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Olive

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A member registered Mar 09, 2016 · View creator page →

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Oh these are so sick. Amazing work!

Yep, correct. We carefully considered doing hexes but ultimately decided that the development time spent paying the Hex Tax would be better spent elsewhere.

I loved reading this, thank you for making it

Thanks! Happy new year to you too!

Thank you!!

This is in Godot, not unity

They called it "overengineering" and "a disturbing adherence to abstract organizational principles that don't have a utilitarian immediate purpose" but who's laughing now?? Code is change! Defensive decoupling of concerns will keep you alive in the face of an unknown and shifting future! Ahahaha.....

It's a known bug; it's fixed in the downloadable version.

There isn't a public build beyond the alpha demo on the itch page. Playtests of the Kickstarter version will start hopefully Q1 next year.

Here's a video showing the problem and the shader fix:


Tbh I'm not totally sure how the shader works, but I know it was originally developed for showing pixel art textures in 3D spaces.

Hey thanks! I'm glad you're getting use out of it! I've thought a lot about Braitenberg vehicles while making this. It's interesting to see the difference in locomotion types and requisite underlying circuity when you have muscles instead of motors. Without a motor that turns a steady signal into motion, animals have to use a lot more back-and-forth rhythm-based systems. But the principles are identical! In case you haven't seen it, the "Zippy" premade creature is a direct example of the "sensory crossover produces wall-avoidant-behavior" design.

The current development state of the game is on the backburner; I'm doing bugfixes as they come up and features whenever someone tosses me some funding for a specific project. But I'm married to the idea of neurobio games and have the full intention of coming back with a Crescent Loom 2 in a couple years — likely under that sort of license-based biz model that keeps it free for most and paid for orgs that can afford it.

Thank you, I'll take a look!

Ah, that blue orb is an egg. Sounds like it crashes on it hatching, which happens ~8 seconds after being laid. Would you mind saving to the server the creature that crashes the game when the baby hatches and let me know its name so I can try to replicate?

And yes, sounds like you finished the tutorial, it doesn't signpost the fact super well. The game is just a sandbox after that.

I started building the web demo before I knew that it would need to support the full game; it was only going to be a little toy until the Kickstarter took off. So we've been rebuilding it from ground up since March with the underlying structure like this event system to be able to handle the weight of the full game.

> how you can work as a neuroscientist and at the same time be an indie developer
Lots of indie devs do the nights/weekends thing while working a day job — mine just happened to be in a lab. I'm not in any active research projects and now consider myself more of a science communicator aka making science-based games.

So I highly encourage you to lean into what you love about biology! If you keep honing your game-making skills on the side, I'm sure you'll find something cool and unique to say about biology in the language of games.

The downloadable HTML version needs to be hosted locally to work; it's mostly there for educators who want to set up games behind a school firewall but can't install the native version for some reason.

Instead, try the PC/Mac/Linux native builds that are included in the download. If you want to play in the web browser, you can do so at crescentloom.com/game

I still can't currently update the browser version, so all I can recommend is trying the download.

Incredible, thank you for making it! Short, sweet, heartfelt. I bet I'll think of my relationship with clothes differently now.

Thanks — is this the HTML version or downloadable?

Oh snap, great, thank you. Added to the bug list.

Hm. The one thing that might work (I haven't tested it on a screen with smaller dimensions) is checking the "full screen" box — that'll either force the game to the size of your screen OR it will make it be one of those dimensions and just keep running off.

Not all the elements of the current UI are responsive enough to fit on smaller heights (which is why the options in the menu are so limited), so even if the full screen works, the tops/bottoms of the radial action menu still may be cut off. We're currently working on a UI redesign that will be more adaptable to various sizes.

If it's insurmountable, you might be stuck with the HTML version and have to scroll up and down until we get the next update out (which will likely be post-kickstarter).

(1 edit)

Just put this in an FAQ on the kickstarter because enough people were asking about it. 

For the demo, I've been working on a shoestring budget with asset packs from itch.io and Pita's excellent overworld tileset was the best match in scale and content for Blobertson's mech asset pack and Viridian. I also wanted to get an MVP out asap without paying the technical Hex Tax.
So: hexes are a possibility that we're going to discuss once we know what kind of budget we'll be working with, but no promises. Lancer was originally designed to be played on a square grid, anyway; you can see artifacts left from that history in systems like the Black Witch's perimeter command plate.

so tldr maybe, but it's an expendable feature and we're biting off a lot to chew already

Ah, this one's a bugbear. It's fixed in the downloadable version, but I can't update the browser version until Godot 4's fixes its html export. I'll add an extra note underneath the HTML version as a warning.

If it's humanly possible to do in godot, yes! I think it's important to get software running on non-proprietary systems.

The html5 demo was make in godot 3.5, and I've been updating the downloadable along the 4.0 betas and release candidates — which is why I haven't been able to update the html5 version, the 4.0 html5 export still is very buggy.

Incidentally, I made the call last week that I'll be remaking the project from scratch in 4.0 to drop a lot of baggage from that updating process and bake in better assumptions in how content is structured. Being able to copy over the code from the demo is making it go a lot quicker than the first time around.

You're in the right place! Thanks for the report, that's good to know. A few questions:
- What happens when you adjust the volume in the settings panel? Does the music stay messed up but just gets louder/quieter?
- Is it only the music that's broken, or are the sound effects funky too?
- Are you on windows or mac?

Switching to a message board wipes out all the comment threads, so here's a janky attempt to preserve them.

Sclavian
Found a bug i managed to replicate three times out of four, and i didn't see a report for it, it seems the Reactive code trait o the goblin softlocks the game.  and I also want to say that i love the game it's everything i knew i wanted AND some things i didn't knew i wanted <3
Olive
Yep, reactive code is problematic. I should be putting out a new downloadable version with a fix in the next few days. Thanks for the report 👍
Bit Assembly
Managed to break the game. A witch decided to hack my goblin. I responded with an Eject Power Core and the game just hard locked. GG, OSIRIS decided to jam the game, does that mean I win?
Olive
Ha, hack so hard you break the game. Yeah, there's a bug in the web version where reactive code just always crashes the game. It should be fixed in the downloadable version — I can't make a new html5 build until the Godot 4 engine fixes some bugs.
Bit Assembly
ah, heck. Yeah. Downloaded the app, and its way smoother, lots of good lil upgrades. But the exact same scenario happened, I jammed them, and the game hard locked again.
Olive
Ah, thanks! I'll look into it.
Uthemartheold
Really enjoying this so far and I'm looking forward to future updates! As someone who hasn't been able to find a table to play at yet this a fun way to mess around with the combat some, and I might use it to help teach the combat basics to a friend (understanding that it's not necessarily 1-to-1 in the niche cases but that's fine for now). Great job! (^^)b Quick bug to report, during the recon portion of albatross the witch triggered reactive code on the goblin, which hard-locked the game. The reactive code reaction UI came up, but I wasn't able to use any of the goblin's tech attacks on the witch or choose not to use the reaction. I'm not familiar enough with the rules to be sure if I wasn't able to attack due to line-of-sight problems or range, but I definitely wasn't able to cancel the reaction. EDIT: Was playing some more and it's definitely a problem with reactive code. During the first half of albatross, a berserker tried to tech attack the goblin and the same thing happened. Less than two spaces away, no cover or line of sight issues, I wasn't able to select a tech attack or cancel the reaction to continue the turn order.
Olive
Thanks for the kind words and bug report! I think the reactive code bug should be fixed in the downloadable versions; I only learned that Godot 4.0 isn't quite ready to build for html5 after upgrading to it. >_<'
Uthemartheold
Oh I'm sorry for not specifying, but I was playing the downloadable version when this bug happened, not the web version. Sorry for the bad news if you thought the bug was squashed :/
Olive
Alas! Thank you, I'll investigate..
Vieruel
i super dig this not only as a neat game but also tbh its helped me understand lancers combat better (i always had trouble understanding it by just reading how it worked) so thanks for making this!
SuetyHercules
This is absolutely incredible, I can't wait to see this grow!!!
Olive
✨✨✨ thanks, there's some very exciting developments in the works!
xana0908
really fun but it seems to have some trouble when reactions are involved. my guess is that the AI decided on a set of actions but if a reaction prevents this from happening it kinda just stops working
Olive
I'm not surprised, the order of operations can get a little hairy. Can you be more specific about which reactions seem to be having problems under what conditions?
(also whether you're seeing those problems on the downloadable version or just the older in-browser version)
xana0908
for the older in browser version  the first time I encountered the issue was when someone tried to invade my goblin. I tried to use eject power cores on it and the game froze up.  the next time it happened I rammed a berserker and I guess that confused its aggression. the last time it was an issue was when I killed a berserker with an overwatch & turret drones as for the download version i have not played too much on that so I cant confirm if it still happens there or not edit: the prone thing still seems to break berserkers in the download version
Olive
Excellent, thank you for the bug report! :)
xXrebuXx
this is so cool I'm in a discord server that has a bunch of lancer players definitely going to tell them to check this out
Musselina
i cannot describe how cool this is!
Olive
thank you! I think so too ^^
ProphetZarquon
Hm, I keep getting Page Not Responding, 75% through loading the Tutorial.  When I click Albatross, & select my squad, it goes Not Responding after I click Launch. Could be my old i3 laptop...
Olive
The html5 version has hit a way harder performance wall than I was expecting. It'd probably load eventually on an older laptop but won't be pretty. I'll try making desktop versions soon, they should run much smoother.
Thanks for the heads-up and your patience!
Olive
Desktop PC build is up. Let me know if you're still seeing performance problems when running it natively.
ProphetZarquon
I'll check it out, thanks! Most of the time I'd be able to play, is not at a PC of my own, though
Orionnoir
This is great! Sure it's rough, but still great start! Now I can get my Lancer fix between games! ;D
Olive
Thank you :))
SmallMight
Im curious id you think this may ever open up to/be able to run (sandbox mode) group lancer actual session play in?
Olive
Oh, that's an interesting idea. I've decided to not do remote multiplayer to keep the scope down, but local hotseat might be possible 🤔
Things that I'd need to figure out:
* it would probably need some larger modding/mapmaking tools, which won't be coming anytime soon (but someday!)
* how to handle hidden GM information like stats to scan for
* I don't plan on ever porting all mechanics and items from the ttrpg because it's just A Lot so not everything would be available.
Generally, I'd need to be convinced that making it a virtual tabletop would be worth it — what would a sandbox mode do that the virtual tabletops which already exist can't do?
Bluhman
Glad you're continuing work on this, and appreciate the executive decisions you're taking with how Action Economy works here.
now for the Pedantic Rule Stickler things as Guy Who Player Way Too Much Of This Game, i mean this all in a purely constructive manner:
* QUICK/FULL TECH: You can take the same option for a tech action multiple times within the same action (PG 71, FULL TECH, last sentence) - or in other words, you can use a Full Tech to do the same single Quick Tech option twice (i.e. you can Lock-On twice in the same turn without Overcharging. You can even Puppet Systems twice within a single turn.) This is also working under the same looseness of how this implementation of how Skirmish/Barrage don't strictly exist (which by the way I personally support. Though it might also introduce some questions as to how to implement talents such as Skirmisher that rely on this distinction...)
* FRIENDLY INVADE: You are allowed to use Invade options on friendly targets without either having to roll to hit, OR actually inflict Heat to your allies (Core Rulebook, PG 70). This gets particularly important if you choose Goblin and use Puppet Systems - yeah, it's not only an Overwatch activator on enemies, but it's an ally mobility-tool as well.
* LOCK-ON: Consuming lock-on is an option instead of automatic - a player can choose to not consume lock-on, which can be important if the weapon they use to attack is inherently accurate and would benefit less (since accuracy stacking doesn't help that much).
* ATTACK CLASSIFICATION: some actions classified as "attacks" in this demo, such as LOCK-ON, are not actual attacks. It's a silly distinction, I agree, but it somehow gets important when considering how what is and is not an "attack" interacts with frame traits such as Kobold's Mimic Carapace or systems like Swallowtail II Retractable Profile.
* SWALLOWTAIL: still lacks Integrated Cloak trait?
* STABILIZING: while I do appreciate the fact that just doing all the options at once is nice, it does mean that just turtling on the Holdout Point repeatedly becomes a much more viable tactic when you can just repeatedly full-heal and un-expose all at once.
* MANUAL BOOSTING: This is something weird that gets ESPECIALLY important when considering Nelson: doing a Boost action without using your basic movement, because Momentum is a thing. As it is right now, you have to move far enough to deplete your standard movement range to use the Boost quick action. Meanwhile using a Boost to immediately activate Nelson Momentum is a Strat. Also outside of Nelson stuff, it is the way to work around some of the more minute traits of how Engagement works with size (Page 62)
Especially considering how convoluted having to manually keep track of how the mechanics of some frames work (particularly: Duskwing, Zheng, and Hydra) I absolutely endorse and look forward to how this can streamline the process.
Olive
Ha, I feel for you, I also have the lancer rules brain affliction. Most of this stuff is either just not implemented yet or is waiting on me nailing down the underlying data structure & UI before I handle the edge cases.
I'm also still agnostic about how closely I'm going to cleave to the ttrpg rules (as you noted, there's already some action economy tweaks - but I'm still not happy with how overcharging can lead to weird situations with two half-actions in the tank). Eg I need to figure out how I'm going to handle the option to brace against EVERY incoming attack, which could easily be a UI and pacing nightmare — and however that pans out will probably affect things like the lockon consumption flow, so I'm waiting before tightening those screws.
Thanks for the endorsement :p I adore this system
Rattleboneses
This project is so awesome, lets me think in depth about the flow of Lancer play, and even just this little bit is super replayable! btw, I encountered a glitch: After using puppeteer systems with the Goblin on a Berserker, the Berserker passed their heat cap without being destroyed.
Olive
Oh cool, thanks for catching that! I'll cap their heat to their heat cap. The lack of them getting destroyed is intentional though — by the book, overheated npcs with 1 stress don't get destroyed, just exposed.
Rattleboneses
Sweet, thanks! This whole project is super rad and inspiring me to try learning game dev tools myself!
OverLordDante
Absolutely phenomenal. Exactly what I would want out of a Lancer game. I can't wait to see this develop further
Olive
Me tooooo, all I want to do these days is work on this.
Timpani
I am a Lancer GM and this gave me some useful insights as well as being fun to play. Compliments particularly on the intuitive HUD design.
Olive
Oh that's nice — one of my hopes has been that playing this helps people get a better handle on the tabletop game, so it's good that even this demo is doing that!
RedRook
Oh, definitely! I've linked it to my players in my online game; some of them were having trouble with the mechanics and it's really helping them out.
RedRook
This game is so cool! I'm one hundred percent in once crowdfunding starts.
Olive
Rad! That's quite motivating to hear :)
badatnamesbluhbluh
This is really, really cool! I don't wanna expect the world out of it, but even just cleaning up what's already here would be wonderful. One glitch that I someone else did experience, though, was that overwatching with the Blackbeard hardlocked the game.
Olive
:D Thank you! That's great to hear. Re: hardlock, so I understand: it shows this screen and then you're unable to click the nanocarbon sword?

badatnamesbluhbluh
Nope. I was able to click on the nanocarbon sword and swing, but past that I wasn't able to select any of my units nor end the turn.
Olive
Cool, thank you.
TommyDude
Holy moly this is like, the best.
Olive
Ah thank you! I try.
TommyDude
when this hits crowdfunding count me in :D
standard.deviant
how do I pay you to make this into a full game?
Olive
If the stars align, crowdfunding sometime next year(?)
I gotta flesh this demo out first though, which is a nights-and-weekends kind of situation.
Morphine482
This is great!  Wonderful work!
Olive
Thank you! I thrive on this kind of external validation ^^
MizuBlackRiver
Really fun! <3
Olive
Thanks! I'm glad you think so!
turista1911
I love i
Crestfallen Remediless Schizophrene
This looks very nice, but need improve i thing :D
Nrftime
This is wonderful!
KriKit
Great first project!

Hi! The reddit is probably your best bet.

Yep, I haven't released an update since I decided to (organizationally) push it to 1.0, the number will get bumped up next time I fix or add something.

And yes, the tutorial ends there; I suppose a little notification or something would probably be good.

Yep, reactive code is problematic. I should be putting out a new downloadable version with a fix in the next few days. Thanks for the report 👍

Oh fantastic! I'm very glad to hear that. I'm having trouble following the discussion — is there an obvious way you see that I could re-build the game so it doesn't rely on that depreciated curl option? e.g. recompile a version of Cerberus X with different dependencies or while in an Arch environment?

The game was built in Cerberus X, which automatically transpiles to various things, so I don't usually directly touch the libraries it uses to talk to the OS.... however, CSX is open source so we can just search it; this looks like it might be promising? I just searched Crescent Loom's repo to confirm that I don't mention libcurl anywhere else. I am using that httprequest.cxs file to talk to the creature server, so that might be a good list to pursue.

Sorry you've had to spend so long googling this! >_< I appreciate you posting the problems/potential solutions here. I'm also happy to keep assisting to the best of my ability, I'd love to see the game work on more versions of linux.

Ah, thanks! I'll look into it.

Alas! Thank you, I'll investigate..

Hm, I don't recognize libcurl-nss.so and am not well-versed in linux packages, so to fix it I'd probably do the same thing that you've done and google it and wildly install any package I come across. I see libcurl4-nss-dev or maybe libcurl3 or maybe libcurl4 as other possible packages.

Ha, hack so hard you break the game. Yeah, there's a bug in the web version where reactive code just always crashes the game. It should be fixed in the downloadable version — I can't make a new html5 build until the Godot 4 engine fixes some bugs.

Thanks for the kind words and bug report! I think the reactive code bug should be fixed in the downloadable versions; I only learned that Godot 4.0 isn't quite ready to build for html5 after upgrading to it. >_<'

✨✨✨ thanks, there's some very exciting developments in the works!

Excellent, thank you for the bug report! :)

I'm not surprised, the order of operations can get a little hairy. Can you be more specific about which reactions seem to be having problems under what conditions?

(also whether you're seeing those problems on the downloadable version or just the older in-browser version)

I am so so excited about the explodey robot game!! It's nice to be picking up a project that is more reasonably-scoped than "invent an entirely new tool for visualizing nervous systems that is fun to play and requires no background in science". Your kind words over the many years mean a lot to me. <3