WOW! This gives me so much more of a helpless feeling while watching it than any of the other CW games ever did. Something about the 3D nature of the creeper makes it look so much more like there’s no way you can win.
Yes. So much yes. Having actual fluid dynamics opens up so many possibilities. My mind is already racing, and this is just a technical build. I’ll be following this very closely.
Oof, that creep looks fast. It was neat to see the cannon beating it back faster than it could actually flow back though.
Really nice seeing the prototype creeper. Looking forward to watching this shape into a real game over the coming months.
What’s your lore explanation for the changing AC colors between games?
(Why is that the takeaway I had?)
Okay, real talk. I hope there will be a way to zoom in while having a more vertical perspective. Visualizations of turret range would probably be less readable in 3D, especially from the side.
Also, multithreading – to what end? Does this mean you’re moving away from frame-perfect leaderboard-fairness? What implications does it have for scripting?
Spinal Tap would be proud of that Terrain height bar. And I’m proud of the terrain textures being much more versatile now. This whole thing looks so cool, and it’s just getting started. I look forward to following this as you continue to be your typical amazing self. Best of luck in your endeavors, V.
this is amazing!! I have been a huge creeper world fan since CW1 when it was just a demo i found, all those years ago. I have to say, watching how the creeper flows now is getting my very excited for the challenges that it will bring forth. looking forward seeing more !!!
(ps: please keep the guppies and bombers from CW3, I loved those things)
Maybe make the creeper overflow roof condense into a progressively darker and more solid/rigid material. Honestly, the creeper rendering roof is the only thing I’m even remotely concerned about with the move to 3D.
Shockblast DXAugust 6, 2017 at 11:34 am | Permalink
I think for showing more creeper in a small area, you should darken the creeper to a point, like density in CW2.
I think I can be the first to say, an 18-Year-Old who has been playing your games since my childhood, that you have developed an extremely passionate community around your games throughout the many, MANY years. After reading and commenting seeveral times on each blog post, to eagerly anticipating the next video release, to checking the forums recently, and of course buying and playing every one of the games on Release Day, I can not express to you how excited I was when I first discovered this was in Development. Just as others above me have stated, I was in a literal trance, shocked when I first saw this.
I hope for this to be the biggest and best game yet. I can’t wait to see how this development cycle goes!
looks good, looks interesting.
few things I want to say.
the creeper looks to thin to me, it doesnt seem cohesive enough
will old enemy mechanics (CW2 dones, CW3 digitalis) return? or will they be mostly new (obviously spores will make a return)
I dont like the spike that forms with an emitter, though I dont know how to fix that.
and a question
do you have a point in time when this game takes place? not asking WHAT it is (though if you want to reveal that…) just asking IF it is
on the spike thing, perhaps it could be made like a dome instead? like if you put a hose underwater and point it up, it bulges up, and expands.
perhaps digitalis could be some sort of algea/corral looking thing now? you could have a corral like structure on the “floor”, then you see some particles flowing up to the surface of the creeper and maybe form some sort of protection? (entrenched creeper as was shown in the last post maybe?)
i agree on the creeper looking to thin, perhaps it should be a bit more “sticky” and stick more to itself, or just flow a bit slower.
Really excited to see you going back for another CW sequel. By the looks of it, this will have a nearly unlimited amount of potential with where you could take this. To say I’m excited would be an understatement.
try implementing a soft cap on creeper height over a hard cap, perhaps a logarithmic height render or something similar.
Anyhow, this demo looks amazing!
I’m glad this new group of human survivors have some advanced orbital camera equipment.
I wonder if scanners just got out-modded at some stage.
Possibly once someone figured out how to guide packets of physical substances through space without so much as an engine.
you sir are are amazing i only discovered CW a month before CW3 was released and am hooked. what are the chances of the CW games getting ported to mobile so we can take them everywhere with us?
Also I really loiked the packet towers you had in the vid they reming me of conventional power lines that might be a solution for power distribution
I was just thinking: has anyone ever really thought of the scale of the Creeper World games? I mean, you’ve got a city with about 50,000 people in Creeper World 1. Seeing as this is far into the future, we can disregard the land needed to produce food and all other necessities. However, you still have to house all those people somewhere, as well as an unknown quantity of space for engines, energy to packets converters, etc. Now compare that to your other buildings, which are 1/9 the size. That means they are MONOLITHIC! They wouldn’t be out of place on a capital ship! Just, think about it. Oh, and assuming the size of emitters remains constant throughout the series, the scale remains about the same.
Shockblast DXAugust 6, 2017 at 11:30 am | Permalink
Another thing on this is that the map is basically the entire planet, and not just a section of it. That makes this kind of thing even bigger.
MissingInActionAugust 21, 2017 at 12:00 pm | Permalink
You mentioning “the entire planet” gave me an idea. What if the map is round like a planet and you have to rotate it with your mouse to move around. Kinda like going to google maps and zooming way out till you see the planet, then dragging it from side to side to get from America to Africa/Asia/etc.
Probably not part of your plans Virgil, but I think its a nice idea.
I know everyone is hyped for this new game, and personally, it looks pretty cool. although, it seems to just be a 3D creeper world game. what Iām interested about is what will make this game different from the others? creeper world 1 and 3 were very similar, almost too similar.
Creeper World 2 and Particle Fleet were great inventions and they definitely brought some variety to the series. I am not too fond of another clone of the original recipe. Virgil, I completely and totally love what you are doing and I support you all the way, just, be careful not to let the series become stale.
yours truly, A fan
A few points I’d like to make:
1. Creeper world 1 and 3 are about as similar as Civilization 1 and 6. Sure, the basics are the same, but the features are wildly different. Guppies, anti-creeper, digitalis, Berthas, CRPL, and many, many more features were added in CW3.
2. Creeper World 4 is already different in that the creeper has an actual physics simulation. Unlike any other Creeper World, it has velocity, waves, etc. Also, the 3D nature of the game will wildly alter how the player plays the game as well, leading some old units to be unusable while others very intriguing.
3. Virgil has yet to let the fans down, because he would be letting himself down. As he has stated many times, these games are a hobby, and there just happens to be a market for them that allows him to spend more time on the games.
4. Even once the game is done, I am sure that CRPL will be in this new game, allowing the community as much freedom as before, to make things like PAC and Sleeper game modes.
In conclusion, the game will be in development at least a year, maybe two, maybe five, and every month will bring either a new feature or a change to an existing one. So don’t worry, it will be a fun ride.
You knwo what kind of network/economic system I think I’d like to see? Underground or terrain-conforming. Maybe just visually render the existing connections as underground (which means flying units can’t get energy?), or maybe build out an actual network of roads or tunnels that your other buildings hook into. The engine being 3D allows you to put the buildings and their connections on different layers, which I think could be very visually appealing.
For long-distance connections, I’d probably go with point-to-point line of sight transmissions between two fixed units: you build one tower, you build a second tower, and then you link them up and get a (fast?) connection through the air between two distant points. Although, that does leave the question of Guppies or Guppy equivalent technology; the ability to supply isolated outposts (with caveats, of course) was an interesting mechanic, and I dunno what the best equivalent of that in 3D would be, especially if this point-to-point thing already existed alongside it. A giant mortar/cannon that launches energy pods to the target point?
Shockblast DXAugust 6, 2017 at 10:08 am | Permalink
Great game already, can’t wait for the final release (if not able to start early). I have a few ideas that would make the game a little more interesting.
1. Wind
———–
This idea would make it so that you need to watch where the creeper is going, and how strong it is moving.
2. Natural Disasters
—————————-
Just basic things, like a small asteroid shower, or an earthquake. Doesn’t have to be complicated. This can change the form of the land, be harmful to both sides, and move creeper.
3. Third Party
——————-
I would find it challenging and fun to fight two enemies that hate you and each other. This would affect gameplay quite a bit, but would nonetheless be something to consider.
I trust your judgement, and you don’t have to pick out anything new from these. Just really excited for this new game is all. Thanks!
Well, you could actually add wind in CW3, and Force fields were a thing since CW2. Also, there was that one level in CW3 with the orbiting moon that pulled the creeper towards it. Just saying.
Been a great fan of creeper world, so I’m really glad to see that a 4th edition is in the works (well the last time I visited your site was when a bought no. 3 a whooping 3 years ago!)
Already have games 1-3 but I think I’ll get the universal pack just for the sake of unlocking everything on Steam when this one comes out! Looking forward to it!
Well, it has been exactly two months since the last update… is there perhaps something you could make a screenshot of to show us? If not, I guess we’ll just have to keep waiting for when you do.
To be clear, if there is nothing to show, there’s nothing to show. However, throughout the history of this blog, long periods of silence (>2 months) are after a game releases, and once after the second Particle Fleet post. Again, for creeper world 2/3, most of those posts were simple screen shots, but that and a description of a new feature is all it’d take to tide me over.
Well again, the last thing v has shown us was from a physics toy engine, not an actual game. I’m guessing right now, he is working on the actual game. (which could take a while) So the reason he did not put an update in a while is because he is working on the game.
Not about the post itself here, but would you consider making us able to subscribe so we can get notified if a new post arrives?
If it’s already possible someone please guide me to it cause i didn’t find it (:
At the top you should be able to see the link about “RSS Feed”. I’ve never used RSS myself, but the general idea of it is that the RSS updates any time Virgil makes a post, so find an RSS client or watcher or something that auto-updates and notifies you of unread posts.
I would really love to see how the creeper reacts with other liquids of different consistency e.g. thinner – water, or thicker – magma. Personally I think the creeper is a little too fluid at the moment and perhaps it could behave like a denser liquid, or perhaps have certain non-Newtonian properties.
Leave it to the aspect of a new game under your development to bring me back into the activity fold.
Gotta say the 3D angle makes the creeper more wonderfully terrifying as an overall enemy force. No alien swarm in any movie or game can boast about being a numberless and endless tide now.
Liam BechiomSeptember 6, 2017 at 3:34 am | Permalink
Always wondered what 3D creeper would look like… it’s terrifying.
If you’re new here. That’s not really how Virgil works. I think the first time he offered pre-order was for CW 3, and that was to get more publicity on steam, and it was maybe a week before release. It awesome to watch his games progress, I’ve been following since the first start of CW2, but it’s awesome to see him make progress.
Seeing the look of the low ground terrain in those deep valleys resemble lava in texture and color a bit, I was thinking: what if late-game evolved creeper could fuse with it and create a mixture of lava creeper that gave off heat that could cause basic defenses and other friendly structures to burn out when in close proximity to it, requiring either upgrades or different heat-resistant defenses to deal with it?
Ilya LandaSeptember 22, 2017 at 11:21 am | Permalink
It’ll be 3 months tomorrow since the last update.
Throw us something. Anything. Please?
WOW! This gives me so much more of a helpless feeling while watching it than any of the other CW games ever did. Something about the 3D nature of the creeper makes it look so much more like there’s no way you can win.
You’ve obviously put a whole lot of work into this already!
Yes. So much yes. Having actual fluid dynamics opens up so many possibilities. My mind is already racing, and this is just a technical build. I’ll be following this very closely.
Oof, that creep looks fast. It was neat to see the cannon beating it back faster than it could actually flow back though.
Really nice seeing the prototype creeper. Looking forward to watching this shape into a real game over the coming months.
What’s your lore explanation for the changing AC colors between games?
(Why is that the takeaway I had?)
Okay, real talk. I hope there will be a way to zoom in while having a more vertical perspective. Visualizations of turret range would probably be less readable in 3D, especially from the side.
Also, multithreading – to what end? Does this mean you’re moving away from frame-perfect leaderboard-fairness? What implications does it have for scripting?
Different civilizations could have slightly different AC tech, ore sources, etc. Same with the variations in weapon efficiency.
Spinal Tap would be proud of that Terrain height bar. And I’m proud of the terrain textures being much more versatile now. This whole thing looks so cool, and it’s just getting started. I look forward to following this as you continue to be your typical amazing self. Best of luck in your endeavors, V.
RELEASE THE FLOOD GATES!!!! Thank you, that was awesome! š
Oh yes.. Thank you sire!
this is amazing!! I have been a huge creeper world fan since CW1 when it was just a demo i found, all those years ago. I have to say, watching how the creeper flows now is getting my very excited for the challenges that it will bring forth. looking forward seeing more !!!
(ps: please keep the guppies and bombers from CW3, I loved those things)
Try your Mass AoO now…
I wonder what form the Shield will take? Wave damping, variable evaporation…
I have similar thoughts to planetfall on scripting, but wonder what form Spores might take.
I heard that in CW3’s early days, beams had a vertical range and spores properly arced in a 3D parabola. We can hope…
Ooh, yeah, I love how the Shield looks and feels in CW3, and I can imagine both being (look and feel) being even cooler in more-real 3D.
And to Virgil, thanks for taking the time to post this!
Yeah, I was wondering about shields. My idea was to make it a physical dome that slowly cracks, but who knows?
Virgil…I love it. I really can not wait. I am excited for sure.
This looks really good!
Maybe make the creeper overflow roof condense into a progressively darker and more solid/rigid material. Honestly, the creeper rendering roof is the only thing I’m even remotely concerned about with the move to 3D.
I think for showing more creeper in a small area, you should darken the creeper to a point, like density in CW2.
I think I can be the first to say, an 18-Year-Old who has been playing your games since my childhood, that you have developed an extremely passionate community around your games throughout the many, MANY years. After reading and commenting seeveral times on each blog post, to eagerly anticipating the next video release, to checking the forums recently, and of course buying and playing every one of the games on Release Day, I can not express to you how excited I was when I first discovered this was in Development. Just as others above me have stated, I was in a literal trance, shocked when I first saw this.
I hope for this to be the biggest and best game yet. I can’t wait to see how this development cycle goes!
Love the Fluid. Good Luck V.
I’ll start saving for a New Laptop.
Amazing and awesome! š
looks good, looks interesting.
few things I want to say.
the creeper looks to thin to me, it doesnt seem cohesive enough
will old enemy mechanics (CW2 dones, CW3 digitalis) return? or will they be mostly new (obviously spores will make a return)
I dont like the spike that forms with an emitter, though I dont know how to fix that.
and a question
do you have a point in time when this game takes place? not asking WHAT it is (though if you want to reveal that…) just asking IF it is
on the spike thing, perhaps it could be made like a dome instead? like if you put a hose underwater and point it up, it bulges up, and expands.
perhaps digitalis could be some sort of algea/corral looking thing now? you could have a corral like structure on the “floor”, then you see some particles flowing up to the surface of the creeper and maybe form some sort of protection? (entrenched creeper as was shown in the last post maybe?)
i agree on the creeper looking to thin, perhaps it should be a bit more “sticky” and stick more to itself, or just flow a bit slower.
Really excited to see you going back for another CW sequel. By the looks of it, this will have a nearly unlimited amount of potential with where you could take this. To say I’m excited would be an understatement.
This is literally pre-alpha and it already looks great
Excited to see where you take this! Good luck with the development and I look forwards to any future communications š
try implementing a soft cap on creeper height over a hard cap, perhaps a logarithmic height render or something similar.
Anyhow, this demo looks amazing!
already getting hype even with the couple posts about it! LOVE the series š
Super exciting Virgil. Can’t wait!
Looks very interesting Vrigil, i am looking forward to it!
It would be interesting to see how things look with smoothed terrain, even if the physics still reflect the original geometry.
It would also be interesting to see how the wind would affect the creeper in the form of waves and such.
I was very disappointed by Particle Fleet, so I hope CW4 is more like CW3 which was AWESOME!
Love to see the updates. It’s fun to watch the game progress. Love the fluid physics on the creeper.
I’m glad this new group of human survivors have some advanced orbital camera equipment.
I wonder if scanners just got out-modded at some stage.
Possibly once someone figured out how to guide packets of physical substances through space without so much as an engine.
[ A simple Joker ]
All the best!
I wonder if it is possible to use fractional land heights
Actually why not try maximum slope angle for structures instead of stepped heights so we can get slopes and stuff, and not limited to 10 heights
This looks wonderful! When’s the release date?! š
Just kidding–I know that’s your least favorite question
Thats awesome, very excited to see future development as yours are some of my favorite games.
The visual of the 3d is very nice. I think it’s important that the 3d also add an extra level to the gameplay. So it’s not just the 2d gameplay in 3d.
you sir are are amazing i only discovered CW a month before CW3 was released and am hooked. what are the chances of the CW games getting ported to mobile so we can take them everywhere with us?
Also I really loiked the packet towers you had in the vid they reming me of conventional power lines that might be a solution for power distribution
I was just thinking: has anyone ever really thought of the scale of the Creeper World games? I mean, you’ve got a city with about 50,000 people in Creeper World 1. Seeing as this is far into the future, we can disregard the land needed to produce food and all other necessities. However, you still have to house all those people somewhere, as well as an unknown quantity of space for engines, energy to packets converters, etc. Now compare that to your other buildings, which are 1/9 the size. That means they are MONOLITHIC! They wouldn’t be out of place on a capital ship! Just, think about it. Oh, and assuming the size of emitters remains constant throughout the series, the scale remains about the same.
Another thing on this is that the map is basically the entire planet, and not just a section of it. That makes this kind of thing even bigger.
You mentioning “the entire planet” gave me an idea. What if the map is round like a planet and you have to rotate it with your mouse to move around. Kinda like going to google maps and zooming way out till you see the planet, then dragging it from side to side to get from America to Africa/Asia/etc.
Probably not part of your plans Virgil, but I think its a nice idea.
any chance this engine would be released for people to toy around with?
I know everyone is hyped for this new game, and personally, it looks pretty cool. although, it seems to just be a 3D creeper world game. what Iām interested about is what will make this game different from the others? creeper world 1 and 3 were very similar, almost too similar.
Creeper World 2 and Particle Fleet were great inventions and they definitely brought some variety to the series. I am not too fond of another clone of the original recipe. Virgil, I completely and totally love what you are doing and I support you all the way, just, be careful not to let the series become stale.
yours truly, A fan
A few points I’d like to make:
1. Creeper world 1 and 3 are about as similar as Civilization 1 and 6. Sure, the basics are the same, but the features are wildly different. Guppies, anti-creeper, digitalis, Berthas, CRPL, and many, many more features were added in CW3.
2. Creeper World 4 is already different in that the creeper has an actual physics simulation. Unlike any other Creeper World, it has velocity, waves, etc. Also, the 3D nature of the game will wildly alter how the player plays the game as well, leading some old units to be unusable while others very intriguing.
3. Virgil has yet to let the fans down, because he would be letting himself down. As he has stated many times, these games are a hobby, and there just happens to be a market for them that allows him to spend more time on the games.
4. Even once the game is done, I am sure that CRPL will be in this new game, allowing the community as much freedom as before, to make things like PAC and Sleeper game modes.
In conclusion, the game will be in development at least a year, maybe two, maybe five, and every month will bring either a new feature or a change to an existing one. So don’t worry, it will be a fun ride.
You knwo what kind of network/economic system I think I’d like to see? Underground or terrain-conforming. Maybe just visually render the existing connections as underground (which means flying units can’t get energy?), or maybe build out an actual network of roads or tunnels that your other buildings hook into. The engine being 3D allows you to put the buildings and their connections on different layers, which I think could be very visually appealing.
For long-distance connections, I’d probably go with point-to-point line of sight transmissions between two fixed units: you build one tower, you build a second tower, and then you link them up and get a (fast?) connection through the air between two distant points. Although, that does leave the question of Guppies or Guppy equivalent technology; the ability to supply isolated outposts (with caveats, of course) was an interesting mechanic, and I dunno what the best equivalent of that in 3D would be, especially if this point-to-point thing already existed alongside it. A giant mortar/cannon that launches energy pods to the target point?
Great game already, can’t wait for the final release (if not able to start early). I have a few ideas that would make the game a little more interesting.
1. Wind
———–
This idea would make it so that you need to watch where the creeper is going, and how strong it is moving.
2. Natural Disasters
—————————-
Just basic things, like a small asteroid shower, or an earthquake. Doesn’t have to be complicated. This can change the form of the land, be harmful to both sides, and move creeper.
3. Third Party
——————-
I would find it challenging and fun to fight two enemies that hate you and each other. This would affect gameplay quite a bit, but would nonetheless be something to consider.
I trust your judgement, and you don’t have to pick out anything new from these. Just really excited for this new game is all. Thanks!
Well, you could actually add wind in CW3, and Force fields were a thing since CW2. Also, there was that one level in CW3 with the orbiting moon that pulled the creeper towards it. Just saying.
Been a great fan of creeper world, so I’m really glad to see that a 4th edition is in the works (well the last time I visited your site was when a bought no. 3 a whooping 3 years ago!)
Already have games 1-3 but I think I’ll get the universal pack just for the sake of unlocking everything on Steam when this one comes out! Looking forward to it!
Well, it has been exactly two months since the last update… is there perhaps something you could make a screenshot of to show us? If not, I guess we’ll just have to keep waiting for when you do.
Patience ‘n’ all that…
To be clear, if there is nothing to show, there’s nothing to show. However, throughout the history of this blog, long periods of silence (>2 months) are after a game releases, and once after the second Particle Fleet post. Again, for creeper world 2/3, most of those posts were simple screen shots, but that and a description of a new feature is all it’d take to tide me over.
Well again, the last thing v has shown us was from a physics toy engine, not an actual game. I’m guessing right now, he is working on the actual game. (which could take a while) So the reason he did not put an update in a while is because he is working on the game.
Not about the post itself here, but would you consider making us able to subscribe so we can get notified if a new post arrives?
If it’s already possible someone please guide me to it cause i didn’t find it (:
And, of course, HYYYYYYYYYYYYYPED
At the top you should be able to see the link about “RSS Feed”. I’ve never used RSS myself, but the general idea of it is that the RSS updates any time Virgil makes a post, so find an RSS client or watcher or something that auto-updates and notifies you of unread posts.
I would really love to see how the creeper reacts with other liquids of different consistency e.g. thinner – water, or thicker – magma. Personally I think the creeper is a little too fluid at the moment and perhaps it could behave like a denser liquid, or perhaps have certain non-Newtonian properties.
Leave it to the aspect of a new game under your development to bring me back into the activity fold.
Gotta say the 3D angle makes the creeper more wonderfully terrifying as an overall enemy force. No alien swarm in any movie or game can boast about being a numberless and endless tide now.
Always wondered what 3D creeper would look like… it’s terrifying.
I don’t know if its posible or not…but after watching screen and video i am thinking of something missing and i found it.
If the graphical part of your 3d motor have, can you add lights and shadows.
Not necessarly dynamic but directional colored lightingor similar technic with of course toggle menu option ?
So, where do I pre-order this?
If you’re new here. That’s not really how Virgil works. I think the first time he offered pre-order was for CW 3, and that was to get more publicity on steam, and it was maybe a week before release. It awesome to watch his games progress, I’ve been following since the first start of CW2, but it’s awesome to see him make progress.
I know that, I’m not that new either. Its more of an endearing joke, in other words ‘I want this already, keep up the good work’
Seeing the look of the low ground terrain in those deep valleys resemble lava in texture and color a bit, I was thinking: what if late-game evolved creeper could fuse with it and create a mixture of lava creeper that gave off heat that could cause basic defenses and other friendly structures to burn out when in close proximity to it, requiring either upgrades or different heat-resistant defenses to deal with it?
It’ll be 3 months tomorrow since the last update.
Throw us something. Anything. Please?