Okay, so, I'm here to get support for attaching a new game to Voobly. It's a game that hasn't got a lot of love over the years from its developers, up to the point where there hasn't been an official online client for it for... Well, for longer than I've been playing it online, but more on that later.
That game is Impossible Creatures.
For any of you unfamiliar with the title (probably a lot/most/all of you), Impossible Creatures [henceforth IC] is one of the most original (and consistently interesting) RTS titles of all time. Set in the 1930's and developed by Relic, IC's most important selling point is that rather than offering the player a couple of different factions to fight with, it actually requires said player to build their own army, composed of nine different units. To do so, it offers a slew of animals (stock creatures).
Now, the cool bit is what happens next.
Rather than just selecting nine single animals and duking it out with them, IC's whole premise is that you in fact mix two animals together to create each individual unit-- selecting which body parts are donated by which stock creature to give the resulting beastie the optimum combinations of stats and abilities. The process is intuitive and incredibly well done, with an easy-to-follow user interface and a depiction of your creature with the parts you've chosen. You can make a polar bear with the fangs and web-throwing ability of a black widow spider-- a lioness with the tail of a skunk-- an elephant with the wings of a dragonfly. And all of this is just the tip of the iceberg. Most creatures have unique abilities; skunk tails, for instance, give creatures the ability to create a "stink cloud", covering an area of the battlefield in thick fog and stopping ranged units (for instance, chameleons, with their long tongues, or porcupines, with their projectile quills) from firing into the morass, while at the same time stunning all creatures in that area (unless they have abilities of their own to counter this). Electric eels can fire bolts of electricity at opponents, and cockroaches can hover for short distances-- in short, this wide range of abilities adds a level of tactics to the army builder, particularly when a player must make a careful trade-off; after all, increased statistics and powerful abilities lead to a more expensive creature. Awesome, no?
I once read an internet article where the writer compared something especially badass to a "swarm of grizzly-bears-crossed-with-piranhas fighting off a horde of praying mantis/wolverines". Yeah, you can do that. The grizzly bears win.
Which brings me to the actual gameplay. A game of IC is a charming and vibrant experience, with battles taking place on gorgeous, sprawling maps, rich with colour and detail, and a range of environments that stretch from tropical paradise to arctic tundra to barren desert. These fights centre around the player's most important building (the lab-- a hovertrain, and yes, that is just as awesome as it sounds), from which henchmen can be trained-- essentially the "villagers" of IC, henchmen build structures and gather resources. Without going too far into the process, the player can build creature chambers, and through these chambers, the aforementioned combined creatures, using them to wreak havoc on the opposition (either another human or a CPU) in bizarre, cross-species battles, levelling up all the time to unleash stronger and stronger creatures. Trust me, there's nothing quite like watching an elephant crossed with an electric eel utterly annihilate a coyote ant with a well-aimed bolt of lightning.
Now, all of this makes for a truly awesome gaming experience-- but sadly, the last official patch was released in 2004, and since then, Relic has completely abandoned Impossible Creatures and the people who still play it. It's true, there aren't all that many of us, but we're a tenacious community and we do what we can to keep the game alive. However, in the years since Relic took down the official IC multiplayer service (Impossible Creatures Online), this has become increasingly hard to do. Now, the players of IC are, by and large, a resourceful bunch, and we've tried a whole range of solutions (even, at one stage, building a sadly shortlived fake ICO), and so far the most effective one has been reliant on a program called Hamachi, which effectively sets up LAN links over the internet.
This is far from ideal, as Hamachi networks can only contain a strictly limited number of users at any given time, and organising games is always a trial-- often, Hamachi suddenly decides it's going to block other players, or restart unexpectedly, etc. etc., but it's the best we can do.
To this effect, myself and the other members of the IC community are very interested in Voobly as a way of easily finding and joining online games. In fact, we are hopeful that such a service could reignite interest in IC-- one thing about the game is that there is a constant influx of new users (as well as old users returning) who are often bewildered by the complicated procedures necessary for online play.
From what I've seen, Voobly is a pretty awesome solution to this, and one that will hopefully help the IC community snowball (Especially since the recent release of Tellurian, a mod for Impossible Creatures that I have personally been heavily involved with-- one that massively expands the number of stock creatures available to players. Ever crossed a giant squid with a scorpion? NOW YOU CAN!) into something approaching its former glory.
So swing by and offer your support-- in doing so, you'll be helping to revive one of the most engaging and unusual games ever made.
TL;DR version? Supporting Impossible Creatures on Voobly will solve all your problems. Annoying personality? Fixed. Crippling childhood asthma? Easy. Even that embarrassing rash will just melt away. IC is that awesome. Yes.
yeah its the best game i had ever experienced some people out there say this game is dead well its not we are keeping it alive and shiny with new mods releasing and thinking day by day please vote Once you went the wrong path theres no way to get to the Next - Rex Chance
hey hey this game cures aids or something to that effect
seriously get it and play it
we are making yet another patch which will be released as soon as my computer stops being dead.
it's almost dead now but when voobly support this game everyone will be back...and alot of people will get back into it..i remember when it has over 3000 players playing everyday
Ahh I love this game!! you are right, the only thing that really stops me playing all the time is how hard it can be to organise a game!
I would love to be able to play it more.
Seriously though, support for this game would definitely be a step in the right direction and could just give IC the popularity boost that it so desperately needs to keep going. Even as far as Hamachi goes, the game isn't exactly at the peak of activity, and hasn't been for nearly two years. It really is quite sad how such an amazing game went down so fast.
Don't let Impossible Creatures die!
Well, it died because the they failed to make it what it could be. We pretty much took what they didn't do and did it for ourselves. That's why we always have people coming back to play again.
That game is Impossible Creatures.
For any of you unfamiliar with the title (probably a lot/most/all of you), Impossible Creatures [henceforth IC] is one of the most original (and consistently interesting) RTS titles of all time. Set in the 1930's and developed by Relic, IC's most important selling point is that rather than offering the player a couple of different factions to fight with, it actually requires said player to build their own army, composed of nine different units. To do so, it offers a slew of animals (stock creatures).
Now, the cool bit is what happens next.
Rather than just selecting nine single animals and duking it out with them, IC's whole premise is that you in fact mix two animals together to create each individual unit-- selecting which body parts are donated by which stock creature to give the resulting beastie the optimum combinations of stats and abilities. The process is intuitive and incredibly well done, with an easy-to-follow user interface and a depiction of your creature with the parts you've chosen. You can make a polar bear with the fangs and web-throwing ability of a black widow spider-- a lioness with the tail of a skunk-- an elephant with the wings of a dragonfly. And all of this is just the tip of the iceberg. Most creatures have unique abilities; skunk tails, for instance, give creatures the ability to create a "stink cloud", covering an area of the battlefield in thick fog and stopping ranged units (for instance, chameleons, with their long tongues, or porcupines, with their projectile quills) from firing into the morass, while at the same time stunning all creatures in that area (unless they have abilities of their own to counter this). Electric eels can fire bolts of electricity at opponents, and cockroaches can hover for short distances-- in short, this wide range of abilities adds a level of tactics to the army builder, particularly when a player must make a careful trade-off; after all, increased statistics and powerful abilities lead to a more expensive creature. Awesome, no?
I once read an internet article where the writer compared something especially badass to a "swarm of grizzly-bears-crossed-with-piranhas fighting off a horde of praying mantis/wolverines". Yeah, you can do that. The grizzly bears win.
Which brings me to the actual gameplay. A game of IC is a charming and vibrant experience, with battles taking place on gorgeous, sprawling maps, rich with colour and detail, and a range of environments that stretch from tropical paradise to arctic tundra to barren desert. These fights centre around the player's most important building (the lab-- a hovertrain, and yes, that is just as awesome as it sounds), from which henchmen can be trained-- essentially the "villagers" of IC, henchmen build structures and gather resources. Without going too far into the process, the player can build creature chambers, and through these chambers, the aforementioned combined creatures, using them to wreak havoc on the opposition (either another human or a CPU) in bizarre, cross-species battles, levelling up all the time to unleash stronger and stronger creatures. Trust me, there's nothing quite like watching an elephant crossed with an electric eel utterly annihilate a coyote ant with a well-aimed bolt of lightning.
Now, all of this makes for a truly awesome gaming experience-- but sadly, the last official patch was released in 2004, and since then, Relic has completely abandoned Impossible Creatures and the people who still play it. It's true, there aren't all that many of us, but we're a tenacious community and we do what we can to keep the game alive. However, in the years since Relic took down the official IC multiplayer service (Impossible Creatures Online), this has become increasingly hard to do. Now, the players of IC are, by and large, a resourceful bunch, and we've tried a whole range of solutions (even, at one stage, building a sadly shortlived fake ICO), and so far the most effective one has been reliant on a program called Hamachi, which effectively sets up LAN links over the internet.
This is far from ideal, as Hamachi networks can only contain a strictly limited number of users at any given time, and organising games is always a trial-- often, Hamachi suddenly decides it's going to block other players, or restart unexpectedly, etc. etc., but it's the best we can do.
To this effect, myself and the other members of the IC community are very interested in Voobly as a way of easily finding and joining online games. In fact, we are hopeful that such a service could reignite interest in IC-- one thing about the game is that there is a constant influx of new users (as well as old users returning) who are often bewildered by the complicated procedures necessary for online play.
From what I've seen, Voobly is a pretty awesome solution to this, and one that will hopefully help the IC community snowball (Especially since the recent release of Tellurian, a mod for Impossible Creatures that I have personally been heavily involved with-- one that massively expands the number of stock creatures available to players. Ever crossed a giant squid with a scorpion? NOW YOU CAN!) into something approaching its former glory.
So swing by and offer your support-- in doing so, you'll be helping to revive one of the most engaging and unusual games ever made.
TL;DR version? Supporting Impossible Creatures on Voobly will solve all your problems. Annoying personality? Fixed. Crippling childhood asthma? Easy. Even that embarrassing rash will just melt away. IC is that awesome. Yes.
seriously get it and play it
we are making yet another patch which will be released as soon as my computer stops being dead.
I support this
If you vote yes I will sleep with you
I would love to be able to play it more.
Seriously though, support for this game would definitely be a step in the right direction and could just give IC the popularity boost that it so desperately needs to keep going. Even as far as Hamachi goes, the game isn't exactly at the peak of activity, and hasn't been for nearly two years. It really is quite sad how such an amazing game went down so fast.
Don't let Impossible Creatures die!