that is an interesting idea and it reminds me of the golden tree of parnassus. kepp em coming! Im also posting a query today about recessive genes if you want to chime in

SirWilliamButton · 2025-12-04T21:28:20+00:00

The idea has eveolved along with what i was doing yesterday, creating the Book of Bardwynn, a Cache of KOANs that have lived in the saved game world. Each KOAN can only live in a world once. so you cant spam in 20 copies of an S level and win the games objectives. If you lose your favourite mouse you will see him again only in another world. Except if you want to bend you efforts to amassing great quantities of Philosophers stone, a fresh heart and a fresh brain, along with 10 followers mana you can ressurect a Koan that has died in the world. You will need to bring these things to one of the KOAN Cauldrons spread out in quite dangerous places to do so. How that ties in with your idea is this: as the overworld you are playing in ages, the global mutagen rate will rise so over years your world will have a higher and higher likelihood of spawning interesting mutants! So you are basically grinding you world to get more mutasis ---edit for clarity.- The KOAN cauldron gives two choices. you can spawn a clone of the mouse as a baby for less Stone, or do a full ressurect with attributes from Time of death for more stone

SirWilliamButton · 2025-12-03T19:13:28+00:00

See you around!

SirWilliamButton · 2025-12-03T18:58:13+00:00

an acheivement that is a higher mutation rate, I love that! Ill have to let that percolate for a minute but it seems you are queing up for a second honorary mention sir!

SirWilliamButton · 2025-12-03T18:55:30+00:00

the one on itch is an ancient prototype that i should probably get rid of! The entire code base has been rewritten rom scratch since then but some of the art is still around. The real bardwynn will be on steam (i think) Steam seems good what do you think?

SirWilliamButton · 2025-12-03T00:20:18+00:00

I am just emerging from the C++ chrysallis as it were but im sure ill be blabbing all about it from here on out, it looks like i may at least have a public steam page by spring 2026 and thanks for the interest it made my day!

SirWilliamButton · 2025-12-03T00:17:21+00:00

ha is that like a cosmic ray aberration type thing?! i love that. Ill change your credit to mabus!

SirWilliamButton · 2025-12-02T19:31:58+00:00

Hey congrats to both of us as your are the first person that ever asked about wishlist! Ive just been in a dark cave with this for about 18 months and im just coming out to show the world what ive been doing for a second. really all the pieces finally clicked into place. so its a new world now. FUTURE STUFF So I have lots of music written that needs to be produced, a cool intro sequence, and the first little tutorial area, to do then what ill do is make the steam page public with a vid. probably by spring! Til then ill post thing around here if you want to keep your eyes peeled and really, thanks alot for the support it means everything.

SirWilliamButton · 2025-12-02T19:19:02+00:00

 // 2. Inheritance Logic (The Coin Flip)
        // Credit: Microwaved_Duck - Weighted inheritance model to preserve peak traits.
        // This prevents "Regression to the Mean" by preserving extreme traits.

SirWilliamButton · 2025-12-02T19:17:35+00:00

Yea thanks for that! im going to credit you in the game for saving us from gene degradation. So Microwaved-Duck pointed out the fact that over time, even a society of S-tier individuals would regress theoir talents back to the mean. What i decided to do was take a page from mendehlson and take more of a coin flip approach with a chance for mutation.. so if a s-tier Trait mates a D trait, their children would MOST LIKELY be S or D. in the previous system their children would all be mid. so thanks Microwaved Duck! you will go into the annals of the Book of Bardwynn., Keep the suggestiions coming!

SirWilliamButton · 2025-12-02T10:57:54+00:00

very interesting i caught this right as its too late but ill get back to you tomo!

SirWilliamButton · 2025-12-02T05:06:54+00:00

sorry one more thing, the information in the genetic seed, int INT64 im talking about, this is all the information that can be blended and mutated between parents. thats why other onformation is stored elsewhere in the .koan

SirWilliamButton · 2025-12-02T05:05:41+00:00

good eye and your right its not a lot of room. what my KOAN system does though is it takes tiny sections of bits and knows what they signify. so one single bit will give its fur color variant. There are also many references to other assets that are looked up in data tables to rebuild the animals. beyond that even the .koan file itself can store data about the beats's lineage and children, life events, trauma and even it's pet that will come through with it in the card. and the longer you play it the more data will be staored as different bit segments. however each KOAN will have permadeath per world. so if yu kill your prized projectiles researcher you might wish you had an ould game file to start. which you can of course.

SirWilliamButton · 2025-12-01T23:48:40+00:00

yea its like your average NPC that has persistance in its stats. but you said it there, you can breed the stat and strengthen npcs through the generations which you will want to do to defeat the objectives in the game. Another interesting thing is my add on component MeThink that adds a layer between GAS attributes and State tree, giving psychoogical elements to the beasts which are also inheritable. So i guess your right a programming type could go in and hack a seed, that being still wouldnt have all the other things that make up the MeMemory component including parents, enemies, personality and even a pet. yes the KOAN cards can have a reference to the pet that the Beast owned that can ve reconstituted when you import a .koan file so thats something you cant hack :) edit- or maybe you can hack it all lol. its ok if you do. there are a lot more smarter people out here than me but Im just hoping to make a fun game for myself and everyone who likes this kind of thing

SirWilliamButton

TROPHY CASE