Check out this action shot of a pretty large map.
Here you can see three Command Nodes, all working from three very different locations. There is a serious Creeper problem in the valley… but check out that big gun on the east side of Alcatraz island…. Think that might have any relationship to that massive explosion in the valley?
This image and map comes to us courtesy of MadMag, along with these cool unit designs.
Endlessly impressed!
and the shadows on the mortar fire are mad cool!
Yeah, the shadows on things works out pretty well. Many things fly up in the air, so this adds the the effect.
I’m throwing money at my screen but nothings happening. Can’t wait for this to be released.
Would you consider making a creeper world game for Android or IOS.
The engine for game 3 is being designed with tablets in mind. That said, any game for iOS would would its own TLC and due attention. My plans currently are to finish and release game 3 this year and then to move into tablet releases with game based on this engine, but properly designed for a tablet experience.
Wow…. just, WOW. I CANNOT WAIT! one thing though: blasters don’t quite look right. it looks sort of like a cannon, not the blaster type of cw1/cw2. New tech, or just renovations?
Those are “Pulse Cannons”. They act like blasters but fire projectiles instead. The projectiles move really fast so it is a similar effect.
tablet version would be cool. laptop is no longer my primarily gaming station.
p.s. i am using android 🙂
Me. Want. Gun.
Looks amazing Virgil. Keep up the awesome work.
i absolutly love the picture! Also human controled drones comming back from CW1!!!! awesome! I was also wondering how the creeper pipeline was working.
The pipeline/ AntiCreeper system is still being experimented with. I’m trying a range of things from pipelines to harvesters…
For my part, I would MUCH prefer a pipeline.
I’m still getting used to the white bevel on the terrain (like the hard one of CW1 better, this is too plastic 🙂
Can wait though, confidence is high!
Trust must…. for almost every map I’ve looked at this system looks better. The texture support alone lends itself to many more possibilities.
In this picture, a lot of things are happening. At a glace in this still shot, I’m having a bit of trouble knowing exactly what’s happening. So I ask, is it easier to tell in game when entities are moving, or do you learn the how everything looks well enough as you play?
It’s hard to know what is going on in a still image. It’s kinda like taking a screen shot of a first person shooter.
When packets are in motion, explosions are animated, unit barrels are rotating… it is all clear what is happening.
*nods*
Its looking gorgeous Virgil, can’t wait to see it in motion
Me too!!!
Wow i love you for making the 3rd game ismilar to the first one. I cant wait
I’m not a huge fan of the creeper look. It doesn’t look as “flowing” as Creeper World 1. The boundaries of the creeper levels don’t look as smooth.
It currently looks really similar to CW1… it is just much more clear when in motion. In this image the Creeper levels are pretty deep, which makes it look really deep blue.
Will you be able to terraform terrain with creeper on it? I could see this being very useful in this situation.
I have tried it both ways…. but it seems too powerful to be able to terraform Creeper covered terrain. So currently you can’t. That means that you have to hit and area with some fire power to clear out the Creeper (if even for just a moment) to terraform the terrain.
what if your currently terraforming when creeper enters that space/land/area/whatever you call it
Is that, Artillery..?
So, we not only have mortars, but Artillery as well?!
I love it, if it’s true.
Even if Artillery replaces Mortars-or the like-I’m happy just knowing Drones-or the like-are making a comeback! 😀
The “Bertha” Cannon. I can lay down some serious damage at long distance….
Will there be a Timmy, too?
Looks like it’s going to be more complex than the earlier two. An aspect I’m most certainly going to love.
Love the clarity you’ve managed to put into the game, with the picture alone one can fairly well establish the general tactic used to counter creeper. I’m very impressed.
Hoping the creeper will have a few tricks up it’s sleeve as well. Good luck with the development Virgil ^^
I’m trying to add more game flexibility while not making the game so complex as to be tedious. The Creeper World games always have one foot rooted in the ‘casual’ experience while still providing strategy elements in very refined form… at least those are the design goals.
This is awesome virgil, you just took care of my new desktop BG.
This is going to be the best game ever!
That’s a good idea actually… just updated my own desktop 🙂
yeah, it’s a little harder on a 4:3 screen, took a little PhotoShop work to make it fit well.
It’s hard with only a 20″ screen. Maybe I’ll go hi-res today. for now, until I find a converter cable, I’m stuck with 1280×1024.
so what happened to beacons in a story format did they lose the technolge
Many things will be different in this story… many mysteries and many answers…
With multiple command nodes will the power from collectors got o the nearest node? Or will they share power making it so that you could have an energy collection area and send down a forward base node just for fighting without having to create a new power network?
Power from collectors and reactors is share equally among all connected Command Nodes. Additionally, when a packet is produced, it can draw energy from any Command Node on the same network. So, the effect is that packets are produced from the nearest Command Node, but energy is deducted from across that network equally (from all Command Nodes and from Storage Pods). One last note; energy is deducted from Storage Pods before it is deducted from the on board energy store of a Command Node.
Once you play with it, it will all seem fairly intuitive. It also can come as sweet relief when you hook up an energy starved forward base to your mega city. Let the packets fly….
I assume the yellow and purple nodes are reactors/storage but which is which?
The purple are reactors and the yellow things are energy storage pods. The red bar above a storage pod indicates how much energy is stored in that pod. You will see these go up and down and you drain them.
Is the “Bertha” cannon aimed or just fire on deepest creeper?
You can set a target area. It will fire when the target area has Creeper in it.
Any chance of the next update being a video, that would be really cool and would give us a better idea of how any/all of this stuff works
I’ll definitely do a video at some point… when the time seems right. Probably after I have most of the major game pieces in place for the ground assault missions.
By that do you mean there will be missions that aren’t on the ground?
I don’t want to reveal too much right now… since it is all still very much under development. But, suffice it to say that the entire game won’t take place on the ground.
That I like the sound of! I ended up wanting something different than just land, and hopefully the non-ground levels will appease me!
You can take away everything,but I want blasters.I wont play it if it doesnt have blasters.
You’ll like Pulse Cannons. They are like blasters but with a more solid ‘feel’
Okay,but blasters rule
Myesteries? answers? OH MY!! I wonder what they are, does the infomous old man come back?
Some might say he never really left….
virgil, this looks awesome!!! i have a question for you though. does the game have a facebook page? and if not why?
http://www.facebook.com/knucracker
It doesn’t contain much more than the twitter feed, though.
Bertha cannon+Anti creeper=X-tra epic ponage.
Every time a new update gets released on this blog, I get more and more excited. Keep ‘um coming!
I also have to comment, ever since I played CW1. I always wanted to see that game with more “depth” in the graphics.
Will the creeper in this game “flow” over your units as they are overrun rather then looking like it is flowing around them? It would definitely be chilling to see your infrastructure buried under the creeper
Everything is a trade off between looking good and being accessible. My games have always placed core strategic concepts and accessibility over everything else. ‘Pure strategy’ was what CW1 and CW2 were all about.
In game 3 I am giving far more treatment to graphics and special effects. This is a challenge not because it is difficult to work with superior graphics, but because I can’t let them get in the way of the overall user interface and strategic concepts.
As for the Creeper rendering…. the most important strategic elements are to know where it is, how dense it is, and how it is flowing.
Flowing over or under units is fine, so long as it doesn’t interfere with the selection or control of those units. Currently, it flows under since drawing it over units could obscure them and make it difficult to control. However, I may experiment with some other visual treatments to give the impression of being consumed.
The mechanics of being under creeper would change things a bit – for instance, weapons would only detonate directly on location, as they hit creeper immediately. The blasters would be fine, as they normally target closest-first, but this would change things for mortars.
Speaking of which . . . is there any possibility of predicting a mortar’s effect on creeper depth so that multiple mortars don’t constantly saturate a single point? The problem is, when the first shell hits, the next ten are no longer targeting the deepest creeper.
Even something simple, like forbidding targeting of a small area when a shell is already incoming would help spread mortar fire around a little bit without dispersing it to uselessness.
I have a question for you. In CW 1 I experimented with a level design concept that was ultimately not easily implemented. The idea was that a very long packet path would have a ‘shortcut’ that would be periodically interrupted, causing energy shortages. Without on-the-map storage (except by building masses of blasters) and without a reliable way of knocking out nodes in a specific area regularly and reliably, the concept wasn’t much fun.
My question is related to this – among these neutral objects, can there be things like the wormholes used in CW2 that could be on and off for certain intervals, giving custom map designers a way to link the player to a region for only short periods of time? This would give on-the-map energy storage a unique and absolutely critical niche on that map.
Also, what about natural phenomena, like anti/creeper rainstorms, or electrical storms that knock out all energy links in a region for a time? There’s a lot of potential for things like this that can make the custom-made ‘expert’ maps extremely interesting.
These sort of things are possible. It all comes down to how much time I have left at the end of the dev cycle. I could also see some things like this coming after the initial release.
“By that do you mean there will be missions that aren’t on the ground?” Will this be like CW2 space?
also will the energy storage pods have health, or explode once creeper touches it?
Also, will anything new happen if creeper goes through the phisical line of energy, not the connectors?
Take your time on the game.Also hows de tabs comin.
Will the main base (comand node) have some form of defence?If so how will it work?
I agree. Take your time. Let it be done when it’s done.
As for defense, vulnerable points in the network should be vulnerable points, in my opinion. Their defenses should be the defenses you construct.
So can we expect to see these maps from the screenshots somewhere in the game? (If not part of the main story, then as bonus missions?) I have a feeling everyone commenting would love to play these levels personally.
Maybe not these exact maps since I’m still tweaking the algorithms. But maps that are very similar, certainly.
Why is the relay on the lowest island a different color?
Not sure which one you are talking about, but I see one relay that is sitting on ground that isn’t ‘green’ because there is no nearby collector.
Will there be frost towers.
There may be something sort of like that…. something that slows down Creeper. More details in the coming weeks…
That answers my question if you check previous things.
Hey,is creeper world 3 will be sequel to creeper world 1? Its just realy intresting what happeand to commander and OP………..of course i would want to see old man too,or as many call him ” Platius ”