creatures caves welcome, guest
downloads   gallery   dev   community   creatchi   forum   mycaves
bookmarks | search | post new topic
Development Forum
old
Out-of-Reach Dreams Discussion   
Amaikokonut

Amaikokonut
United States  

 visit Amaikokonut's website: Naturing :: Nurturing
  8/14/2012  2

This process is three-fold:

1: Tell us about an agent, breed, metaroom, etc., that you have always wanted to develop (and that is actually feasible to develop within the limits of the game engine), but have not, for one reason or another. Go into as much detail as you want, tell us why that idea has stuck with you, what makes it special, why you would love to see it manifested!

2: Tell us why you haven't developed it. Is it because you lack a specific skillset (such as CAOS or spriting)? Maybe you have the skills, but not the time, or maybe you started development and got stuck for some reason, or lost all your progress and were disheartened. Maybe you are completely capable of developing it, but you don't believe there's any need or desire for it in the community. Whatever the reasons, consider each one.

3: Consider what it would take to overcome those hindrances and bring your dream to life. Would a few decent tutorials give you the help you needed? The right software? Would you be willing to invest the time into learning a new skillset, would you rather find someone with the skillsets you needed to collaborate with? Do you just need some inspiration or motivation? How far would you be willing to go? What would you be willing to compromise? Where would you draw the line?

The goal here is not just to share with others, but to get you thinking about what exactly stands between you and your dream project. Feel free to take as many of your ideas through this process as you want, or even in general discuss why you develop, why you don't develop, and what your personal roadblocks to development usually are.

I'm curious to hear what sort of potential is bouncing around in our collective head!


[Naturing :: Nurturing]
 
RisenAngel
Sanely Insane

RisenAngel

Manager


 visit RisenAngel's website: The Realm
  8/14/2012

I think this would be as good a thread as any to bring up the Kraken (note that the page is very outdated; my concept for the breed has changed significantly since then).

1. The Kraken were my idea of an aquatic geat breed, designed around the concept of the aforementioned tentacled creature from Norse folklore. Over the years, I ditched the concept of their being geats, mostly because of the Wasteland Glitch (which I believe is a glitch with the engine itself, and therefore unfixable unless someone can go into the engine's code and recode it there), and they are now grendels. I've also ditched the cannibalism aspect since that's way too easily abused by creatures.
Appearance-wise, their tails have become a mass of tentacles (though the actual sprite for the tail only consists of a pair of long squid-like tentacles - the rest of them are part of the body sprite, ala the C1 grendels). I'll probably sketch their current design and upload it to the internet at some point. Everything else on the page is still something I'd like to do for them.

2. To actually do anything for the Kraken would require insane spriting skills...which I don't have. I can't draw, I can't make models, etc. And I really don't have the patience to learn how, either. I also can't make body data outside of copy-pasting existing BD. Beyond that, I could handle everything else for them - I can code stuff now in addition to make genetics, so I could code most of their agents and make their genome. Anything beyond that is out of my skill level.

3. Actually learning how to model would probably put me closer to seeing the Kraken get completed. The problem there is just I'm honestly just too lazy to learn. I'm seriously ADHD; trying to put the hours necessary to do anything with Blender (for example) would just frustrate me and make me want to go do something more fun. Plus, Blender (the only free modeling program, as far as I can tell) has one heck of a learning curve, and most other programs cost as much as a new car, if not more, and honestly the car would be a better investment. There's Bryce, but unfortunately I lost my access key for that program and really don't want to buy it again. As such, I'd rather work with someone who actually has the patience to make sprites, since for me CAOs and Genetics are much, much easier and usually easier to work with.


~ The Realm ~
Risen Angel's Creatures Blog


 
Officer-1BDI

Officer-1BDI


 visit Officer-1BDI's website: My Tumblr Account (semi-NSFW)
  8/15/2012

I've had too many ideas, growing to various levels of conception, that I never fully fleshed out. There are two metarooms in particular that keep coming back to me:

Metaroom 1: the Blatant Callback by the Obsessed Fangirl

Years ago, I really, really wanted to make a Futurama-themed metaroom based on the Planet Express ship. Almost all of the ship's rooms would be accessible, from the bridge with a ridiculous amount of buttons that don't do anything useful, to the mess hall full of barely edible goodies, to the cargo room with boxes and boxes of strange new toys undelivered shipments, and even the turret gun, which would have largely acted like the cannon in C1. It would have been a large set of rooms, likely bigger than the Capillata. The ship was meant to be a giant ball of references and fun, and even though I'm not as attached to the show as I was before I still think this room has potential.

The biggest roadblock here is the most obvious: I don't have any rights to the show and creating the metaroom would be a huge copyright violation. And potentially violating copyright law scares me. A lot. That's not something I can see myself ever getting around, so I've kept the idea on the back-burner indefinitely.

So, after I remember why that project was hopeless, I'd usually turn to my other main idea:

Metaroom 2: the Lone Shee's Quarters

Back when I was still writing fanfiction featuring the Lone Shee, I had this idea that he had his own secret room(s) on the Capillata where he slept, cooked, etc. They weren't supposed to be accessible to creatures until [random magical plot device] revealed an entryway to these areas in the modern-day game. The room would have featured sleeping quarters, a small kitchen area, and a private garden (and maybe a workshop/laboratory as well). I was planning on having a bunch of interactive LS artifacts hidden throughout the room for Hands to stumble across as they and their creatures explored the area.

The biggest issue with this metaroom is that I don't have the time and energy to learn everything I'd need to to 1) code a room, 2) code the agents for said room, 3) draw up the room and items in a 3D modeling program. I'm dealing with some significant health issues right now, on top of trying to find a better job and dealing with various draining "real-life" issues in my life, so the metaroom hasn't been my priority in a long time.

Even if that weren't an issue, I keep fighting with myself over how the metaroom should look. Different people have different interpretations of the Shee, and I keep falling into this trap where I want to do the impossible and satisfy everyone in the community with what I put in the metaroom. Or I argue about nook placements: the garden should be switched with the sleeping quarters, but then it's too far away from the kitchen, and where the heck am I going to fit the WC?!, etc. I've tried taking the time to draft blueprints of the room, but they change almost every time I take a pencil to them. :P


You have to be honest with yourself when you are writing. If that leads to somewhere unexpected then perhaps you really needed to go there.
-- Jim Adkins

 
Ghosthande
Prodigal Sock

Ghosthande


 visit Ghosthande's website: Breeders Beware
  8/15/2012

I love the idea though! Hope your health is okay.

I think most people probably know what's on the further side of my to-do list--eg. Bai Loki, the Invader Zim metaroom... the projects I haven't mentioned are the ones I expect will be out soon. The only thing I'm really short on that stops me from finishing it all is good, relaxed programming time. Though having someone nosy to ask what I'm up to from time to time also helps, because it encourages me to stay busy. :P



 
Malkin

Malkin

Manager


 visit Malkin's website: Malkin's page at CWiki
  8/15/2012

I like to think I try to keep my dreams within reason, but Moe and Liam could probably tell you that's not the case... ;)

I often write up my ideas in the ideas pool, in case I forget.

One of the biggest hurdles for me, as a Mac developer, is that I don't get as much feedback from the game as to WHY a piece of code is wrong as everyone else does. This means that, coming from a natural language background, I have to really concentrate on making sure my 'grammar' is correct, instead of being able to use the CAOS Tool to tell me a thing is wrong and why, and to learn by feedback. (Does the CAOS tool do why?)

I often post up threads with my code to get others to grammar-check it, as sometimes some really good discussions get started, and I don't mind being an example of errors. :) That's better done pre-release than post, so why not?

Ideally, I'd like to be able to read the caos.syntax file, or even have a platform independent CAOS Tool. Unlikely to happen as it's far too difficult, but it'd be nice. :)


My TCR Norns
 
Ettina

Ettina



  8/16/2012

Well, up until recently, the confusing items would've been one, but someone kindly made them for me. :-)

I guess one thing would be norns that can tell the difference between doing something for the first time and the 16th time. I'd like norns who get bored by repetition and seek out new actions to alleviate boredom. But the big barrier is that norns don't have any way to tell when they're being repetitive. It should be thereotically possible to do this by having a second set of lobes that provide an 'echo' of the attention and decision lobes, and wiring up a bunch of stuff to react to whether those echos show the same thing as the current values. But I don't know enough about how norn brains work to do this.

What would help is more brain tutorials. I've only found a few, and they focus on very basic things. I'd like a tutorial explaining how brain lobes communicate with each other.


By the way, I don't care if anyone steals my ideas for their own work, as long as you don't try to stop me from making my own stuff. Many ideas I mention are things I don't have the time or skill to actually do.
 
Wiimeiser

Wiimeiser



  8/16/2012

A utility addon for the CoC Rooms, 'cause it could use one. I have an image but it's quite large, should I post it here?

Hashikin ko Tyni Kong Taria Haju'Rumia'an Klodz'Proddi. Terdish oxen saur yessi atai Kongo Dolpik!
 
bailey76

bailey76


 visit bailey76's website: Bailey's Creatures Cabin
  8/17/2012

This is an idea I had today. I don't have the time to make all the sprites that are required. My idea is to make a new species for the shee or ettin slot (in C1) and instead of having different breeds have different body parts that mix together seamlessly to create creatures that are both more diverse and realistic. For example:

Slot 0 Head: Cat ears, small eyes
Slot 1 Head: Banana norn ears, small eyes
Slot 5 Head: Cat ears, large eyes
Slot 0 Legs: Long length, spotted pattern
Slot 2 Legs: Medium length, striped pattern

And so on. They would all have a gray tone both for uniformity and to make pigments show up more. When they mixed together, the resulting creature would look as unique as possible, but not a Frankenstein monster hodgepodge of different pieces. (Not that theres anything wrong with that, I love seeing what body parts a norn will hatch with. It would just be different.)

 
SpringRain

SpringRain



  8/20/2012

1: I'd really like to develop the beauty pack of agents from my concept drawings in the gallery. :D Ideally, I would like to create this same pack for each game (C1, C2 and C3/DS), adjusting the CoBs and/or agents to suit each world and Creatures.

The only issue is, I've never made an agent or a CoB before. I've read through some tutorials and I remember playing around a little bit by drawing a round blobby shape, injecting it into Docking Station and then using some CAOS codes on it with resulting hilarity but that's about as far as I got. As for the artwork of the agents, I am either going to be scanning in hand drawn art, or using MS Paint or GIMP. I think I can work out how to do the sprites okay, so long as I read through more tutorials again. Maybe once I have those done the rest will start to come more easily.

The other thing is, I'm strapped for time! Busy, busy bee. If I can get the sprites done, then I'm sure I can figure out the rest by asking for some help from more experienced creators.

2: I simply struggle for time to do this, partly due to health issues which sap my energy when I do get time, and partly because I'm leading a busy life.

3: If I set aside some time per week or even per day and got the art done then that's a good start. Reading over tutorials written for children would also be rather helpful. Lol.

I think all I need is a little guidance and some really (I mean REALLY) simple explanations. Maybe with stick figure drawings.


I'm back after 11 years. Holy dooley!
 
Bifrost

Bifrost



  8/22/2012

I have more than one Creatures related "dream" I'd like to see become a reality, but I can start with the most prestigious and wild one. It's a room for DS (and C3), but it's much more a world, with hopefully even more than one room.

1: "Creatures: Albian ReGenesis"
It's Albia. Both C1 Albia, C2 Albia and something more.

After reaching Sphericus, a group of shee started feeling extremely homesick, and quite dizzy from all the treedimensionality of it all. So the decided to go back home. Stumbling across the Warp, they not only found their way home, but found a way to reach Albia in several versions and timelines. In a grand project, they utilized the Warp to bring together the best features of the Albias, past, present and future, all into one world - not so far from what it was like before they left, and before the lone shee let loose the Capillata and caused the volcanic eruption that tore the surface apart. Still, the lower levels of Albia - with its machinery and secrets, were available from certain parts of the surface. The Great Tree Yggdrassil had not withered and died, but rather stood taller and prouder than ever before. But in all their successful work with the Warp, the Warp backfired, and tore the shee off the world before they had completed their work and established a new home, back home. Where the shee went remains to be seen.

With this, though, it'll be up to you to reconquer the rebirth of Albia and allow life to prosper once again. Recolonize Albia with norns and ettins, or even grendels if you're thusly inclined.


That's the short version of the background story for a world I'd love to see. The graphics are actually being made for it (have a sneakpeak at here - I usually update this with a small version of the most recent development) but...

2: I couldn't do the required coding for the life of me. The world would need to be "disced" like C12DS and C2toDS so it'll be round. I'd need elevators, machinery and an ecosystem. I'd like to add visible and functioning day/night-time, seasons and various plants and critters directly from or inspired by C12DS and C2toDS. I could manage most of the graphics, but for the rest, I'm more or less clueless.

3: This is where the CC comes in. If I ever get around to finish the graphics, I'd love to be able to get together a team of coders, graphical workers (for details, machinery and other stuff that's bound to come up) and perhaps even geneticists to make it all come together. But that's not for right now, as I want to come closer to a finished base first, and then perhaps get it all started. I'd like to add other rooms to the world as well, such as the temple-like building you see in the C1 background above the garden (or in my current profile pic here) and a few other places that might be natural to add.

Anyone think there might become any interest in establishing a team and make a new world?

 
sam999

sam999


 visit sam999's website: Speculative Evolution
  8/22/2012

Weird idea of mine.

SCP Foundation Agent Pack


For those unaware the SCP foundation is an incredibly good collaborative creepypasta project on which I am a contributor, alibit not as "sam999." The idea of combining my interests and producing a pack of agents based around the foundation is prevented by my lack of any form of coding or spiriting skills although I hope someone might like ideas here.

Ideas:

SCP-076 - "Able"
A black box classed as "bad" big enough to hold an adult norn. If no "Able" is in the world at present it opens and releases an adult male one. An "Able" norn is a genetic breed with porcelain norn sprites, a reddish-brown color shift and an invisible agent following it about injecting it with anger, keeping it healthy, preventing it from breeding and dropping pointless little black weapons about which vanish themselves after a few seconds.


SCP-131 - The "Eye Pods"
A pair of toys that reduce loneliness and follow your norns about. Can use doors to move about the starship.

SCP-173 - The "Sculpture"
When not looked at by a norn "I.E. the green arrow is over it" or on your screen at the same time you are it teleports about the room attacking Creatures. Can use doors but only move for a limited distance at a time to give norns a chance. Don't Blink.

SCP-217 - The Clockwork Virus
A virus which deliberately introduces repetitive behavior to infected creatures as well as having tiny bits of gears and clockwork junk spring up using the "CA Clothing" style thing.

SCP-426 - I am a Toaster
I am a portable vendor for toast whom creatures will refer to in the first person. Unlike how I am mentioned on the SCP foundation site I am harmless.

SCP-753 - Automatic Artist
A toy. If pushed makes paintings, smaller toys which vanish after a few minutes. You can tell I like this SCP, its picture is my avatar.

SCP-1867 - A Gentleman
A toy. If pushed will start telling "in a nornlike speech bubble" a story of one of his many adventures. Sometimes crawls about on his own.

 
FlyingEttiNorn

FlyingEttiNorn



  8/23/2012

I really want a dragon cave metaroom with a sleeping dragon that gave off heat and a murky pool of water and treasure that "smelled" like gadgets so Ettins would hoard them, but I'm ten years old, so I know nothing about CAOS xD
 
SpringRain

SpringRain



  9/6/2012

I love your idea, FlyingEttiNorn! A dragon cave with treasure sounds super cool. One day I hope someone can help you create this...or maybe I can if I ever figure out how to make metarooms and agents.



I'm back after 11 years. Holy dooley!
 


downloads
cobs
adoptions
creaturelink
metarooms
breeds
 
gallery
art
wallpaper
screenshots
graphics
promos
sprites
dev
hack shack
script reservations
dev resources
active projects
dev forum
 
community
links
advice
chat
polls
resources
creatchi
 
forum
bookmarks
general
news
help
development
strangeo
survivor
mycaves
log in
register
lost pw
0 online
creatures caves is your #1 resource for the creatures artificial life game series: creatures, creatures 2, creatures 3, docking station, and the upcoming creatures family.

contact    help    privacy policy    terms & conditions    rules    donate    wiki