Darwinia

[Sekenre]

Hi Everyone,

Just finished the game for the first time this weekend and the first thing I did was try my hand at modding. This is a small single-level mod, created as a tribute to what is now my second favourite game

It was created with and tested on Linux Darwinia 1.3.0 and experienced players should find it very easy. Just rescue as many souls as you can and destroy the ants!

EDIT: I have updated the mod to include Xander's suggestions below. Thanks Xander!
EDIT: Included a readme file in the zip, thanks for the tip Hitm4n.
You can download it here.

Please let me know what you think!

Last edited by Sekenre on Thu Mar 27, 2008 12:08 am; edited 2 times in total

[martin]

well it's ages since anyone released a new mod for darwinia. Just downloaded it

[martin]

That's a really nice level, I like it

also, 404 darwinians

[Sekenre]

Quote:

also, 404 darwinians

Oh wow, you know I didn't playtest it to try maxing out the rescue. I'll have to try that now

I'm really glad you like it, because it's my first ever mod for anything, I was a little nervous about it's reception. I reckon thats a real tribute to the simplicity of the in-game editor and the excellent tutorials by Icepick and The GoldFish!

If I ever find the time I might make a full-fledged campaign.

[xander]

All in all, not a bad first mod. If I might offer a couple of suggestions:

1) Make building ID 20 dynamic. That is, move the building with ID 20 from the map file to the mission file. This is the script trigger that introduces your mod. If you make it dynamic, then it will only run once, when a player enters the level (and, subsequently, whenever they enter the level after reseting the level). Right now, it will run every time a player enters the level.

2) Remove the "ExitLocation" command from the script "hl_outtro.txt". The precedent of Darwinia is to allow players to leave a level when they feel like they are done, not when you tell them they are done. This is not a hard and fast rule, and I have violated it many times myself, but I always consider why I am violating the rule, and what it accomplishes in terms of my goals with regard to the mod. In this case, I was a little surprised when the camera was suddenly taken from me, and I was taken from the level.

3) In the intro, you might be a little more clear about where you are supposed to take the DGs. Certainly, the help script is explicit, and that might be enough, but I was not sure where I was supposed to get the DGs to finish the mission. Originally, I thought it might be the tree on the "north" side of the island, as trees are often associated with SafeAreas in Darwinia. On the other hand, this is a minor nit to pick, and can probably be left alone.

There are a few other little things, but none of them really matter (there are a couple of extraneous WaitCams in the scripts, the landscape is probably on a grid smaller than is strictly necessary, &c.). As I said above, not a bad place to start.

Also, just to tick martin off, 716. ;)

xander

[Sekenre]

Thanks xander, Suggestions 1 2 and 3 have been implemented and I got rid of a few WaitCam's (I don't really understand what they do, I was just looking at example scripts on The Next Game.

I can only rescue about 200 Darwinians before I get bored, so I'm wondering:

Have I made it too easy?
Does anyone have any suggestions for making it more challenging?
Is there a trick I'm missing when I try to maximise my rescue ratio? (can I rescue DG's more quickly is what I mean)

Thanks for your time!

[xander]

Here is what WaitCams do:

Generally, when you tell Darwinia to execute a script, it will start at the beginning, and execute all of the commands. So, if you have one camera move right after another, it will start executing the first camera move, then immediately go to the next. So, you use WaitCam to tell the script to wait for the first camera move to complete before moving to the next. WaitSay does something similar, but it waits for the text to finish; and Wait ## will do the same thing, but it will wait ## seconds.

As for making it too easy/hard, that really is up to the player. I have some experience playing Darwinia, and know that I can leave a horde of DGs to kill an anthill slowly, with a couple of engineers to collect some of the souls. Each soul becomes three ants, so one could, in theory, generate a fairly large number of DGs by camping. On the other hand, if one were to attack the level head on, and try to finish it quickly, 150 is a good number. I wouldn't worry too much about it. It is not a hard level, but it should provide a bit of a challenge to a newbie who has just finished Darwinia for the first time.

xander

[hitm4n]

Leeched, for the modlist. Can i request a small readme included in zip with some credits, author name, version number etc? Cheers.

[martin]

But did you farm xander? I couldn't be bothered

I may reconsider that decision tomorrow if I'm really bored :/

[Sekenre]

hitm4n wrote:

Leeched, for the modlist. Can i request a small readme included in zip with some credits, author name, version number etc? Cheers.

Cheers Hitm4n, I've added a readme file and uploaded again.

Thanks for including me in the Modlist, I feel all special.

xander wrote:

Each soul becomes three ants

Wow, I thought it was a 1to1 ratio.

xander wrote:

On the other hand, if one were to attack the level head on, and try to finish it quickly, 150 is a good number. I wouldn't worry too much about it. It is not a hard level, but it should provide a bit of a challenge to a newbie who has just finished Darwinia for the first time.

Which is exactly what I was going for

[hitm4n]

All mods go in the list, small, large, good or bad... Sounds like yours is a small good one And a learning platform to do some new bigger mods i hope as we've been a bit starved of new mods lately... Look forward to being able to add more

[xander]

hitm4n wrote:

All mods go in the list, small, large, good or bad... Sounds like yours is a small good one :) And a learning platform to do some new bigger mods i hope as we've been a bit starved of new mods lately... Look forward to being able to add more :)

One of these days, I might get around to finishing Paperwinia. ;)

xander

[zach]

xander wrote:

Paperwinia.

Elaborate please - in ten words or less.

[xander]

How about one word?

Link.

xander

[hitm4n]

Its now listed