127 Responses

Page 1 of 1
  1. Jason Banich
    Jason Banich January 13, 2013 at 8:17 pm |

    Can’t wait, looking good.

  2. McGrauniad
    McGrauniad January 13, 2013 at 8:23 pm |

    Funny, I was watching the video in full-screen and kept trying to move my cursor and interact with *your* desktop. ๐Ÿ™‚

  3. falthazar
    falthazar January 13, 2013 at 8:54 pm |

    I love how digitalis looks now ๐Ÿ™‚ that tiny change makes it look a lot better I think.
    I can not wait to play this!
    Will there be a way to target flying units at all?

  4. Koker93
    Koker93 January 13, 2013 at 9:14 pm |

    Are you planning on having numeric readouts for energy creation/usage like in 1&2?

    Is that edit map button always going to be there? Or only if you start the map from the editor?

    Can CPRL towers see flying weapons too? And go into turbo mode if you fly a strafer over the top?

    Looked like at the end you needed to send the blasters in waves instead of all at once.

    Wow – getting really excited about the release of the new game. It looks better and better every time you give us a peek.

  5. MiquelFire
    MiquelFire January 13, 2013 at 9:15 pm |

    Watch someone recreate the Nexus level from CW1

    1. 42ah42
      42ah42 January 24, 2013 at 5:10 pm |

      CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.

  6. thephysicsgamer
    thephysicsgamer January 13, 2013 at 9:28 pm |

    When I saw this in my subscriptions section I started prancing around in my seat, then when I saw that it was a half-hour long, I squealed.

    1. Bengan
      Bengan January 14, 2013 at 4:26 am |

      Funny, I could have sworn that it was me doing that. =)

      1. thephysicsgamer
        thephysicsgamer January 16, 2013 at 8:15 pm |

        GET OUT OF MY HEAD! LEAVE MY BRAIN ALONE!

  7. Yelik
    Yelik January 13, 2013 at 9:42 pm |

    You could just use guppies to get by the turrets

    1. thephysicsgamer
      thephysicsgamer January 14, 2013 at 9:26 pm |

      true, but you would be hard-pressed for the space needed to create an effective defense against the turbo-mode with the epic flashing red eye

  8. cooltv27
    cooltv27 January 13, 2013 at 10:11 pm |

    3 things that would be cool, if you could limit the total units, like a limit of 10 units means you can have any combination of units, up to a total of 10
    another thing that would be kinda fun is if units could only be connected to a command node, like digitalis has to be connected to an emitter, and if unconnected they could be destroyed instantly, possibly leave a crater?
    finally, if digitalis reaches a certain area then its growth area gets bigger, like unlocks a new part or the growth area grows
    now 1 question, what happens if digitalis is on non-digitalis ground?

  9. Kingo
    Kingo January 13, 2013 at 10:21 pm |

    Nice job virgil, the game is looking good, I can’t wait for the game to come out!

  10. sweetdude64
    sweetdude64 January 13, 2013 at 11:07 pm |

    It looks ridiculous ๐Ÿ™‚
    Did you change the mortar shell function? It looks slightly changed.

  11. Istaro
    Istaro January 13, 2013 at 11:21 pm |

    I like how the new ability to treat scripts as black boxes means that now there’ll be three nested layers of players: those who play (built-in and custom maps); those who play and create maps (possibly using others’ scripts); and those who play, create maps, and create scripts.

    I think you’ve got most if not all of the key ingredients for an incredibly rich third-party content community. Excitement mounting!

  12. minnmass
    minnmass January 13, 2013 at 11:31 pm |

    I can’t wait to play this game! It looks like an excellent one, and a very worthy successor to CW 1&2.

    When it’s released, do you plan on also releasing the maps you’ve demoed? This one, in particular, looks like it would be great fun (and I have a couple of strategies I’d like to try out…).

  13. Kharnellius
    Kharnellius January 14, 2013 at 12:12 am |

    Really like the power of the scripting. Your editor looks to be very well made as well and pretty intuitive.

    I didn’t really understand why the light wasn’t showing up part way through the video. I know you explained it, but still not entirely sure I understand.

    Love the enemy turrets and would almost like to see some creeper variant in the actual game (shoots globs of creeper a small distance)

    Some questions:

    1) One thing I noticed is that the bombers and strafers reload instantly. I understand that the energy/AC is built up while they are laying waste to the enemy, but there should probably be at least a few second reload delay as the energy/AC is transferred into their payloads.

    It feels a little unnatural that they barely touch the ground and fly off immediately fully reloaded.

    2) Will there be an option to upgrade reactors so they produce more energy without having to litter the entire landscape with them?

    The idea is you would have to upgrade each individually and it would be like building a whole new advanced reactor where the old one used to be.

    Example: (I don’t know the actual build costs/energy production numbers, these are just to make my point).

    Say you build a reactor for 40 energy and it generates 4 energy. It would be nice if you could select that reactor later on and upgrade for an additional 40 energy, but you only gain 2 energy (+100% build cost for 50% increase in production) for a total of 6 energy generated for a total of 80 energy build cost.

    Economically, it would make more sense to build additional reactors, but would provide an option to increase energy production later in the game as you run out of space.

    Obviously tweak as you see fit, but it should be less economical than producing more reactors as you are saving space.

    3) Why don’t ore miners cost energy to operate? Seems to be zero drawback to building them.

    4) I noticed the “turbo” only activated when a building approached but not when strafers and bombers approached. I assume this could be changed somehow that it would react to all threats?

    Sorry for all the questions. Thanks for the vid and keep up the great work. Definitely anticipating the release of CW3. ๐Ÿ™‚

  14. sprlmnl
    sprlmnl January 14, 2013 at 7:05 am |

    long time lurker but just had to say how much i enjoy the crpl and seeing under the hood. it makes me want to start programming again. thanks!

    i join an apparently very long line of people waiting to buy the game. looks great.

  15. Fernando Dallabeneta
    Fernando Dallabeneta January 14, 2013 at 7:52 am |

    Is there any way a CRPL tower can damage flying units?

  16. Fernando Dallabeneta
    Fernando Dallabeneta January 14, 2013 at 8:33 am |

    Now thatยดs what I can an EVIL creepers. Got nightmares already.

    Thatยดs good community oriented game development. I already see games within games.

    How do we help funding game development? Whould glady pay now and get latter with no guarantees.

  17. Marco
    Marco January 14, 2013 at 10:30 am |

    :O you created a new programming language and then even added it to notepad++

  18. JH
    JH January 14, 2013 at 10:57 am |

    Virgil, can you put those scripts you used up on the forum or somewhere else? I’m pretty sure some curious souls (like me) would appreciate getting a chance to look at them.

  19. flabbyflag
    flabbyflag January 14, 2013 at 11:20 am |

    Do you draw your own graphics virgil?

  20. NuttyJigsaw
    NuttyJigsaw January 14, 2013 at 11:27 am |

    Really wondering whether or not we’ll still be able to increase our energy storage space, as we have done in previous games. The storage units seem to have been taken out since the earliest builds of no.3. Any news on how we will be able to increase our energy storage, if at all in this game? Really loving all the other new features too by the way.

  21. Boracayalex
    Boracayalex January 14, 2013 at 11:47 am |

    It would be interesting if the towers required ammo packets from the emitters in order to shoot. Those packets would then have to be transported on digitalis, like a supply route.๏ปฟ It could then be a strategy to cut off the supply in order to overcome the towers.
    Just an idea. It’s cool to see the you explain the code and let us in a bit on the design process, keep up the good work!

    1. Istaro
      Istaro January 15, 2013 at 12:04 am |

      The idea of trying to implement that using CRPL scripting is intriguing . . . while it’d be trivial to have the CRPLCore pseudo-emitter periodically produce CRPLCore pseudo-packets, you’d then have to basically use CRPL to implement A* search or something to route the pseudo-packets to the towers (and representing a decent-sized digitalis networks as a graph would result in a pretty big graph).

      I’m pretty sure it’d be theoretically possible since CRPL will presumably end up being effectively Turing-complete, but it might be too computation-intensive . . . unless “a digitalis pathing algorithm” is included in the “a couple more CRPL functions” mentioned by Virgil ๐Ÿ˜‰ (sounds pretty niche though)

  22. me
    me January 14, 2013 at 1:31 pm |

    I would like to know if it is possible to create custom units (for the player) and controll their actions (e.g. where they shoot and how much damage they deal in different situations) with CRPL-scripts.
    Also I’d like to have the possibility to write scripts that the person who plays a map can apply to a unit in order to avoid nervous clicking, pausing and possibly most micromanagement (e.g. a unit could run away if it is close to dying or move around in some area in order to shoot at the spots with the deepest creeper).

    1. Lurkily
      Lurkily January 16, 2013 at 8:59 am |

      Don’t like that idea . . . units shouldn’t move unless under orders. The movements selected by artificial intelligence will always make moves that will frustrate an attentive human player.

      Certainly you could make player-units – imaging if you scripted these to deposit AC and target closest creeper. But trying to make them too intelligent tends to only increase the circumstances in which they outthink their own usefulness.

      There are only really limited situations where I’d find things like this useful. Berthas are one of those. I’d be interested to see auto-target implemented on strafers/bombers in the same way, too. That, after all, is only what pulse cannons do on a larger scale.

      But advancing, retreating, trying to play the game for you – that’s likely to misread the situation and act against intentions.

  23. MizInIA
    MizInIA January 14, 2013 at 1:32 pm |

    WOW! this is awesome. I have never built a custom map in 1 or 2 but seeing these Dev videos makes me want to tackle that challenge. I can already see some insane maps that are easy to play but nearly impossible to eliminate all enemies and finish. Thanks for the update and keep up the good work.

  24. knattertc
    knattertc January 14, 2013 at 1:37 pm |

    As great as these scrips are – and they are – i see one risk:
    The evil mapmaker.

    One could easily produce a map with a billion creeper once a nullifier gets close to the last emitter. The player needs an hour to play the map, and when it is nearly finished -> chaos. And finally some stupid comment from the mapmaker.

    To avoid this, i would suggest:
    – The player should at least see (mouseover?!), that an e.g. emitter is not a normal emitter but a tower.
    – The player could see the script in the tower.

    Of cause, one can wait for comments about the map, but there will be some gamers how will fall for this.
    I just think it should be considered.

    1. ikke1919
      ikke1919 January 15, 2013 at 7:24 am |

      There should be the requirement to finish the map you make before you can upload it.
      That should solve the problem.

      1. Helper
        Helper January 19, 2013 at 8:18 am |

        The map maker MUST finish the map when submitting it for approval.

        The maps cannot be automatically approved unless at least one MapMod ALSO finishes it.

        On very rare occasions, one of the “Super Mods” will have to manually approve a map submission without a second score. I think I’ve only seen this about 4-5 times in the past six months.

      2. Lurkily
        Lurkily January 20, 2013 at 10:33 pm |

        That will solve some of it, but not all of it. For instance, what if a map was covered with invisible landmines? I can’t imagine that would be fun to play, but it would be easy to create, and easy for the creator to complete.

  25. Th3Ch053n0n3
    Th3Ch053n0n3 January 14, 2013 at 6:14 pm |

    Damn YOU, Virgil. Now I’ve gotta spend the next 2 weeks beating Chopraider on Hard again. You’ve probably been asked this 1,000s of times, but are you ever going to make a part 2 to Chopraider?

  26. sweetdude64
    sweetdude64 January 14, 2013 at 8:04 pm |

    will players half to wait for custom maps to be added into the game like CW2?
    I remember it was a long, grueling wait, then I saw there was an update available. The rest was history ๐Ÿ™‚

  27. anon
    anon January 14, 2013 at 8:46 pm |

    You still owe us a patch for CW1 with the Evermore survival mode enabled. More related: are the CRPL Towers able to be used as an objective? Like, you have to hook up a relay or collector before they activate, nothing else? I want to be able to use them to emulate the first game. And finally, will command nodes have the option to disable certain types of packets? I loved it on Odin City and missed it on the Liberation Ship.

    Comments: I like the new digitalis look. I don’t think the name fits as well anymore, but the more organic runners made the grid shape out of place anyway. I am sad to see no more Titans. I am also sad to see only 7/10 blocks under units filled and 9/10 for weapons. If you can’t think of anything else, move the shield back to the units tab for an even 4×2/2×4 display.

    1. Alluton
      Alluton January 19, 2013 at 2:55 pm |

      Or perhaps these ones are not yet to be announced for public?

  28. Question
    Question January 14, 2013 at 10:38 pm |

    will there be a snap-map-to-window zoom?

  29. Joker
    Joker January 15, 2013 at 11:51 am |

    can you please make a minny map for us a try out i really wanna play it :O

  30. Zach
    Zach January 15, 2013 at 4:50 pm |

    you just made my life :DDDD

  31. Loner
    Loner January 15, 2013 at 5:04 pm |

    Are there any plans to publish CW3 on Steam?
    Maybe through Greenlight?

    If so, the “i would buy it”-button wont survive this :>

    Keep up the good work!

  32. Mr.H
    Mr.H January 17, 2013 at 3:14 pm |

    We now have so many tools it is literally possible to script a new game in there, advanced scripts could make Tower Defense, chess, maybe even crazy creeper RPG’s ๐Ÿ˜ฎ

    1. 42ah42
      42ah42 January 24, 2013 at 5:21 pm |

      Convince the sentient chatbot that the creeper is a real threat. Absolutely no holes or danger in that idea…

      1. Lurkily
        Lurkily January 26, 2013 at 8:40 am |

        I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.

  33. sweetdude64
    sweetdude64 January 18, 2013 at 7:55 pm |

    There was a chess map in CW1 and tower defense maps in the custom games sector. There were multiple ways to make enemies similar to an RPG but I got nothing here :p
    POSSIBLY the assault map from CW2.

  34. ShadowDragon7015
    ShadowDragon7015 January 19, 2013 at 3:21 pm |

    Not sure if this has been mentioned but could there be a setting for the mortars to attack areas closer or farther from themselves?

  35. ShadowDragon7015
    ShadowDragon7015 January 19, 2013 at 3:24 pm |

    No offense to you Virgil but i’ve noticed in almost every video there is always part of the map either up at the top or down at the bottom that you seem to forget about then the creeper destroys one of your collectors.

    1. dunken12
      dunken12 January 26, 2013 at 12:46 pm |

      if this happends,creeper will pay for that ๐Ÿ™‚

  36. ShadowDragon7015
    ShadowDragon7015 January 19, 2013 at 3:28 pm |

    Just thought of something if it hasn’t been mentioned. If the enemy blasters are at a lower terrain shouldn’t it be impossible for them to shoot at a higher terrain level?

    1. thephysicsgamer
      thephysicsgamer January 19, 2013 at 9:19 pm |

      They aren’t blasters

    2. Lurkily
      Lurkily January 20, 2013 at 10:35 pm |

      I do not believe the CRPL scripting permits easy handling of LOS considerations, though I may be wrong.

    3. hoodwink
      hoodwink January 21, 2013 at 4:18 pm |

      He didn’t script them to do so, therefore they don’t.

      Virgil’s script told them to fire at the closest unit within a range. This has absolutely no regard to terrain levels, LOS or unit types.
      Of course, you could fairly easily expand this script to be affected by all of these things, but he that’s out job! ๐Ÿ˜€

  37. Sunding88
    Sunding88 January 21, 2013 at 9:59 am |

    U should make us able to drag a square to pick up units in additional to the double click on towers.
    would make it easier to pick half og a bunch of towers then with the double click method.
    just like in command and conquer or red alert for units choosing.
    that way we can build a line of defense and easilly build some advancing towers and sort em out from the original defense we already have.
    sorry for my bad english hope u get the idea.

    1. Michionlion
      Michionlion January 27, 2013 at 7:52 pm |

      That is already possible.

  38. sweetdude64
    sweetdude64 January 21, 2013 at 6:25 pm |

    Well I prefer the idea of moving a unit while it’s being built.

  39. AnonymousX
    AnonymousX January 22, 2013 at 4:50 am |

    I cant help but think that If we just developed a Bounty Kitchen paper towel cannon the creeper menace would be dealt with very quickly, and leave our worktops clean too so thats a plus.

    1. Th3Ch053n0n3
      Th3Ch053n0n3 January 30, 2013 at 4:31 pm |

      OMG. BEST IDEA EVER….. <_<

  40. Molay
    Molay January 28, 2013 at 8:49 pm |

    This looks amazing! The possibilities of the CRPL tower give one a lot to think about. Can’t wait to actually play around with them. Probably with the campaign first ๐Ÿ™‚

    As you haven’t been posting in a while, I started to get hopeful! “He isn’t posting because he wants to surprise us with the release!” were my thoughts. Please tell me I’m right ^_^

    1. cory
      cory January 29, 2013 at 2:56 am |

      2 weeks and nothing…he must be trying to build our antiiiiiiiiiisipation for something…

      1. Molay
        Molay January 29, 2013 at 10:35 am |

        Just my thought. Since he went to the 2 week update-schedule, we pretty much got sweet sweet stuff every time. Now being more than 2 weeks, it must be even sweeter ๐Ÿ™‚

        Further, I think we all expect an early 2013 release (that is, at least Q1). Would be fantastic if he drops the bomb on the next news and releases the game, just like that. No warning. A shock, certainly, but what an amazing one!

  41. sweetdude64
    sweetdude64 January 29, 2013 at 9:17 pm |

    Molay-agreed.
    Virgilw- dont get overwhelmed. Cant wait till the next video ๐Ÿ˜€ I’m sure the game is doing great in its current stage, so don’t woooorrrrryy ๐Ÿ˜‰

  42. Joker
    Joker January 30, 2013 at 3:38 pm |

    yea just relax and release it when you think its time ๐Ÿ˜€
    but can’t wait still ๐Ÿ˜›

  43. Kingo
    Kingo January 30, 2013 at 8:19 pm |

    It’s so painful waiting for another video!!!
    On the other hand, some videos just never get old watching.
    Virgil, what gave you the idea for CPRL towers?

    1. Michionlion
      Michionlion February 3, 2013 at 8:15 pm |

      As far as I can tell, it would be because SOO many people asked for a scripting language – or prompts or something like that in cw2.

  44. ikke1919
    ikke1919 January 31, 2013 at 7:23 am |

    Creeper world would actually be great as a multiplayer game. you could do co-op or fight against eachother.

  45. Kingo
    Kingo February 2, 2013 at 12:19 am |


    ikke1919:

    Creeper world would actually be great as a multiplayer game. you could do co-op or fight against eachother.

    1. Kingo
      Kingo February 2, 2013 at 12:20 am |

      ikke, I agree.

      1. Molay
        Molay February 2, 2013 at 4:01 pm |

        Surely will need some major adjustments to make this enjoyable, but for a future iteration of the franchise having a MP mode (or multiple modes) would sure be a nice thing to have. I would however not like to trade the SP experience for MP, as the SP part is what I’m really going for ๐Ÿ™‚

  46. flabbyflag
    flabbyflag February 2, 2013 at 5:33 pm |

    When do you think beta will start, Virgil?

    1. Michionlion
      Michionlion February 3, 2013 at 8:18 pm |

      As multiple comments on the blog and the forum say, Beta started a while back. I think it was around November, 2012.

  47. Mr.H
    Mr.H February 3, 2013 at 6:12 am |

    Any new blog posts , I miss your voice virgilw ๐Ÿ˜› . Ok not really but I love to see what we got in store for us in CW# and its been quite a while since the last one…

    1. ShadowDragon7015
      ShadowDragon7015 February 3, 2013 at 8:01 pm |

      His voice makes me want to watch his videos more.

  48. ManselD
    ManselD February 3, 2013 at 12:49 pm |

    Could you/users add more languages for the CPRL
    As i’d love if you added a Batch like language. That’s easy to use but very powerful as the current stacked based language looks like a pain to learn. I’ve already learnt 4 languages (Php, Html, VB.Net, Batch) and don’t want to learn another lol
    Hope you consider this (:

    1. Michionlion
      Michionlion February 3, 2013 at 8:20 pm |

      It would be next to impossible, I would imagine, to add a new scripting language because CRPL is built from the ground up for the CRPL Core.

      1. ManselD
        ManselD February 4, 2013 at 1:00 pm |

        Not really, he could just make the variable (in batch form)
        represent some commands in that language the CPRL was using. Basically an interpreter, Kinda…

  49. ManselD
    ManselD February 3, 2013 at 12:52 pm |

    Also, would it be possible for people to make script packs.
    Like so you could publish them on a page. And then users can download and install them through the game GUI and instantly have a new tab called: “Mod %name%” where %name% = the mod’s name.
    And in that tab you’d have the new turrets or whatever the publisher added, even scripts.

    1. Michionlion
      Michionlion February 3, 2013 at 8:21 pm |

      Scripts are only used in mapmaking, but I’m sure that there will be some type of repository.

      1. hoodwink
        hoodwink February 4, 2013 at 2:36 pm |

        And you can tell mich is in that beta because his pic is of cw3 particle beams. ๐Ÿ˜€
        It’s not an open beta anyway, it’s closed and starting to come to a finish – since the game is well on it’s way.

    2. Koker93
      Koker93 February 3, 2013 at 10:50 pm |

      I think it has already been talked about having a forum section for CPRL scripts. It also looked like a script’s language would ged compiled into easy to change variable fields in the editor so someone without the programming language skill will be able to change things like creeper density or movement speed without having to know how to rewrite a script.

  50. sweetdude64
    sweetdude64 February 3, 2013 at 3:16 pm |

    ManselD- to answer your second question, anyone can make a script, copy it, and paste it to the forums. You would just half to copy the script and try it out for your self. Im sure there will be some ‘save script’ button on the game.

    1. ManselD
      ManselD February 6, 2013 at 12:07 pm |

      I never said anything about a save script button >.>
      What question were you trying to answer ._.?

  51. flabbyflag
    flabbyflag February 4, 2013 at 5:39 pm |

    So…Next post is when?

  52. Ranakastrasz
    Ranakastrasz May 23, 2013 at 10:12 am |

    The really big question, is whether or not you can register arbritrary Keystate and mousclick events to triggers, and hence create a literal chopraider, with the ability to fly by arrow keys, and shoot by mouse, drop anticreper bombs by spacebar, etc, etc..
    What fun this could be….

    Hmm. Considering the Creeper is blue, This might be Chopraider two, revenge of Red….
    “After victory over Red, Blue’s uncontrolled population growth and dangerous genetic experiments resulted in… Well…”

    —-
    Also, if we had multiplayer, Could imagine Hero-type Games

    Have one player handle a base, as well as a special hero structure (may or may not be made of fractal alloy) Said structure allows a hero unit to respawn and reload (both of which cost energy, possible Ore, respawn being far more expensive) Assuming a Chopraider, with all it’s capabilities, I would imagine it as acting mostly like a souped up hybrid of fighter and bomber, replacing them, and having far more capacity.

Comments are closed.