Creators of Caveman Craig, Teka Teki, and more.. 

Development Update

Hi guys,
Firstly, thanks for your suggestions on the previous blog post. We’ve got some cool idea for tribe defences now we’re hoping to build on.

A month or two ago we hit a wall with some of the game mechanics we had planned and recreated our plans for the main gametype. We didn’t make sacrificed, we were able to both improve the gameplay and improve the practicality in programming the thing. So I’ve had to take a few steps backward in the development process and redevelop parts of the AI to make sure it’s all consistent.

In short, instead of leaving your ‘map’ and going to an enemy base which is an entirely different map, you and an enemy tribe ‘share’ a piece of land. The aim of the game is to take over the enemy checkpoints, and eventually their main base. Of course, the enemy tribe is going to attack you at times too, and you don’t want your warriors to be sleeping when it happens! As you conquer each tribe, you will advance to more difficult terrains with more dinosaurs and smarter tribes.

With a few new techniques, there should be some big performance increases even though there’ll be twice as many cavemen running around, and not to mention with much greater intelligence.

I wish I’d more interesting screenshot teasers to show you but at this point it’s still all very unappealing. Here’s a snippet of our Hunter AI – this is what a hunter executes every frame. Primarily, the hunter looks at what ‘status’ he’s in (i.e ‘normal’, ‘throwing a rock’, ‘dodging’, ‘sleeping’, etc) and executes code accordingly. The “normal” status is like his main menu. It’s where he determines where he needs to go, and what he needs to do when he gets there. What he ‘does’ is usually another status (which, once completed, returns to his ‘normal’ status). The comments and resource names should provide some cryptic clues to some of the features of caveman craig 2.

For a bit of fun, I challenge you all to point out some features that Caveman Craig 2 is going to have based on the PDF below.
Click here to view the PDF

Regards,
Rhys Andrews

8 Responses

  1. Serge

    1. It seems your caveman will need to sleep, and also a place to be able to sleep. If ther is no bedspace left your caveman will stay awake, by this you will need to think strategically witch caveman you give some sleep at what time.

    2. It also seems that when you a caveman has more energy it will walk faster?

    3. When a target is faster then the caveman, the caveman will give up following the target at some point.

    4. A caveman will be able to throw rocks, and use a club to attack it’s target. Also, a rock will have to be picked up first.

    5. As a caveman does things, he’s skill level will go up and get better at it.

    6. Caveman will not pick random targets, but pick targets within a certain range.

    7. When a caveman is on the road, you can give him a order to go back to the cave and look for a bedspace.

    8. A caveman will be able to walk and run.

    This are the global things that I got out of it, no idea if its accurate :P .

    Greets,

    Serge

    Reply
  2. Brad

    Sounds Great. I’m so excited. Keep it up, Rhys!

    Reply
  3. Brndn

    Hey, the game sounds like it will be really good. Maybe you should make it so for some upgrades to your cave require you to find or buy resources to build. Like, if you wanted to make a very primitive stove, you need some stones to stack up to make a little box out of them.

    Reply
  4. pickle dude

    about that chalenge, I found jumping, running, and following craig.

    Reply
  5. William Vlaeder Marmont

    Serge listed all the ones I saw just skimming it. :(
    It also appears you’ll be able to dodge… Whether by ducking or jumping, I can’t tell. I have very limited knowledge in programming/coding.

    It also appears that instead of standing around with nothing to do, they walk around with nothing to do.

    Reply
    • Andrew

      Yes, but, In the first version, they already walk around rather than stand. I think we’re looking for updates for the 1st SE to the next.

      Reply
  6. spongedude

    Nice, those caveman will no longer standing around. With all this, i really have no doubt that CC2 would be a success, and it might pave way to Caveman Craig in future stores.

    Besides… there are some indie games that once existed in the internet. Take flOw for example, it use to be a flash game. Now, it’s available on PS3.

    So, if it can reach stores, why can’t CC?

    Reply