itch.io

I wasn't quite able to get it in for this release, but there'll be a difficulty modifier in the next one where you can adjust the number and tier of enemies. I currently have it set to the by-the-book guidelines for reserves count and I agree that gauntlet's 1X is a bit underwhelming.

That's Necrobarista! I probably specifically went and searched it out because I remembered it being stylish, rather than finding it in the database. Sorry you went through all that trouble! 😅

> EVA

yeah I didn't mention that this eva effect only happens if you're underwater i.e. above the ground level AND below the water level

> multitarget

also yeah, attacks with AOE patterns continue to hit both targets as normal.

> brace

I discussed about how we'd do it earlier but I hadn't actually gotten around to implementing before now

> character sheet

hm I think I only actually disabled mechanical changes during downtime, now that you mention it; we might get reflavorability for free if so. I'll keep the option in mind!

It's currently mostly on hiatus. I have some grant money coming down the pipe to work on it for a few months next year, but besides that all my dev time is currently on Lancer Tactics.

I fully intend to turn towards Crescent Loom 2 after that though, made in an engine that can handle more than a few creatures at a time.

I hadn't heard of Powdertoy before, what a fascinating game 👀 love sandboxes like that.

Yay, I'm glad it's got you thinking about what might actually be going on to allow us to move through the world. That's spot-on for what my intention has been with this.

The downloadable version lets you save creatures locally instead of on the cloud, has likely better performance, access to moddable files like being able to program your own ion channels, and a few niche utilities like being able to record and save neuron activity to file.

OH I thought you meant putting title hover text on all the images in the post, not just putting the game names in that big diagram. Yeah lol I definitely regretted not doing that almost immediately when I wanted to go back and look up specific screens.

Haha I'd never thought about that. It takes so much time to crosspost these damn things across different formats and platforms I dunno how feasible it'd be to write and preserve them... but I'll see if I can remember to do it next time.

? that's a fair bit into the ways of tutorial. You've made a full body and swimming animal at that point. There seems to be a bit of a disconnect between what we're seeing here.

To use Tab to change connection types, you need to be mousing over the connection you want to change, like this:

The downloadable HTML5 demo was made available for some teachers who needed to self-host it to get around their school's firewall — you'll need to use a chrome extension like this one to get a localhost and point it at the files. So I'd obviously recommend using the provided in-browser version instead.

Thank you for the report. I'll log it and try to repro before the next build. Is this on windows?

Yeah... I think we're gonna try to see if we can get way with adding little animations and bounces and emote symbols to give them more depth before committing to sinking a bunch more asset money into a thousand mouth and eyebrow variants.

I'm glad you're finding it useful! I've been doing some smaller projects on the side and it kinda feels overkill for those, but if you're doing something that's ever gonna care about having a bunch of content or saving games it's great.

I bet it was just an oversight on my part, thanks for the report! Noted.

Yep, there should be one available via Backerkit now! Let me know if you're not seeing it.

For armor-lock playing we'd likely add additional triggers for when they have the system and are getting knockbacked/grappled just to spot-weld that edge case. For the Nap... I'm not sure. It might have to be a playtest-and-see approach to what the best balance of trigger timing is.

Hey thanks! I really appreciate hearing that! :)

Not yet, sorry! It's still so much in flux that it hasn't made sense to make a guide yet. You can see an example sitrep by loading the holdout trigger group in the trigger editor, though.

It could definitely be better signposted, but that's the end of the tutorial.

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).

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