What would happen if towers from ChopRaider made their way onto a Creeper World map? ย Insanity! ย Well, it sounded insane enough that I just had to give it a try. ย What better way to try out CRPL scripting and some of the new features in this week’s build?
Can’t wait, looking good.
Funny, I was watching the video in full-screen and kept trying to move my cursor and interact with *your* desktop. ๐
Well, with 1024×768 stretched across a 27″ 2560×1440 monitor (all so I could record this movie)… you are welcome to it ๐
Thanks! I did notice you’re “Old School” – still having your task bar at the bottom, whereas there are those of us who realize there with 9:16 aspect ratio monitors, it makes more sense to have the task bar on the left (or right) since the screen real estate vertically is more limited. ๐
I keep mine at the bottom because I personally use 3 monitor’s and I go across the sides all the time, I do not want to be clicking the wrong things.
I tried the icon-only taskbars which have equal usability both vertical and horizontal. I look for things like that all the time – but it just doesn’t increase the utility of the taskbar.
Unfortunately, separate taskbar items with text just have more utility than icons that collapse, per-app, which are slower to use.
Knowing that I prefer a text task bar, using three monitors in a horizontal array, and the fact that I use widescreen monitors at high resolution, all conspire to make vertical taskbars more of a hinderance than a help.
On a work computer that I use for training, or an emachine that I can only really run a couple apps at a time on, it’s fine, but on a professional machine they just get in the way.
Depending on how many tasks there are on the bar, I will say that having many of them may cause the need for vertical bars. I have them horizontal right now, plus, my laptop is really slow, so I cannot multitask as efficiently.
Only with icons-only. I currently have 12 separate items in my right-hand monitor, which is portrait, not landscape, with a width of only 1080, and find much more utility than I do with icon-only taskbars, and you pretty much have to use iconic taskbars on vertical bars.
Or course, I prefer utility over form, while others might have other priorities.
“Utility over form”. I’m the same way. Way back in the ancient past of December 2012, I made a new library to clear all the shortcuts off my desktop and found a hack to put a shortcut to the library specifically and not to Windows Explorer. My taskbar is now solely the start button and that library. The library is divided into games, tools, and browsers, for instance, and within those are text and icon based lists of shortcuts. Now that I inherited my dad’s old monitor, I have less a need for that and could throw all the shortcuts on one monitor, but I also like to display my beautiful space wallpapers in their entire unobstructed 16:9 glory.
Thanks for the tip. I honestly haven’t thought of that. But it works great on my netbook.
I love how digitalis looks now ๐ 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?
Probably…. Flying and moving units are two things different from landed units. I will either provide separate CRPL functions to get them, or add an argument to the current functions.
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.
There is an energy display, I just had it turned off. It will be getting updated before release, though.
The edit map button is only there when constructing a map. When playing a map from someone else, that button isn’t there.
Watch someone recreate the Nexus level from CW1
CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.
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.
Funny, I could have sworn that it was me doing that. =)
GET OUT OF MY HEAD! LEAVE MY BRAIN ALONE!
You could just use guppies to get by the turrets
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
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?
As for total unit limits… I could probably add that on the unit limits dialog.
As for enemy towers that must be connected to a source via Digitalis. That could probably be scripted up into a custom tower and would be a nice script for people to use.
Same for Digitalis ‘expansion’ areas. A tower could watch for this and then increase the growth area when live digitalis reached a certain spot(s).
cool, but what about units, not enemies, having to be connected to the command node?
I think V’s mentioned that he doesn’t have plans to to things like networking cores. There are ways though, to ensure the player has to deliver energy, though.
For instance, have the core keep terrain around it at a particular level, and use a terraformer to ‘beam’ energy to it – terraform it down or up, and script the unit to re-level the terrain and harvest energy each time it levels a cell.
Nice job virgil, the game is looking good, I can’t wait for the game to come out!
It looks ridiculous ๐
Did you change the mortar shell function? It looks slightly changed.
Should be the same…
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!
That’s the idea. The life of CW1 and CW2 was MASSIVELY extended by custom maps. The number of ideas people came up with for CW1/2 custom maps was and is astounding. Things I never thought of… So, I figured if the toolset was significantly expanded for CW3…. who knows what will happen?
I’m looking forward to seeing someone implement a game of chess via C and AC ‘pieces’.
Challenge accepted.
Yes! That was the best part about CW1 and 2! I played them both for months, literally. Never done that with a game before.
Can’t wait to do it with CW3!!!
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…).
Yes, I will very likely clean up some test maps and release them as custom worlds initially.
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. ๐
Images all have x,y,z coordinates. The x and y coordinates are right/left and up/down on the screen. 0,0 is centered right over the CRPLCore. The x coordinate is where the image is relative to your eyeball. So things with a high z (say 10) are behind things with lower z (say 0). Put anther way, the z coordinate controls which images appear on top of other images. Lower values mean ‘higher’. Think of the z as ‘distance from your eye’. Because the light was at 0,0,0 it was at a z of 0. That put it at the same z as the unit’s main image. So when there is a tie which appears on top? The short answer is the result isn’t predictable. Sometimes one, sometimes the other. It can even depend on the GPU.
By moving the light to z = -0.01, it was definitely placed on top of the main unit image.
As for upgrades, yes… coming soon.
Ore mines are free to operate currently and that seems to be balanced and work well.
Flying units… most likely.
Ok, I totally understand now. Thanks for the clarification. ๐
Ok, I hope the upgrades are like the old nanites you found in the level and the storage and speed buildings you built (appears to be replaced by relays).
I didn’t like how CW2 upgrades worked as it basically allowed you to just turtle up and wait for every upgrade to be researched (16-20 Labs and you can max out pretty quick).
A large point of the game is not mearly to win, but to do so quickly. So waiting for tech domes to build up upgrades was not an option on a lot of levels. Not if you wanted a top 20 time. with that in mind, I usually built a lot more than 20 of them…
A lot of players are OCD/casual, though . . . hardcore players are a large part of the community, but I suspect that’s largely because they’re more vocal than casual players.
Yeah, I get what you are saying, I guess I am a little OCD and like to crush the creeper, not just win. I preferred the nanites in CW1 as that meant you had to work your forces towards them to get the mini reward of an upgrade. You could, of course, choose to ignore them to get the quicker game time.
With CW2 you no longer had to expose yourself and go out into “the wild” for these upgrades which takes away from a lot of the action that was involved in CW1.
This is also why I am excited he is doing top down view again. There is not safe place from the creeper. ๐
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.
Good to hear…
There are many cool things that can be done with just a few lines of script.
Is there any way a CRPL tower can damage flying units?
Soon…
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.
I’m working fast and with a sense of urgency these days… so just give me a bit more and the first version of the game will be out. At that point, I’ll gladly welcome purchases ๐
Don’t rush yourself too much. Whenever I let myself feel rushed (all of the time) I find that I can’t think through things and I screw them up royally.
Don’t rush, you make such good games, we wouldn’t want to hamper your creation process. Though, to go along with the above post, is there any chance that, perhaps for the next creeper world (if it is not rude to talk that far ahead) you would try to get funding on kickstarter, with an ability to ‘pre-order’ or to buy into beta testing?
“gladly welcome purchases”
I lost my copy of CW2 and been holding off on repurchasing until a CW3 pre-pay shows up, point me in that direction and you can gladly have my money.
:O you created a new programming language and then even added it to notepad++
Yeah, notepad++ is really nice… and the syntax highlight and auto-completion are pretty cool.
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.
Do you draw your own graphics virgil?
Some of them. Many are done by MadMag.
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.
It will show up as a tech upgrade…
Will some of the upgrades like that have infinite upgrades? Like in the first game, you could place as many storage units as your RAM and processor could handle, but in the second game, it was cut down to only +1000% no matter how many technytes you got. I think it would be nice if you gave us ~30 upgrade levels, each one giving a linear increase in storage (+1 CN), but increasing the price using the Fibonacchi sequence (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, etc.). Now, for some things (anything related to weapons and packet speed come to mind) I could see only about 3-5 maximum, but it’s your call in the end. I just don’t like having to destroy all my Tech Domes when I hit the magic number of 682.
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!
With just a couple more CRPL functions, this becomes possible to script up….
To do right, the CRPL cores would need to be able to handle pathfinding . . . doesn’t seem like an easy thing to script up outside the engine.
Ergo “a couple more CRPL functions”. For instance, “GetUnitCountInRange” would hardly be possible to script if it’s not a pre-defined function in the language.
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 ๐ (sounds pretty niche though)
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).
These things… not so sure about. They tread in areas I’m trying to avoid in this game.
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.
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.
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.
With great power comes great irresponsibility ๐
I hope the map mods can help out in this area with map feedback that will be visible at the time the custom maps goes up for download.
There should be the requirement to finish the map you make before you can upload it.
That should solve the problem.
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.
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.
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?
Yeah, I do get asked that a lot. ๐ I hardly have time to advance CW, so no immediate plans for a CR sequel. But, never say never…
Huh. Either I got better, or Chopraider got easier. I beat it on hard yesterday.
Anyway, just wanted to add that I was wondering if you would be having a sale of all 3 games at launch time for CW3.
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 ๐
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.
Or perhaps these ones are not yet to be announced for public?
will there be a snap-map-to-window zoom?
can you please make a minny map for us a try out i really wanna play it :O
you just made my life :DDDD
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!
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 ๐ฎ
Convince the sentient chatbot that the creeper is a real threat. Absolutely no holes or danger in that idea…
I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.
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.
Not sure if this has been mentioned but could there be a setting for the mortars to attack areas closer or farther from themselves?
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.
if this happends,creeper will pay for that ๐
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?
They aren’t blasters
I do not believe the CRPL scripting permits easy handling of LOS considerations, though I may be wrong.
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! ๐
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.
That is already possible.
Well I prefer the idea of moving a unit while it’s being built.
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.
OMG. BEST IDEA EVER….. <_<
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 ๐
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 ^_^
2 weeks and nothing…he must be trying to build our antiiiiiiiiiisipation for something…
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 ๐
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!
No big announcement next time…. but I should have another video and there are some cool things everyone has been asking about that have been added to the game. I’ve started my march towards release, so I’m ticking off things a day at a time and getting closer…
Guess I’ve been a bit too optimistic with the release being in the next days ๐ Videos, however, are always a treat to watch – and seeing new features implemented is fantastic news! Also, I really like your tone when you speak of the release ๐ Thanks for taking the time to comment!
Molay-agreed.
Virgilw- dont get overwhelmed. Cant wait till the next video ๐ I’m sure the game is doing great in its current stage, so don’t woooorrrrryy ๐
yea just relax and release it when you think its time ๐
but can’t wait still ๐
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?
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.
Creeper world would actually be great as a multiplayer game. you could do co-op or fight against eachother.
ikke, I agree.
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 ๐
When do you think beta will start, Virgil?
As multiple comments on the blog and the forum say, Beta started a while back. I think it was around November, 2012.
Any new blog posts , I miss your voice virgilw ๐ . 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…
His voice makes me want to watch his videos more.
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 (:
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.
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…
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.
Scripts are only used in mapmaking, but I’m sure that there will be some type of repository.
And you can tell mich is in that beta because his pic is of cw3 particle beams. ๐
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.
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.
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.
I never said anything about a save script button >.>
What question were you trying to answer ._.?
So…Next post is when?
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.