Creo God Simulator News

Hello there everyone! Here we have another extremely-overdue Creo God Simulator progress update! In this progress update, we will be discussing gameplay feature additions, UI changes, and a large rebranding.

To begin, I'll admit that the current pandemic situation really did a number on my ability to get work done. Here at Homebase, I was surprised by how difficult it was to balance my fulltime job, attend to my family, and work on Creo in the little free time I had. Over the last few months, my frustration with how slowly Creo was progressing was getting to me, and though I was making progress on new game systems and UI, I really let my communication with Creo's community slip.

However, in recent weeks, I've found significantly more time to work on Creo, and a good friend of mine has agreed to hop on the Creo team as a community/growth development manager (more on that in coming updates). With my additional time and my friend's help, I'm excited to say that Creo is entering a much more efficient period for its development and growth. So without further adieu, let's get to what I've been up to.



[h2]New and Improved Gameplay Features[/h2]

So over the course of the last few months, I've made numerous improvements to various gameplay systems in Creo. Villager birth rates, for one, have gotten a major overhaul, and now scale based on how large your town is becoming. I've also been gradually balancing the gameplay out resource-wise: making sure wood gathering and food production rates are fair yet challenging.

Oh yeah, I also added a point-click road laying system.



Yes, you heard that right. For all you old-school Creo fans who remember the admittedly awful road laying system of yonder, you'll be pleasantly surprised with the intuitiveness of simply clicking where you want your road point to be, and a road magically connecting your points! (This system took weeks...)

[h2]Updated God Powers[/h2]

In addition to updating lots of the current gameplay mechanics, I've also updated the god powers to work with the new map, and also made them look at a bit nicer, as is evidenced below:



With the changes to the game engine completed, I overhauled the god power system, which should make it much easier to add new god powers in the future. As it currently stands, we have the Meteor, Rain, and Lightning god powers.

[h2]Rebranding and UI Updated[/h2]

And last but certainly not least, is our large UI/Rebranding project. This was the thing that actually took up most of my time over the last few months. I've been taking some time to learn a thing or two about better UI/UX design, so this lead to me remaking ALL of the UI in Creo. Here's an image of the main game screen with its new UI layout:



I wanted to go for a little bit more polished/modern look to Creo. In addition, I also added a new notifications/events textbox in the top left of the screen. This scrollable and expandable box will hold a log of all the important notifications that occur in your town and Creo at large.



I believe that these UI changes, though small, will add up to make a much more enjoyable gaming experience. In addition to these UI changes, I also had the game logo redone for something more minimal which really caught my eye.



[h2]In Conclusion[/h2]

Yes, I know this progress update had a lot to process - holy gifs am I right? - but I found it necessary to catch you up to where Creo currently sits. Right now, I am balancing the resources management side of the game, but am getting VERY close to having a playable update ready for all of you. The next few weeks will see more regular posting and progress. I'm excited to share with you all the new features I'll be adding to the game in the coming months.

Thank you Creostriders!

- Esteban (Guy who made Creo)

Hey there all you Creostriders, Esteban here. I wanted to update all of you on the redesign's progress for Creo's game engine. As most of you know, I decided to refactor and minimize the scope of Creo, in order to actually have an achievable and completable game, especially for my team, which consists of my cat, me, and loads of ramen noodles.

Work on the redesign has continued, though the recent events of COVID-19 have changed much of my life and work situation. I recently got a job at a large tech company in the US mountain west, and though that job is exciting, it eats up plenty of my bandwidth. I also am fortunate enough to work from home, but working on my salaried position in addition to Creo all from home can be draining at times.

With this in mind, I've definitely made some strides in the progress of Creo, as you can see in the posts below. Here's a brief list of the things that are being redone (or have been redone) currently:

• Redid tons of homes, shops, and other workplaces
  
• Streamlined my animation and building animations engine using some pretty amazing tools
  
• Redid the camera to work better with an isometric city-building game
  
• Making various plans on how to rework the villager belief systems, in addition to managing aging, death, and food consumption.
  

[h2]The Updates[/h2]

Here are a few GIFS of the new designs and changes in place:

- Aerial shot of a smaller town (around 85 villagers)



- Close-up shot of some miner bois at work in the new mines:



- Shot of farmers, woodcutters, and shopkeepers doing their thing.




Honestly, I'm pretty happy with how alive the towns are feeling. I'm planning on also adding in some additional filler animations, like cats wandering around, dogs taking naps, and children playing.
Let me know what you all think! And please feel free to join our Discord to add your insights or suggestions.

Thanks Everyone!

- Esteban
Developer of Creo

Hey there everyone, Esteban here. I wanted to share with you all the exciting things that are in the works for Creo God Simulator. I've been very busy restructuring the entire game, with the hopes of making it a much more achievable and enjoyable gaming experience.

[h2]The Need for Change[/h2]

Over the course of the last few months, with so many changes in my life regarding careers, fatherhood, business, and more, I began to worry that perhaps I could not logistically finish Creo in a reasonable amount of time. I started to realize that perhaps, my naivete as an indie game developer got the best of me, and I began work on a project much too large for just me.

A few weeks ago, after being deep in thought in the shower (as most often do), I had an epiphany—Creo needs to be scaled to a realistic end product, at least for now. Creo would get a new story, be scoped down a bit, and finally have set goals and completion states. Eureka! Once that realization hit, I began obsessively planning the changes needed to accomplish my new vision of Creo, and I'm very happy to say that the transition is well underway!

[h2]Dawn of the Creostrider[/h2]

The Gods have spoken, and through sheer luck, you've been born as the Creostrider.
The Creostrider is well known in the world of Creo, and though there are several, the Gods sense that there is something special within you. As the ageless Creostrider, you are among the very few who can channel Willpower into useful abilities: meteors, lightning, fires, swarms, and many more.

Your village has chosen you to lead the people to a new golden age, one where there is peace, wealth, and where you have attained full godhood. This is done by building the Four Pillars of the Eternals, activating the Veilstone, and opening the Divide, bridging the mortal Creo realm with the eternal realm. This will prove your worth as a Creostrider, but most importantly, it will transform you into an all-powerful God!

[h2]Gameplay and New Changes[/h2]

Along with the exciting new story and plot, Creo's game and rendering engine are changing. One major change is the fact that the game will now be in an orthographic camera mode, with primarily voxel graphics, in addition to various pixel art and other animated world objects. I feel that this new rendering mode is more along the lines of some of my favorite old school games, such as Caesar, Age of Empires, and Sim City, which is what I initially wanted to design.



In addition to the graphics changes, the core gameplay of Creo will focus more on city building, resource management, and finding creative solutions to procedurally-generated situations and problems. In order to help scope down the game so that I can realistically finish it, I've decided to remove individual settlers, with their own personalities and thoughts, rather, your entire population will be taken into account when generating Willpower, casting miracles, and managing your resources.



This change was also done to improve game performance, now that villagers are data objects rather than physical ones, your population size can be MUCH bigger. I'm talking several-thousand people cities. I'm hoping this larger size will create interesting challenges when it comes to resource management. There are too many changes to mention, but rest assured that much of the city building will remain similar to the older version of Creo.



[h2]What's Next?[/h2]

Honestly, thank you for getting this far in the article—I recognize that it has been a lot to process, but I hope you all know that I love Creo. These new changes have reignited my passion for this game, and for finally completing it. I honestly could not have asked for a kinder community of Creoites, and I look forward to creating an exciting new world in the Creoverse.

There will be many more upgrades and changes to the game engine in the coming months, so stay tuned. Please enjoy the current playable version of Creo on Steam, though know that the new version will be much more streamlined and enjoyable.

Again, thank you so much for your support. Please feel free to join our Discord community by Clicking this Link, and reach out to me if you have any questions, suggestions, concerns, or would simply like to say hi.

I wish you all the best,

- Esteban
Creo's Most Ancient Creator

Hey there everyone. First off, I'd love to thank the community over on our Discord for following up with me regarding Creo's development. I wanted to give the rest of the Steam community an update on the current progress of Creo's development, and why there's been a large gap in development.

To start off, please know that Creo is indeed still in development—it has been on my mind every day for the last few months. I'd love to give you all a brief look into a bit of my personal life, to help explain a little as to why we had that lapse in development over the last few months.

[h2]A Candid Look[/h2]

As many of you know, I'm the sole developer and creator of Creo, in addition to being an (in my opinion) involved 24-year-old Dad and loving husband. I began work on Creo about a year ago when I had a part-time job and was going to school. Since I had a ton of free time, work on Creo was feverish, and I was able to crank out 8 hours of development a day on it. But as time went on, I had to take on additional work in order to afford to live in my rather expensive state, and supporting a family too.

We decided that it would be best for me to attend a coding boot camp for web development since the completion time would be much faster than University, and there were well-paying jobs waiting for me to graduate. So my boot camp began in early June of 2019 and ended in late August. It was insane. Around 9 hours a day in an intensive program. Fortunately, I was able to successfully complete the course and land an interesting full-time position at a manufacturing company designing much of their software.

[h2]The Grind[/h2]

Though my new job helps pay my family's bills and keep my interest, it has taken a large portion of my time, and after coding for 8-9 hours per day at work, it's hard to come home in the evening and code for another 3-5. However, one thing I can't stand is leaving things unfinished, and though it is hard for me, I try my best to get at least a few hours of Creo development in every day, in addition to other software projects I'm working on.

So there you have it.

My life, briefly summarized.

Is it an excuse for the lack of development? Perhaps.

But trust me, it's been driving me crazy.

[h2]Recent Progress[/h2]

Now that we've gotten much of that out of the way, time to get to the juicy stuff—what I've been currently working on. Over the last few months, I've been thinking about new ways to make Creo interesting and replayable, and I realized that I haven't been focusing on what I really wanted to make in the first place:

A procedurally-created story driven by the settlers that worship you

What that means is that I want the settlers to naturally make decisions and act on their "own". So in light of that, I've began to "refactor", or rewrite, lots of the code for the setters, in addition to providing large performance improvements. Currently, this is what's been added to the version of Creo I'm working on:

• Settlers have a much nicer looking model
  
• Settlers now have unique hair, skin, shirt, and pant colors
  
• Settlers now age, and their hair turns white with age
  
• Settlers now have hunger, and once hunger is low enough, they eat, decreasing your food amount
  
• Created a new name generating algorithm, which can currently create around 5000 unique names for settlers
  

In addition to these changes, I've also begun work on a new "decision/event" engine, which will allow settlers to interact with each other, and potentially trigger fights, friendships, memories, revolts, etc. It's in the early stages, but it's certainly coming along.

For whoever made it this far in this post, thank you. Really, I could not have gotten this far in the development of my passion-project without your support. Please, if you haven't yet, leave an honest review of the game on our Store page. I try my best to respond to questions you may have as well, so please, feel free to reach out to me here on Steam or on our Discord channel. Thank you!

- Esteban Hernandez
Developer/Creator of Creo

Here's a small patch I've been working on, which should fix a few bugs and issues from the recent 3.0 update. In addition, I believe we've got some very interesting news for Creo coming up, so stay tuned!

Some of the changes and fixes include:

• Fixed windmills not placing correctly on the map surface
  
• Added windmill influence area
  
• Fixed build areas showing on a game load
  
• Added tech-tree clicks and hover sounds
  

Please let me know if there are any additional issues with Creo, or if you have any suggestions. Thanks everyone, enjoy your week!

- Esteban