BioGrid is committed to realistically simulating physics and natural phenomena. The developer lets us in on the process.
What could be better than relaxing outside in nature on a sunny afternoon? That’s right, pulling down the blinds and playing God in a nature simulation in the comfort of your own home instead.
BioGrid is one such simulation and is somewhat reminiscent of the glory days of Black & White. At the beginning of the millennium, you were allowed to play God there, ruling over your people with all your goodness and severity. However, BioGrid is not quite there yet.
The game has been built by a single developer using the Unity 3D engine since 2017 and so far it has some impressive mechanics.
BioGrid can look really dramatic
On Twitter/X, the developer regularly posts clips from his nature simulation. Most recently, for example, a video about water physics that literally tears an entire landscape into the abyss:
I made the water flow data accessible to entity simulation and got some pretty dramatic results pic.twitter.com/wdAYtkwAss
— BioGrid (@BioGridGame) March 22, 2025
Link to the Twitter content
In the video, you can see how a raging river finds its way to the foot of the mountain, sweeping away trees and animals as it goes. The water not only flows in a physically correct way, but also erodes sand and soil, so that the environment is constantly changing.
It’s also exciting to see how the animals that haven’t been caught find safety. They have grown quite a bit in the last few months and are now able to remember their last water source. However, there is still a long way to go for the simulation.
Added proper status icons on animals and made them generally a bit smarter about water – they now remember the last water source they encountered (for a while) and can try to return to it.
Good enough for now I guess, time to deal with actual food and foraging. pic.twitter.com/kphCXNtcxU— BioGrid (@BioGridGame) November 29, 2024
Added appropriate status symbols to the animals and made them a bit smarter when it comes to water in general – they now remember (for a while) the last water source they came across and can try to return to it. For now, I think that’s good enough. It’s time to look at real food and foraging.
The standing waters also have realistic physics. When terraforming in lakes and ponds, the simulation already looks pretty impressive.
Got some nice flow map based foam going again.
There’s quite a few knobs to tune on the water shader already – it needs to support seas, rivers and ponds, but water in these looks and acts very differently.
Whole lot of smoothstep here to to isolate interesting ranges.gamedev pic.twitter.com/eLvdbMgqjo— BioGrid (@BioGridGame) December 16, 2023
It is still unclear when BioGrid will be finished and whether and where the developer will make his simulation available. If you are interested in the progress of the game, you can follow him on Twitter/X to keep up to date. There he documents many of his steps in the development and shows the challenges he is facing.
