CCSF 2015 Survey #2

It's been long enough since I first posted CCSF 2015 Survey #1 that I feel it's time to move on to the next stages of planning for CCSF 2015.

Here are the initial results for CCSF 2015 Survey #1. As a reminder, you can still submit responses to Survey #1 if you wish; it'll remain open throughout the planning process.

CCSF 2015 Survey #2 is now ready to go! This is the more standard one that asks about themes and whatnot.

Furthermore, I've decided to officially open submissions for the CCSF 2015. Please send those to ccsf(dot)2015(at)yahoo(dot)com.

I have my own set of thoughts about the themes and other things about the CCSF 2015, and I'll post those here (copied from the Creatures Caves topic):

"I'm in favor of the traditional November date. It's worked out well enough for the past however many CCSFs, and it'll offer a decent amount of time for people to work on contributions from now until the festival's start. However, I am open to the idea of changing the festival's length; in the past, the distribution of the submissions throughout the festival sometimes got pretty thin. Having a bunch of more tightly packed releases over, say, one week could possibly make for a better CCSF than a bunch of sparsely distributed releases over two.

For the place for hosting it...I would rather not host the CCSF 2015 on Creatures Caves if I have a better option. Although 2014 at least tried to stand out more, the two CCaves CCSFs had massive trouble differentiating themselves from the rest of the site and they suffered for it as a result. Furthermore, one of the replies to Survey #1 made a very good point: hosting it here made the CCSF look like a feature of Creatures Caves when in reality it should be an event that spans the entire community. It's the sort of event that absolutely needs its own website.

Where would I put it instead? I'd love to have it be at www.creatures.org.uk, the traditional hosting place of the CCSF, but sadly I'm not sure how feasible that is. Worst come to worst I can put it on Blogger ala CCSF 2012, since that festival was, at least to me, one of the best, but if anyone has a better idea then say so in the survey.

Finally, the theme. I have an idea of my own I've been pondering ever since I chose to take the task of coordinating: the will to survive.

No, this isn't Darwinism or any other scientific related thing. I'm talking about the community's will to survive. The will that, long after the demise of Creatures Labs, keeps us playing this series, finding new things about it years after its release, and forging new addons for it when it could have died so long ago. We're still talking about it, sharing our findings and the fruits of our labors, and showing off all that we've done with and for it. Years after we've practically been abandoned, we're still alive and refuse to die.

This is the will that the CCSF is a testament to, and ultimately celebrating."

Artemia Sea Update #2

It's only been one post since the last Artemia Sea update, and here I am with another. Okay, in reality it's actually been a while since the last Artemia Sea update, but given how infrequently I've been posting it certainly looks recent. 

This update is considerably more substantial than the last one:

• All the flora and fauna will now fall down slightly after being picked up and dropped. This is because they stop functioning completely when picked up, and when one put them in the inventory or some other vehicle they'd unrealistically keep floating.
• Dead organisms will now adjust their falling speed depending on if they're in water or not. Previously, their floating speed depended on where they died; they'd drop like rocks if they died due to drowning in air or slowly fall down if they died of natural causes underwater, regardless of their current room type. 
• The adult jellyfish are considerably less toxic, making them slightly less dangerous to creatures.
• If for some reason a shark dies (normally they can only die when the hand manually changes their attributes and drags them above water), it won't "revive" if pushed or pulled. 
• The seahorses will move a little faster when trying to get to a plant or a mate, and are also less likely to go above the water's surface. 

As always it's available from the Metarooms page of the C3/DS Downloads section, or you can save yourself some clicking and just get it here.

I'm also working on updating the Deep Abyss, but it's not quite ready yet. I'm actually planning on trying to have it completely finished by the time CCSF 2015 rolls around. Whether or not I manage to release anything else then is still up in the air (on top of my usual laziness, I've also got the task of coordinating it to worry about).

Until the next one, folks.

CCSF 2015 Survey #1

So...funny story. Given the massive lack of talk about the CCSF 2015, I considered just hosting a "Creatures Appreciation Week" here instead. However, when I got the idea to have other people send stuff in for said week, I started wondering how it'd be different from a traditional CCSF apart from the length.

At that point, despite my "grumpy old man" philosophy towards the past couple of CCSFs, I decided that it'd be best if I just tried coordinating the CCSF. And so here I am!

I've created the first of several surveys for the CCSF 2015. Unlike the first surveys of past CCSFs, this one is mostly looking for thoughts on the tradition as a whole, what it's doing right, and what it could try to do better. The standard questions are being saved for future polls.

CCSF 2015 Survey #1

Let's see what we can do with this thing.

Artemia Sea Update

Here is a small update for Artemia Sea. I received a report that it was being laggy. Upon looking into it, I left out a line of code in the Sea Gooseberries that might have made them tax the system a little more than intended.

While I was at it I also attempted to fix the issue where the sharks and reef fish could be played with by creatures whilst in the middle of their turning animation. Unfortunately I don't think it worked, but try it and see?

You can get the update from the link on the Metarooms page in the C3/DS downloads section, or here.

Until the next one, folks.

It's Evolution.... Just Evolution....

The Realm now has 100 posts. Only took me over two years to do it. No matter how long it took, I do think it's something worth celebrating. And I have just the things. 

Remember that wolfling run I mentioned last post? Well, I had a bit of an ulterior motive for running it beyond just my amusement....

Meet the Darwin Grendels, named after the famed Charles Darwin and created from the results of the wolfling run. They are very robust and can live in all sorts of environments short of a toxic world or underwater. They also breed very quickly, making them ideal if you want to just watch a population in action. 

At long last I feel I've satisfied my desire to make my own GoM-like breed, and I have to say I'm pretty happy with the final result.

Download the Darwin Grendels!

That's not all I have, however. The Darwin Grendels had to have come from somewhere....

The Garden Grendels are the forerunners of the Darwin Grendels. Their genome (or genomes, rather) were taken straight from the Grendel Garden and composed into an egg agent, and they're offered alongside six grendels from the population at the end of the wolfling run. They aren't as refined as the Darwin Grendels are, but they should prove to be just as capable as their descendants. 

Download the Garden Grendels!

And that's still not everything. This last release is only tangentially related to the Darwin and Garden Grendels, although it was tested and eventually became part of the wolfling run. 

The result of my latest collaboration with Mea, this acorn patch plant will add a much-needed seed to the Garden Box. The acorns themselves are fairly unremarkable, though your creatures will likely find them delicious. 

Download the Garden Box Acorns!

Phew, that was a fair few releases. Actually, there would have been even more had I not burned myself out towards the end (though chances are the stuff I had planned will be created and released at a later date). 

At any rate, I hope you enjoy the new releases! Until the next one, folks.