- v0.8.21 — harvester ping-pong, recall VFX, local bot matches - 8 May 2026
Harvesters ping off each other. When two collide they bounce, and now there's a sound for it. A swarm of them starts to sound almost musical when they cluster. Recall now has a visual effect. A gravity-lens distortion follows the recall — you can see units being pulled, not just dispatched. Local games with bots. "Play with Bots" from the main menu drops you into a real match. Stability. Various crashes and edge cases fixed. Rust 1.95. Toolchain bump.
- Play with Bots & Smoother Online Connections - 5 April 2026
Hey soup lovers! Fresh update just dropped: Play with Bots — You can now play local matches against bot opponents right from the main menu. Pick your map, hit Play, and jump straight in — no internet required. Improved Online Matchmaking — When connecting to online matches, a new verification step checks your connection stability before the game begins. No more loading into a match only to get hit with timeouts and disconnects. If something's wrong, you'll know before the countdown starts. See you in the petri dish!
- Weeks 5-6: From Tech Demo to Game - 27 January 2026
Main depot now matches the dev branch. If you were waiting for "stable"—this is it.Here's the honest truth: everything so far was a technical demo. Networking works. Physics works. Hunter AI can prowl and guard and hunt in packs. Harvesters gather and return. Mines orbit and pulse. All the pieces are there.But pieces aren't a game.Complex behaviors aren't much fun without levels and maps. There needs to be a catch, a reason to switch modes and plan resources. So this week I'm shifting from tech to design.Starting with tutorials. Slow-paced, serene scenes where you listen to the music and read on-screen tips. Each level introduces one mechanic, then moves to the next. Learn by doing, not reading walls of text.Hunter mode cycling is in. Default mode works. The others... they're there. Work in progress.Under the hood:Hunter AI with prowl, guard, and pack hunting behaviors3D spatial audio v…
- Week [4]: Dev Branch Goes Live - 12 January 2026
Switching the main Steam depot to the new build this week. The legacy version had show-stopper bugs on Windows. New one runs clean on Windows, Mac, Linux, and Steam Deck. If you've been on the beta branch, you're already playing it.Built a simplified "retro" skin system for faster iteration. Thick outlines, pattern fills, clean shapes. When testing new behaviors, you need to see what's happening now, not wait for art. Pretty comes later.Hunter behaviors coming together. Prowl mode has them drifting in slow spirals, covering space until prey crosses their path—snap—then back to cruising. Added a dash ability with elastic stretch and ghostly afterimages that fade behind. Target prediction is working too, though they still miss when speeds match and paths curve.First battle effect is in. Mines pulse on attack. The important part isn't the effect itself—it's the pipeline. Game sends an even…
- Week [3]: Levels, Faction Skins, Platform Update - 28 December 2025
Level design progressing. Building tutorial levels that introduce controls one at a time—right now working on hunter mode cycling between guard (orbit and intercept) and prowl (patrol territory, ambush intruders). The goal is levels where players learn by doing, not reading.On the technical side, faction visuals are becoming separate libraries with a common interface. This keeps the rendering code modular and opens the door for skin variants later. The membrane faction (tentacles in glass bubbles) is the test case.We're also considering replacing the legacy Steam build with the current dev version. The old build has show-stopper bugs on Windows. The new version runs consistently on Windows, Mac, Linux, and Steam Deck. If you're on the beta branch, you're already playing the stable one.Concept art attached—the membrane faction and its units taking shape.
- Week [2]: Mines, HUD, Level Design - 17 December 2025
Mines are behaving properly now. They orbit the core, maintain spacing with neighbors, and break formation to snap at nearby threats before drifting back. Simple rules, emergent flocking.Still more to do on unit behaviors—hunters need to get smarter and torpedoes aren't done yet—but mines feel right.Basic HUD sketch in place. Nothing fancy, just enough to playtest without guessing at numbers.Started level design work. Exploring environmental zones that shape how units behave rather than just flat arenas. And a render from our concept artist: one of the factions taking shape. Green organic mass wrapped in a translucent membrane.More next week.
- Simple Rules, Mesmerizing Results - 11 December 2025
Oh boy, they really don't have to be smart to be agents.New mine attack modes are in. Each mine runs simple rules: maintain orbit distance, match neighbors' speed, snap at anything hostile within range, return to formation.The result? Swirling flocks that look almost intelligent. Mostly they stay in their orbit, occasionally darting out to bite an enemy, then lazily drifting back into place.No navmesh. No behavior trees. Just physics + a handful of impulses.
- Soup is back. For real this time. - 7 December 2025
Hey everyone,Yes, we're still here. Yes, it's been years. You were right to call the project dead—it was.Here's what happened: we rebuilt the entire game from scratch. New engine, new netcode, new everything. The old codebase couldn't do what we needed for proper competitive multiplayer, so we started over.What's different now:The server is live. Right now. If no other players are around, bots will fill the match so you're not staring at an empty lobby.It's rough—placeholder art, missing features, probably bugs we haven't found yet. But it works, and we want your feedback on what's there.How to play:Go to Soup in your Steam library → Properties → Betas → enter the code PRIMORDIALSOUP and the new build will download.What happens next:Weekly updates. Every week we push changes, post what we changed. If you tell us something's broken or feels wrong, we fix it. If you have ideas for mechani…
- Opening our task tracker - 23 August 2016
Hi folks! In the spirit of openness and transparency, as well as , , we decided to open our task tracker. For now, it just contains coder tasks only, but that may be quite enough to reflect our progress accurately. Also, hereby I promise to actually keep track of things in there. It's been a while since the last update, that's because we're really busy with that network multiplayer promised long ago. And please rest assured: this killer feature *will* be delivered, here's the plan: https://www.pivotaltracker.com/projects/1605003 As soon as this rather big chunk is done, we'll get back to adding graphics, gameplay features, and Steam integrations like achievements. Stay tuned!
- Mini dev update - 2 April 2016
Crash on exit fixed, Escape button put to work
- Now runs on Mac and Linux! - 31 March 2016
Finally fixed 2 launch configurations with some help from Valve.
- Units just got smarter! - 21 March 2016
Hi folks, and thanks for all your feedback. As you clearly stated in most of the discussions, getting some nice interface with at least sound controls should become our priority. So be it. But hey, look what happened before you spoke your mind, when I was happily playing around with units' behavior! http://i.giphy.com/wvAMxl2FdSCqs.gif Mines now play nicely and leave some space in between, so other units can come through. And check out the new hunters - they got much smarter, which lets them live longer, hunt down and munch on more stuff! Some minor bug fixes made it to this update. Please post your screenshots to discussions if your find anything broken. If everything works, post them anyways!
- Units just got smarter! - 21 March 2016
Hi folks, and thanks for all your feedback. As you clearly stated in most of the discussions, getting some nice interface with at least sound controls should become our priority. So be it. But hey, look what happened before you spoke your mind, when I was happily playing around with units' behavior! http://i.giphy.com/wvAMxl2FdSCqs.gif Mines now play nicely and leave some space in between, so other units can come through. And check out the new hunters - they got much smarter, which lets them live longer, hunt down and munch on more stuff! Some minor bug fixes made it to this update. Please post your screenshots to discussions if your find anything broken. If everything works, post them anyways!
