Achievements

[Kento]

While the ability to unlock conquest and special ops might be considered achievements, I don't think Creeper World really has a real achievement system. And it ought to! Sometimes achievements are kind of a copout, a way of making games more replayable without too much work, but this game is advertised as being "highly replayable," isn't it?  ;) It is satisfying though, not only to complete levels but to also have other milestones recognized in parallel.

Aside from the time and work necessary to implement such a feature, the only drawback I can think of is that if the achievements were to unlock in-game rewards, it would upset the balance of the game, and allow someone to get a higher score on the leaderboard for having taken the time to complete many achievements, instead of just completing a level skillfully. But if there isn't some in-game incentive, earning the achievement would not be anywhere near as satisfying.


I've been enjoying the game, anyway! I just hope soon I can be rewarded for building too many hexagons, instead of know I was just wasting time.

[knucracker]

This is an interesting suggestion....

A big trend in games recently (by recently I means years) has been towards achievements even when those achievements do offer altered game play.  In other words, they are just achievements that note something special... a kind of virtual trophy room.

So, I guess I could add statistics like total creeper killed, total numbers of different structures that are built, total structures destroyed by creeper, total play time, etc.
Each could have an 'achievement' for different levels.

[Kento]

One other benefit of achievements is they encourage different gameplay styles. I have been playing in a very conservative way, focusing on energy collection before attacking. Most of the time it takes me a half hour to forty-five minutes to complete a map because I'm being so careful. But were there achievements that could only be met by having a low level of energy collection (and I know from the graph displayed at the end of the game it's possible to track the highest point, not just how much energy is used at the end of the game), or based on time, I would have to play differently than I'm used to.

This is just personal taste, but I like games with very varied achievements. I mean it'd be cool if you'd throw in achievements for doing badly (taking too long, ridiculous starvation levels, losing quickly, or even worse, losing after having survived a certain length of time), things that are difficult to pull off (maybe winning a map after having let the creeps cover a large percent of the map), not just conventional milestones. You might even think of a signature, a kind of Knuckle Cracker in-joke you can put into future games.

[Aurzel]

after this it makes me think of the achievements and tracking progress for advance wars, units built, enermies killed, number of times you lost a building, number of times a building has been self destructed, amount of energy collected, amount spent, amount of creeper destroyed, there's tons of possibilities
it doesnt award anything to do with gameplay just medals and i think its very true that it will be very unfair if achievements unlock gameplay benefits

[Kento]

I wouldn't say it's unfair, it's just you'd need to devote some time to getting achievements before the playing field is leveled.

The advantage though for gameplay rewards is that it allows another path if you get stuck on a level. Work on getting achievements, and the level might become more manageable.

Two possible leaderboard solutions:
1) Have a "no achievement bonuses" checkbox, and when it's checked, only then can your scores be posted to the leaderboard
2) Two different leaderboards (this seems really ridiculous though)

[knucracker]

I like these achievement suggestions and I have been looking for different things to make available in the facebook version.  Yes, I said the "F" word.  I want CW to have the option to post achievements to a user's facebook wall (if the player wants this).  This serves as a benefit for the player who like to show his achievements in the game to all of his friends and also helps to build the overall community by improving awareness of the game.

So many of these suggestions for achievements would fit in well with this....

[Kento]

That's a good idea, for community building. If you want to promote your product through Facebook, having some sort of "So and so invited you to play his/her map in Creeper World" alert might also generate some sales.

[Aurzel]

oh dear god, virgil said the 'f' word *faints*

[Young]

This is an excellent idea and give more replay value to the game.

[Kento]

The story mode is so long though, that the achievements really have to be quite varied and number of them have to be very challenging, or else you may have earned all of them by the time you complete the story mode, and it won't add anything to replaybility.

I've just completed the story mode, and I have another idea for an achievement. Defeat Loki without Thor. It would certainly be time consuming, but I think it's possible!

[knucracker]

Indeed, that will be an achievement.  I've not mapped all of them out, but I'd like to have 'many'... and not all of them would be things anybody would ever do during story mode.

[betadata]

some ideas for achievements that would give you medals in "a medal room" these do not have to unlock any in game improvements, but maybe a new map to play that could assist in achieving the next ,medal. 
1) win using only blasters, could add a condition only 1
2) win using only mortars, SAA, continue through all weapon types.
3) different score milestones, 9K 9200, etc....
4) time played. some might not like to know how much time they are actually playing CW  ;)
5) win using no collectors.
6) defeat numbers of custom maps. beat 5 custom maps, beat 10 custom maps.ect...
 

[Kento]

Now there's a novel solution, but if the maps are going to be tailored to make earning further achievements easier, those achievements aided by the new maps have to be made unavailable to those playing on custom maps, since one could just recreate the map instead of actually earning it.

[Aurzel]

i dont think any achievements should be able to be earned by playing custom maps otherwise it's very easy to go around it
say you have an achievment to build x amount of something, you can make a map with one less than the target and build the last one to win
of an achievement to destroy y amount of creeper in one game, make a map with a huge pool of fast reproducing creeper and giving the player 5 mortars with tons of reactors at the beginning of the map and the player can just walk away for 10 minutes and let the creeper killing rack up

[Mrmcdeath]

While that be true you could also make badges for your own maps that when other people play them then if they beat said level then they would earn said badge.