See here for the announcement post:
http://knucklecracker.com/forums/index.php?topic=8164.0
This is the long awaited second release of a CW based flash game. It took many days to select among the thousands of custom maps to choose the ones that would end up in the flash game. I started with the nominations that have been made over the last few months, and narrowed down the choices from there. I think the select few that made it into the game represent a nice diverse set. They look good, they play well... they are just plain fun, no doubt about it.
I will naturally be following this flash game up with a CW2 based flash game in the months to come. But starting tomorrow, CW:US will be front and center!
Will you also write a blog about it?
YAY YAY YAY YAY! ;)
Yep, I'll also do a blog post with images, etc. Basically, starting tomorrow I'll do everything I can to spread word of the game.
Just posted about this on Kongregate Training Sim, since the first page lacked anything about it.
Btw, CW:US contains 13 total missions. 12 + 1 tutorial. The 12 are divided into three levels of difficulty.
I dont see the game on knogregate. Is something wrong?
probaby not on the stroke of midnight... its only 9:40 AM in North Carolina (where v lives).
I'm thinking about posting it at around 2:00pm EDT (Eastern Daylight Time). That would be 6:00pm GMT. That gives the European allies time to see it this evening and tonight and also lets the east coast of the US pick it up as the work and school days come to a close.
That, and I'm still writing all of the text,etc for the submission, blog post, tweet, facebook... :)
good. we have a time! (which is rare) ;)
She's up:
http://www.kongregate.com/games/whiteboardwar/creeper-world-user-space
playing... and making a video!
Don't forget to vote, post a positive comment, share all over the social media sites... yada, yada.
If we get a good coordinated effort going, we should be able to make a splash.
My map didn't make it. :(
Looks great though V.
11 maps out of over 4,500. Your chances were slim...:)
madmag got really lucky... ;)
mhm :-*
In Dutch we say: "You enforce your own luck". :)
I voted 5/5 and faved it
didIdoagoodjob?
Yep, you did a good job :)
The game just went live on their ranking boards. It's a very tight race, so spread the word everywhere you can to vote 5 stars on CW:US. The better the game does on Kong, the better it will do overall... and that will mean more people joining the Creeper Nation.
Another 5 stars.
Very fun. There were a couple of maps there that I had tried before but couldn't get.
Your rating:
5/5
Avg: 4.23
8,247 plays
Damn im suprized flok didnt get picked, i thought that would of been good for this game. Oh well some good maps but some kinda poor ones in my opinion
Just finished the levels, rated 5 stars because it wasn't possible to give more, added to my favorites !
Now that I'm done with CW1, CW2 and CW:US levels, what am I going to do ?? Millions of random maps ? ;)
Quote from: virgilw on September 20, 2011, 03:52:28 PM
Yep, you did a good job :)
The game just went live on their ranking boards. It's a very tight race, so spread the word everywhere you can to vote 5 stars on CW:US. The better the game does on Kong, the better it will do overall... and that will mean more people joining the Creeper Nation.
and that you win the monthly contest and win cash
Quote from: UpperKEES on September 20, 2011, 03:39:40 PM
In Dutch we say: "You enforce your own luck". :)
you say that in dutch? :)
And ofc we want virgil to win monthly prize :)
btw 5 stars
Quote from: crazyone76 on September 21, 2011, 07:31:46 AM
Quote from: virgilw on September 20, 2011, 03:52:28 PM
Yep, you did a good job :)
The game just went live on their ranking boards. It's a very tight race, so spread the word everywhere you can to vote 5 stars on CW:US. The better the game does on Kong, the better it will do overall... and that will mean more people joining the Creeper Nation.
and that you win the monthly contest and win cash
I hope so !
Btw if you disable building packets when building collector and then reactive them. OC send about 2-7 (depends) extra building packets to it :)
that is intentional and in cw1
Quote from: allu on September 21, 2011, 09:37:55 AM
Btw if you disable building packets when building collector and then reactive them. OC send about 2-7 (depends) extra building packets to it :)
Quote from: Michionlion on September 21, 2011, 10:11:09 AM
that is intentional and in cw1
It's not, it's
a bug (http://knucklecracker.com/forums/index.php?topic=5010.msg26481#msg26481) that was fixed in the last CW1 patch. I'm surprised it re-appears in CW:US now....
Quote from: UpperKEES on September 21, 2011, 01:04:21 PM
Quote from: allu on September 21, 2011, 09:37:55 AM
Btw if you disable building packets when building collector and then reactive them. OC send about 2-7 (depends) extra building packets to it :)
Quote from: Michionlion on September 21, 2011, 10:11:09 AM
that is intentional and in cw1
It's not, it's a bug (http://knucklecracker.com/forums/index.php?topic=5010.msg26481#msg26481) that was fixed in the last CW1 patch. I'm surprised it re-appears in CW:US now....
hmm... from what i gathered it was intentional. oops...
Is this reproducible on CW:US? If I just start building a collector, let a packet or two go, turn off build packets, wait, turn on build packets... I don't see any extra packets get dispatched.
CW:US was branched off of the absolute latest CW code, so it should have all bugs fixes (that's the theory). Was this bug report actually made against an older version of CW rather than CW:US maybe?
See beta board....
I see you've now made the front page, not just the top list....
Quote from: Grauniad on September 21, 2011, 04:50:55 PM
I see you've now made the front page, not just the top list....
I know my map when I see it! On the cover... 8)
I accidentally stumbled into a pretty rough fight this month. August and September are usually "slow" months, but Kong is running a prize incentive this month for the top N places. This has some games showing up that are really competitive. A new RPG just showed up that could make a serious run. It's a RPG that isn't really my personal cup of tea, but is has Newgrounds on the splash. This means it will have that audience feeding into it.
Most of the super high ranked games usually have some sponsor. I'm my own sponsor, which is a little strange. But then that sort of makes sense :) Anyway, the sponsored games usually have a large portal that can drive traffic and run up the score.
We'll have to see how it plays out over the coming days. So your continued support and efforts in helping spread the word is appreciated.
i've gone and rated 5 stars it looked great. cam eback to play these games though.
I tried to reproduct bug. It didnt send any extra to sam i had but sended 9 extra packets to relay that was allready half done.
Well, I don't think you could have hoped for better. :)
The rating is *still* climbing after >70K plays, you have two top spots on the Home page - all you need is badges and that will come in due time...
With 8 days till the end of the month - let's hope.
Indeed doing great. And 3k cash is always handy. (lets hope is speeds up virigils coding and motivates him to continue)
Motivation is always a good thing. You'd be surprised how much of a difference it can make to ones efforts.
I have a lot of things cooking right now, and you will definitely see some wild things soon. Everything from Chopraider with some extra goodies, to some new toys for 'playing' with the Creeper. Who knows, I might even experiment with some altered Creeper physics.... :)
Rated 5 stars, Virgil you should consider adding another bonus map that you can get after all the others.
cookies = perfect motivation
once I was like I cant beat this boss
someone else said if you beat him I give you a cookie
me: where is that boss?!!?!?!? ima kill him right now
guys, diamond hollow II is beating CW:US! somebody rally the troops...
I saw it too...AFFUL go spam in all community sides you can find to get EVERYONE on internet to rate it whit 5 stars:)
I'm gonna give my vote now :)
Ugh. Not sure Virgil will appreciate spam on his behalf. And it may backfire.
Both games were released at the same day.
4.40 versus 4.39 rating at the moment, but DH only got 75,000 plays while CW:US got 138,000
It will be a very close call. :o
Quote from: allu on September 23, 2011, 10:54:07 AM
I saw it too...AFFUL go spam in all community sides you can find to get EVERYONE on internet to rate it whit 5 stars:)
Please make sure not to upset people, which will make them vote against CW:US. Just recommend it in a nice and friendly way. :) How many people do you know that enjoy being spammed? ;)
Edit:Quote from: Grauniad on September 23, 2011, 11:18:36 AM
Ugh. Not sure Virgil will appreciate spam on his behalf. And it may backfire.
Oh sorry, didn't notice this comment (on the next page). Agreed.
Agreed. You have to be "professional" when you ask people to vote for a game. Otherwise, they will down vote it out of spite.
I decided to go all in and take a huge gamble just now. I just added a 13th bonus mission and updated the game on kongregate. If it seem ok over the next hour, I'll do the normal round of advertising (twitter, facebook, blog).
This is a gamble since it perturbs an otherwise extremely successful game. The goal, though, is to convince some people who have not yet voted or who have voted 4 stars to vote 5 stars.
My stats indicate that a large percentage of people have actually completed the game. Somewhere around one in five players has completed the game. One more bonus mission that unlocks after completing the game can't hurt....
I think a new map will do good :)
Quote from: virgilw on September 23, 2011, 01:06:50 PM
You have to be "professional" when you ask people to vote for a game.
When referring to CW:US you may want to use this link:
http://www.kongregate.com/games/whiteboardwar/creeper-world-user-space
Better to direct potential players straight to the game before they 'get lost' somewhere else.... ;)
That is so true.. No mess
Quote from: virgilw on September 23, 2011, 01:06:50 PM
Agreed. You have to be "professional" when you ask people to vote for a game. Otherwise, they will down vote it out of spite.
I decided to go all in and take a huge gamble just now. I just added a 13th bonus mission and updated the game on kongregate. If it seem ok over the next hour, I'll do the normal round of advertising (twitter, facebook, blog).
This is a gamble since it perturbs an otherwise extremely successful game. The goal, though, is to convince some people who have not yet voted or who have voted 4 stars to vote 5 stars.
My stats indicate that a large percentage of people have actually completed the game. Somewhere around one in five players has completed the game. One more bonus mission that unlocks after completing the game can't hurt....
from Virgil: if you don't vote 5/5 something really bad will happen to you and you dont wan't to find out what ;)
voted the other one star, I hope this helps. They both have 4.38
Please note that asking people to downvote other games will disqualify Creeper World.
Yeah, don't down vote other games. Vote how you would rank them, or don't vote at all on them. The other games are really good and their dev's deserve a fair shot. I know that down voting happens, but so long as it happens evenly to everyone it factors out. I would never encourage anyone to down vote other games, even if I knew CW was being down voted.
At the end of the day, the top 5 games (especially the top 3) are all really close. These are some seriously high ranked games this month. Even the games further down the list could have won on some other months.
So we may come in 1st or we may come in 10th... it's hard to say at this point. What I can say for sure is that the Creeper Nation has fought like hell and that's good enough for me.
Quote from: virgilw on September 23, 2011, 05:10:49 PM
So we may come in 1st or we may come in 10th... it's hard to say at this point. What I can say for sure is that the Creeper Nation has fought like hell and that's good enough for me.
Almost like CW1 - you fight, and then you move on, knowing there was still stuff left behind? :)
OMG! I just checked out the main competitor and it's like the simple and annoying platform games from the 80's! Even the music matches that era.... Did that guy just replace the sprites on his Commodore64 or what?
I'm positively sure this is not going to be this months winner! The kids playing now have to go to bed at 8 PM.... ;)
That's funny you should say that...
I've been wondering about the votes/plays ratio for each game and wondering if there is a correlation between the average age of players and the likelihood of those players voting. In other words, do older players vote less than younger players? If so, games that appeal to a younger crowd will pick up more votes for a given set of players.
Of course there could also be many other explanations for why the votes/plays ratio varies from game to game. The longevity of the game could be the most significant. If the same players keep coming back to a given game, that drives the plays up while leaving the votes the same.
Younger players vote more because they do not care or do not know about what info FB and Kongregate collect
I almost did not vote because of that.
Oh noes.. CW:US has slipped to 3rd. What a fickle world we live in. It seems the rating alone, not a factor of ratings and play counts is what ranks the game.
Yeah, it's simple rating at the moment the contest ends that they look at. For the weekly I think that is midnight pacific daylight time (I assume). For the monthly... that's a ways off.
The top three games have been bouncing around. I have watched it about every 2 hours through the day and noted how the other two games have varied from 1st to 3rd at different times. CW:US has been in all three positions over the last 24 hours but has mostly been in 2nd and 3rd today. The other two have oscillated.
All of the games have thousands of votes so you would guess that if the voters were unbiased judges, that the score would settle down. But Kongregate lets you change your vote and people aren't unbiased, so they often tend to down vote games in a winning position if they like lower games better. I'm sure its pretty interesting to work at Kongregate and analyse the data...
And of course DH's votes have been manually adjusted by Kong (as presumably have other games, not sure) because of illegal votes. The top comment used to describe this. DH started at a low score but shot up to 2nd place after the correction by Kongregate staff. If I was in a physics lab, we'd have to throw everything out and start over again... but this (thankfully) isn't science. :)
It's a long haul before the end of the month, and there could yet be another popular game to show up. The timing of a release can often influence the monthly winner more than the ultimate quality of the games. (I wish Kongregate would separate the entry time cutoff from the monthly contests by two weeks, but that's another story.)
QuoteAny game first published during September is eligible for our monthly contest. Voting will last through October 3rd, 2011, and we'll be awarding $1500* to the highest-rated game, $1000* to the second-highest, $700* for the third, $500 for fourth, and $250 for 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th. Games must have a minimum of 30 votes to qualify.
So if you release your game on October 3 at 11 PM and make sure you get 30 votes of 5 stars within 1 hour you are the winner? :-\
LOL, yes, but that is not all of it. I'm sure the thousands of plays and lesser amount of click-through to Virgil's site and then the even smaller conversion rate into buyers is worth more than the prize money - or at least I'd hope so.
I believe that would be the case... I see nothing to indicate any other interpretation of the rules.
Now it would be hard to do this, and those 30 votes would be very suspicious.... so I bet the kongregate staff would look very carefully at it.
Also, the game would lose exposure since the month would end immediately. One reason to put a game up early is that is gets more time in the monthly high score chart and hence more plays. But if someone is trolling for prize money, I suppose a very late entry might do well. Most people with flash games are going for total worldwide plays. That's what their sponsors want and it all relates to ad revenue.
For me, I care mostly about total plays as well. About 10% of unique players click a link that brings them here. And some tiny fraction of them see something they like and join the Creeper Nation. It converts at less than 1% of global _unique_ players, so it's like extracting gold from seawater... you can do it, you just need a lot of seawater and a lot time. But, I can tell you empirically that it beats any money you make in ad revenue. This is another story, but it boggles my mind why more of the top end flash games don't offer desktop versions in the more 'traditional' indie game sense. It's a real pain to run a store, and a website, etc.... but if you have the fortitude to do so, it's worth it. Anyway, I digress :)
I just looked and the top three games are all at an average score of 4.38. That's close! 8)
But the funny thing I noticed is that CW:US is sitting at 3rd (moved up to second while I was typing this), and has a lot more votes than the other games. Come on. :)
Quote from: UpperKEES on September 23, 2011, 08:13:06 PM
QuoteAny game first published during September is eligible for our monthly contest. Voting will last through October 3rd, 2011, and we'll be awarding $1500* to the highest-rated game, $1000* to the second-highest, $700* for the third, $500 for fourth, and $250 for 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th. Games must have a minimum of 30 votes to qualify.
So if you release your game on October 3 at 11 PM and make sure you get 30 votes of 5 stars within 1 hour you are the winner? :-\
It says that it has to be published during september - that means there will be at least 3 days where a game can be voted on.
At this point, even a few votes could disrupt the balance. Let every last vote count...
Thanks Virgil for adding my map, i love you and rated the others one star
Tsk... tsk. Virgil specifficly said not to do that.
Virgil actually said that he dont want us to do that or he dont ask that form us...but surely we can stil do it :)
oops I rated the other 4/5 Im sorry Virgil dun eat me I change it right away
Quote from: Kithros on September 23, 2011, 08:46:23 PM
It says that it has to be published during september - that means there will be at least 3 days where a game can be voted on.
Literally that's true, but I think September lasts till the 3rd of Oktober on Kong.... ;)
getting ppl on transformice to vote 5/5
(not forced just asking nicely)
The end of the month is the real goal here...
So we'll have to see how the games hold up over the coming week. The other games have had the benefit of being distributed on other sites, but that will change for CW:US this coming week. I've put it up for distribution so other sites will start to host it. That will collect fans from a wider area and bring them in for the final push this coming week.
I do encourage people who visit knucklecracker.com to head over and vote 5 stars (and some do), but knucklecracker.com doesn't get the kind of traffic that flash game portals get. Casting a wider net by letting CW:US be hosted around the world will both bring more people to knucklecracker.com and should also ever so slightly bring up the score on kongregate.
Also, remember this is a battle not the whole war. Kongregate will once again get a visit from the Creeper Nation around the December time frame. CW2:T will leave its own mark on the scene at that time.
;) can't wait! should we, if we see a flash portal that doesn't have cw:us, ask them to get it?
For any portal that takes recommendations and doesn't have CW:US, feel free to recommend.
yay a release date (if that was not mentioned somewhere else)