After much work, here is the first of the development videos for CW2. You’ll find footage of the map editor and a little bit of game play in this video. Remember that this is a work in progress and there are many details yet to come. But, this will give you a good basic understanding for some of the possibilities the game offers.
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Great video. Just posting to get “first post” dibs! 🙂
D:
Curses! Foiled again!
Fields are officially the best thing in the history of Creeper World.
After Creeper.
Also, cool video is cool.
Awesome video. Makes we really want the game, but makes me even more want the editor! I pretty much liked the “stalagtites-behaviour” with these invisible fields. Really awesome.
Any idea when you’ll reach the final status? 😀
Yes…. I’ve been obsessed with providing this type of capability. It was a bunch of work to create field containers and allow move properties. But then I had to add “drag” capability. There are some subtle rules under the covers for how it all works, but the results are a fairly intuitive system that let you create some interesting effects. “Drips” are just one thing. You could also image “chunks” that fly up out of volcanoes, “bullets” that fire across the map, or “rain” that pours down at regular intervals.
As for the final game… I’m still targeting before the end of the year. That’s not a hard schedule, just a goal.
any relative timeframe for when it comes out in beta?
Too hard to say at this point. I do expect things to move pretty quickly from here on out, though.
WOW you have been busy I like the efforts so far. Sign me up for pre order. 🙂 The effort you put into the editor will help the game tremendously allowing an average skilled person to produce maps extending the life of creeper nation.
I’ve committed to making the editor in parallel with the game… and to using the editor for making the story missions. This takes more time, but it also gives the world a really nice editor and hopefully will lead to great community generated missions.
Nice job now to get a paypal account
thepenguin likes it a lot!!
On a different note, I has an idea:
Fields that are pushed around by Creeper. Possibly attached to solid objects somehow, but that would probably make for some interesting devices (for example, blowing the top off of a volcano, then the bits and pieces come raining down on you; or just corking the Creeper ‘bottle’ without destroying the cork). I could sense some problems involving that and collision, though.
But just think: Deposition at work!
Also, I like the constraining fields, but I don’t get how they work. For one thing, they’re blue, and the normal field lines are red. >_>
Also, I have a question and another idea.
The question: Is ‘drip mode’ the ‘drag’ capability?
The idea: Again, liquid-powered energy devices.
Idea with this is you put Creeper in (probably friendly only, evil makes it go boom unless it uses fields somehow) and it generates power. It should generate a relatively large amount of power, but also be much more expensive than a Reactor.
As a matter of fact, since Creeper acts a bit more like a fluid (main question: if it’s flowing through a confined space, does it speed up, as opposed to a wider tunnel?) what with pressure and all, hydraulic systems could make for an interesting ‘puzzle’ aspect.
Fields are represented in the editor by little arrows that point in the direction they apply a force. They also come in three “levels” or strengths. Fields can be set to act only on good creeper, only on evil creeper, or on both. When they act only on good, they are white. When they act only on evil, they are blue, when they act on both they are green. The only red you see in the video is the thin red line that surrounds the selected field container. Anyway, it’s all pretty straight forward once you play with it for a few minutes.
Fields can point in any of 8 directions. There is a special 9th field that acts as the “Drag” field. It lets creeper move into a cell, but not move out (up to a limit). When a drag field is part of a moving field container, it will literally pick up the creeper and move it along with the field container. The “drip mode” controls how this “pick up and move” works. It says to not pick up any more creeper along field containers path than it started with. It may not be clear why this is needed, but it’s also not something I can explain easily in words. I’ll probably address this in another post at some point.
Ah, I see.
And I do actually get it, I think.
Let me guess: Drip mode keeps it from bringing things back up to where it started?
Also, the arrows in the first boxes looked to be red, which was what I was talking about.
Also, you said nothing about my hydro puzzles/ power generators.
Some more stuff that one might need for that, though:
Terrain indestructible to all but Creeper.
Some sort of field generator building (ie, you place it on the map, you place a field or fields on the map, you slave them together; then generator powers field, so no generator, no field) to act as a pump.Useful for making defense points, too. Not something I’d want to allow players to build, though.
“If-then” triggers. Fairly self explanatory. If X is true, then Y is true. Useful regardless. Of course, if you want to do Loki, you’ll have to incorporate these, so I have a feeling I’m in luck on this one.
Dude, thanks for that teaser! At first I thought “Meh, it look’s kinda good but I don’t know” but now I am thinking “Whoa. I need to get the Beta! NOW!”
Emphasize on the “get the Beta! NOW!”
Demo d5 – the stalactites. How is that different than the creeper falling down under “normal rules of gravity? Is it merely that the creeper is dripping as opposed to flowing in a stream? Also perhaps not “contaminating: the entire cave on the way down, so more like water droplets than vapor?
If the Creeper were allowed to flow down the tunnels and weren’t field compressed against the sides, it would indeed spread pretty wide. The Creeper is kinda like a really dense gas and it will spread wide when it gets the opportunity. You can look at the d2 map in the video and get a feel for this when the Creeper flows over the ledge.
When you want really, really tight adhesion to a surface, fields are the key. In this mission the fields are also used to regulate the amount of creeper that is flowing down. They make it stick to sides and without the drips wouldn’t let any flow down.
The drips are sort of a special case for fields that are programmed to move around. I originally experimented with field containers that had lots of drag cells and would hurl big blobs of creeper around the map. Still a good idea… but then I wondered about just moving one cell. Drips in a cave was the first thing I tried. But “rain” would also be a good idea. I also have a map where a “bullet” comes up and moves around tunnels. It blows up anything in it’s path. Get 20 of these flying around and it takes a small army of blasters to keep them all shot down (it can take several shots from a blaster to deplete the creeper contained in once of the bullets).
Lastly, you can also have fields that move to a location in “0” time. This will teleport creeper from one location to another (including through walls or shields).
YOU ARE AWESOME!!! I CAN’T WAIT TO PLAY THE GAME, IT LOOKS SO COOL!!!
So if you had lets say a very strong creeper, and a 0 time field, even with inpenitrable terrain, it will get out, and at a high rate. If by chance you were to give two or even three of these feilds the creeper would transfer from point A fall or rise depending on field orientation and fall through the second field to point B.
Obviously trying to stop creeper from getting to you will be hard to avoid like in CW1 or even harder.
Also as a gimmie I suppose their will be a 2X speed apllication for levels, keeping track of it all might get hard without stoping for a break. Thank you pause button.
Drag fields that have a move action with a time of 0 will literally move creeper to their target location in 1 frame. So if there was a single drag field cell at location 10,10 and you told it to move to 100,10 in time 0, it would jump over anything between 11 and 99 and instantly appear at x coordinate 100. I there were walls, units, shields, or friendly creeper in between… they would all get skipped.
Another stupid thought, we have creeper that flows like water, fills like gas, so what about solid creeper blocks that have to be destoryed in a specific manner to get to ore, or even continue the game.
You could simulate this by creating a drag field, but not assigning any move actions. You could make a whole “palace” out of drag fields, fill them with creeper, and then let the drag fields just sit there. When a player encountered this, it would look like frozen creeper. The player would also be able to shoot it and take chunks out of it.
O.o
I heard your voice!!!!!
Also, Really good video, and I really cannot wait for this game now.
Yeah, that was me…. NC accent and all. I didn’t even bother trying to sound less southern.
oh, i thought you were texan o.0
lol Me Too!
man this preview has me psyched for the next game. it just looks absolutely great. the realistic dripping of the creeper from the ceiling is just genius. the only thing that worries me is that invisible field lines will make the creeper unpredictable when it flows into a new area. you don’t know if it will start dripping or flood the cavern and how much time you have if the creeper is heading to your base.
I have this concern as well. When I make missions, I’ll always use fields in a sensible way. But it has occurred to me that somebody could make a map that is irritating because it is so ridiculous and unpredictable. Right now I’m choosing to believe that this just means there will be a bigger difference between good and bad maps in CW2 (compared to CW1) and the community will have a better basis by which to judge maps.
But, I have also thought about other things that could maybe help out. For instance, I could have a “tech” in the game that allows you to see fields for a brief period of time. Something you research, then can deploy for a few seconds (since it might burn through energy or ore while active).
Why a brief period of time? I’d rather use the map editor to see the same thing and use my precious ore for something more useful…. 😛
Saw first 20 seconds, noticed the length, then paused. I’ll have to watch this later when i actually wake, but from reading the commentaries it must show quite a great deal of gameplay.
This looks great, but at the first and the third map how can you ever win as the Assault ship has to reach the surface before you win.
And is there any possibility that you could let us place a custom image on the now black place instead of just at the surface?
I meant map d2 and d5.
Reaching the surface isn’t the rule yet…. but I am considering it. I might not have this rule, or I might just define a “zone” you have to reach.
Custom image wise, yes I have thought about that background. To fill in the dark area on the biggest map would take and image that is 768×1920…. so this can be done. It might make for some interesting effects (along with being able to change all of the terrain block images)
Oh that was just awesome, love the fields aswell.
One thing that caught my eye though, at 12:45 you mark 2 terrain blocks of same type to be dug out, and the first one gets 3 packets that are spaced a bit, while the second one gets 3 packets that are almost after each other. Is that just a slight kink in the packet emitter or?
Right now, packets get scheduled based on “exposure to air” for a terrain cell. This is an optimization shortcut that prevents performance problems if you paint a massive area for digging. It prevents all of those “unexposed” dig sites from asking for packets.
That second cell was exposed on an internal cavity… sit it queued packets.
I have a couple other tricks I may use to quell this particular edge case. So right now the rule is that only terrain cells that are exposed can request packets… but this may change slightly to handle the case you saw.
Hmmm… On the topic of creating a stable set of values for pre-existing creeper, what is the threshold density to be passed before it can flow upward?
Also, have you considered the possibility of a level taking place on a slope rather than underground?
And another idea to go along with that, different strengths of gravity, allowing you to weaken it on smaller planets or to make fighting uphill easier when it is first introduced, strengthen it to keep the creeper in dense clods and allow for very powerful geysers, as more creeper can be contained in a small cavity that way. Gravity might also be turned off, or even reversed…
Gravity is actually really weak. It doesn’t take much of a force to get the creeper to move downward. In fact, too much of a force and it compresses down really dense and it takes massive amounts to build up a thickness that will flow around.
So it only takes a few thousand density to move up. However, the weight of the creeper above it compresses the creeper below. So the taller a column gets, the more creeper it takes to raise the column. In this sense, the creeper is more like a really dense gas (compressible) than a liquid.
Karsten75 already hit me up for modifiable gravity. I played with it and it is something I will likely include. This way you could have a map with gravity that is in a different direction, or even turned off.
The only irritating thing gravity in a different direction is that the little thrust that comes out of the bottom of units doesn’t make as much sense to always come out the bottom of the units when the gravity isn’t pointing down…
Naturally it would become more dense at lower levels. But this should happen at a constant rate after settling if I understand the algorithm correctly. What I was asking would be more along the lines of “What is this constant?” Of course, if you allow modifiable gravity, please express its strength in terms of this constant! It’ll save me a lot of time creating pre-settled creeper rather than waiting for it to settle in the map editor.
The downward bias (gravity) is 500. You’ll have to play with the editor to get a feel for what this means, though. It basically means that 500 more creeper will flow down than the other directions with everything else being equal.
Love the accent, it proves you are not a super genius game maker, but a normal person. A well rounded carachter if you ask me.
Now I was thinking, it would be posible to create a 1X1 field that could move back and forth with maby two or three of its kind in a row on the game screen so when a packet tried to reach the target it would be diverted, off course but still moving. And it would be the same influence on all units that go through it, making the micro rifts a neccesity at some point.
Yeah, you can create a 1×1 or a 10×1 set of drag fields and tell it to move back and forth. It might slide over the opening to a tunnel so that it would take out an some packets.
Note that packets are dispatched from the assault ship to their target with a pre-calcuated path. In CW1, the packets only move along the “wires”. In CW2 they have their own propulsion system but they aren’t smart once dispatched.
Hmmm, I’d say: a super genius game maker with an accent. 😉
Very excited after seeing the video. In d2, when you placed the raw creeper in the cavern, it started at 50000, then when you pushed auto advance, it expanded and the density (I think that is what it is) shrunk to about 16000. I have a couple questions from this:
. In auto advance, does the creeper effect the weak terrain? It does not seem like it in the video.
.When paused as you were putting down evil creeper, the density was limited to 50000 (what it was already set to), but in auto advance, when you closed the creeper off and put more in, you got it close to 200000. Can increasing the density like this be done only in auto advance?
.Lastly, just out of curiosity, what is the density limit of the Creeper? You said 200000 was fair but not that dense. I could only imagine what maxed density could do…
I am more and more impressed by each blog, and only expect that to continue. Thanks for all your hard work!
In auto-advance, terrain that can decay does NOT decay. I may add an option to turn this on, though.
When I was putting down creeper I raised the limit at one point to 500,000. I did this to create the pressurized chamber. Basically, whenever you paint with creeper you set the cell under the mouse pointer to whatever value you have in the spinner control. This can be done live, or not live.
The maximum limit for creeper is 2,147,483,648. If you overflow that amount, the creeper wraps around and becomes a negative number. Negative numbers are used to represent good creeper. And yes, I have done this just to watch the “fusion” (maybe “anti-matter” is a better analogy) explosion occur.
An idea would be to make a terrain that has a small tube that creeper can flow through and can be dug. There could be corner pieces, straight pieces, three way pieces, and four way pieces and all can be rotated to all straights and all diagonals.
Another idea is slope pieces that act like a ramp. They can be three ways. They are barely steep, steep, and very steep.
Field question again.
If you have a pool of creeper (use for instance the 2nd example of a “gusher” and you define a field to “pump” the creeper out of the hole.
1. Does it eventually deplete the creeper and become inactive? I’d guess so, but I can’t figure out as yet if creeper that you paint is finite or finds a way to grow once exposed to air or something else.
2. Does any part of the force of the eruption takes into consideration the amount of remaining creeper? In other words, if the reservoir of creeper becomes depleted, d the eruptions diminish in strength?
In the video, if I had left the upward fields on for a while, they would have emptied a large portion of that dome. In that example creeper isn’t being created anywhere, just moved around. In fact some of the creeper (a small amount) is being lost. Anytime the creeper gets very thin, it ‘evaporates’. So the more you move creeper around, the more of it you tend to lose. At the densities show in that part of the video, the loss is very small.
What you’d want to do on a real map would be to put emitters at the bottom and set them to emit at a regular rate. You’d also put a max density on them. If the fields were off for a while the creeper would settle and the emitters would emit less and less (and eventually none). In fact you can let the creeper settle in the editor, note the value for the creeper density where you put the emitter, then set each emitter to have a max density of that amount. This means that the emitter only emits when it is surrounded with some density less that the amount you configured it with. This will start to happen as you ‘erupt’ and pump creeper out of the dome.
If you don’t put emitters in the dome, you will start to get less and less creeper per eruption since there won’t be as much to emit each time. Eventually, the eruptions would stop and there would just be a lake of creeper left under the bottom of the eruption field container.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Sander van der Vegte, Knuckle Cracker. Knuckle Cracker said: Creeper World 2 dev video #1 is live: http://goo.gl/azMR […]
I just had a thought.
What happens if two fields are pushing towards the same spot? Does the Creeper simply get constrained like with the stalactite thing?
You can create contained bubbles (or exclusion bubbles) by doing just this. You can point 4 fields at each other (right, left, top, bottom with an empty cell between them all. Creeper will get stuck in that one cell.
I’ve also created bubbles where the field lines point out (think of an octagon where each face is made of outward facing field lines. Put that in a chamber and start filling with creeper. Thicker and thicker it will grow… and eventually the pressure will exceed the field strength and you will start to get leaks… then leaks become gushers…
Sounds useful.
so what is the CW1 deepness/CW2 density ratio?
Good question. In CW1 I used floating point numbers. A thickness of 1 was enough to exactly fill one terrain level. Anything 5 and above will fill up any map given any time.
In CW2 it’s all integer math (a little bit faster). There aren’t terrain levels to flood over either… so it’s hard to compare. Somewhere around 10,000 to 50,000 in a cell is a small to medium amount of Creeper in CW2. 1,000,000 is a bunch. 10,000,000 is painful…. and anything above that starts to get out of control.
such as 2,147,483,648. and then the creeper emitters, which are above that, create huge explosions. could you set an emitter to emit 3,000,000,000, and make good creeper?
If I allowed emitters to have that large of a value, then yes they would emit good creeper.
Do it, then we can have creeper battle chambers.
And if your lucky, good creeper wins, and you don’t have to fight your way in, rather, you can use it to flood everything else with good creeper resulting in an instant win for you. 🙂
also the blasters seem to shoot a lot slower… is that true or am i starting to get crazy?
They are a tiny amount slower, but nothing too large.
I have a question,
When you were building(d6), I noticed it had those blue circles. In the real game, since it takes more than 1 packet to build, is there any way to see the progress it has made like CW1?
There is a build progress bar like in CW1.
Can you make the drag fields move to random places? Like if you want a volcano to erupt and have creeper rain down randomly on the map,
Random…. Hmmm. Not right now. If I did have random there would have to be constraints maybe. A lot of the map could be taken up by solid terrain, and you wouldn’t want it to choose a random location in the middle of the ground.
On the other hand, you can achieve what appears to be complexity by having three or more fields that have different timings from each other and different target locations (for your volcanic eruption scenario). The more you have the more complex and natural it will seem (even though they are all deterministic).
Question, if you have it “drip” up into the sky, will it drop it off and then the contained creeper fall down and stretch out and fall into a different spot every time?
If so, then that could be your random.
If you have the “Drip” move up you will probably turn off the field at some altitude, if you do the creeper won’t be confined and it will spread out and come back down. Might make a nice fireworks display if you have the “drip” carry a small enough amount of creeper.
I’m not a programmer, nor do I pretend to know much about it, but is there any way you could allow the Mac “two-finger touch to scroll” to work in the levels? If so, that would be very great!
I had to look up what that was 🙂
I have a mac mini but it’s slung off of a KVM and my trusty microsoft comfort curve 2000 keyboard is hooked up to it.
You can scroll the levels with the in game scroll bar, the arrow keys, or a mouse wheel. That’s all I can get access to from AIR. If the OS maps the two finger scroll to a mouse wheel event, it will work.
I know it’s a bit off topic and might even be too early to bring it up, but I’m curious what kind of specs would be good for running this.
Would a computer that can handle CW1 be good for CW2? Or does it seem a bit more might be required for everything added in? And– if that were the case, what kind of options do you think we might be able to customize as far as optimizing gameplay?
I test on low end hardware. I test all the way down to single core, 800Mhz. This will barely work… but work it does. Anything dual core is really good. If you keep the game at the default resolution (800×600) you shouldn’t have any trouble if you can play CW1.
You sound like a fellow southerner 🙂
KC is based in Apex, NC….
http://www.apexnc.org/around_apex/historic.cfm
“The peak of good living”
Those quotes emphasize an important thing. ;P
Did you live there your entire life, or did you move there?
I am from Sacramento California BTW.
NC yes…
Great! Just great! Love the video, love the editor even more and love all the options available for map makers!
NC?
North Carolina?
If so thats beyond epic….
I can’t wait just to fool around with the creeper in the mapmaker, let alone the game! 😀
Well if I figure correctly then you should be able to create an odd shaped field, like a dog, then the field would turn off and a second field could activate around it, creating a second shape like a cat that is filled with creeper. Maby the more crative people could try designes like space invaders aliens that go slowly down to the ship.
Oh, tha’d be cool. And, you’d have to use Launchers to destroy them.
Or a more impossible idea, the creeper falls just bellow the ship in a specific shape, touches an emmiter and then it activates, leaving you a certin time to get to the surface before you are consumed.
One word Epic! I cannot wait to play this game. It looks so promising. The editor is amazing. I want to buy the game just to get the editor 🙂
That wouldn’t be impossible, it would rely on the timing of when the crepeer touches the emitter and when the emitter starts.
Actualy with the editor it would not be impossible to make creeper fall like in the video, and it would pool on the floor, and an emmiter would activate at a sertin time, like the editor in CW1, thus uncomplicating the process, so when the creeper of a small well fills the bottom the emmiter then takes over creeper growth, and the players timing of mining a way out and defending yourself would be crittical.
On a side note, and way off subject, do you like chicken Virgil?
Amongst many other things….
On another side note, the blog is a little messed up for me. When I look at the blog main page, the thing tells me there is one more comment on this post than what I see when I read it.
There is one “Trackback”… that makes the comment count go up by one on the main page apparently. Scroll up to the top of these comments and you will see one trackback link in the “Trackbacks” tab.
if 10,000,000 is painful how can you have gotten
to 2,147,483,648?
I removed the limits from the editor and placed all I wanted. I put just below the maximum amount in a confined area and once gravity compressed the lower layers just the smallest amount, it overflowed max int and instantly annihilated with the creeper that was above it. It all went up in a poof of mist.
hmm, I imagined you had two chambers of super dense creeper (1B-1.5B) and used a moving hold field in 0 time to combine them through a solid wall
Hey sidenote suggestion again! (i’m the queen of these)
One thing that urked me about custom maps in CW1 was the colors and background– can there please be a feature in options that if you play/download custom maps that lets you turn off backgrounds or special colors.
nothing like strangely colored creeper/energy and a horribly edited background to really ruin an experience!
also, what is the maximum gravity, and minimum gravity? you said 500 is normal. would 0 be possible?
I think that, somewhere, he wrote that gravity can be set to negative numbers, like -500. It should also be working in a horizontal way… but i’m not sure anymore about this.
But i’m sure it can be negative, which means that creeper, instead of falling down, “falls” up.
Can’t wait for your next video 🙂
OMG! cant wait for it to be released your doing great
Ayn idea When your next video will be posted?
So, techneclly, Evil plus Evil is Good.
Because of a overflow, yes it is 😉
Sorry to bother again, but can we get an ETA for the next post Virgil?
PS: The cronom missions are VERY entertaining. On a good day ill pull at least three levels.
Will you make gravity felds affect things besideds creeper?
Sadly, all I have to say is that I want another blog post, even if it’s just a video of random entertaining stuff being done.
oh that’d be annoying: you place a blaster, thinking it’s a great nook for shooting, when suddenly it gets pulled into the creeper.
can the next vid be about actual the units (or just the ones you have unveiled) because in this you used a few of them but you didnt use that many.
also can your base be floating in good creeper? like a protective bubble
I think I’ve just thought of what could be a very useful tool. Terrain that is resistant to packets and/or creeper, but only from certain directions. I’d need to play with it for a bit to test all of the uses, but the first one that comes to my mind is forcing the player to go the long way around a terrain obstacle before you can dig yourself a shortcut.
Interesting idea…. I could possibly see this as a type of cell that only allows things (units and packets) to move in one direction.
or terraiin that needs creeper on x amount of sides
or specifically on side ___, ___, and ___
..
why do emitters have helth bars when they get destroyed in one by nullifers
I’ve not decided whether to remove the health bars, or to have some emitters that require more than one nullifier to destroy them.
imagine: a super-emitter, that releases tidal waves of creeper, and it takes many a nullifier to destroy it.
that would be annoying and cool but couldent you just build 3 at once?
if some emitters require more than one would there be a small counter near it so we know how many left? or can we click it and read it’s stats? or just go until it’s gone :]
Watched this more than a hundred times to make sure I remember it all!
hay virgil, since you will be making the campain on the editor can you make it so that when you compleat a campain or extra mission you can go into the editor and bring it up so you can make it harder and then play the new mission as a custom game?
you could make the equivilent of a harder loki and post it.
just curious…will there be a cost for people who already have CW1 and what would it be? i looked around but didnt see anyone else asking.
there is a forum lead on this here: http://knucklecracker.com/forums/index.php?topic=4744.0
but its locked cus it got a bit heated so i wouldentbring this up
Hello Virgil. I don’t want to put any pressure or something like that. I was just wondering when there is something new you would announce? Some nice videos would be awesome! I’m really exited about this game and i can’t wait for any new material 🙂
By the way, what happened to the idea of building lattice mentioned in a previous comment? Is it just waiting to be put in, or have you cancelled it, or what?
Hmmm. Not recalling what you are talking about. Was it called something else? There are about a million things I go through during game design, so it’s possible you are talking about an idea that never made it in, or was pulled out.
You wouldn’t be talking about “collectors” would you? They are the most major thing I can think of that has been removed from the game.
It was in comment #39 on post “CW 2: More considerations”.
It’s been a long time since I looked at any info on CW2 – the original screenshots I saw didn’t really impress me, I guess because I couldn’t really tell how it was going to work. But this, wow. This is gonna be great, I think. Very cool.
llol
way not