One-way room layout

The pond in the ettin desert can be used as a one-way ledge, in spite of how low the surface of the pool is compared to the adjacent slope.

By changing the permeability of the doors lining the surface of the pond (as pictured above), creatures are still able to enter and exit the pond as if the doors had a permeability of 100.

But, if you were to drop the creature onto the pond...

They will walk along its surface. When the creature walks out of the pond this way, they will drop onto the slope and cannot walk back onto the surface of pool, walking through it and submerging themselves as shown in the earlier screenshots.

This is a very unusual oddity which you can try out for yourself. I think this happens because the floor doors are only checked for collision when they are being walked on and instead the open door leading into those rooms is checked for collision, and having a permeability of 100 it allows the creature to enter, even though the door is very small! This has the potential to be used for intentional one-way ledges in map design.

Tinted text in a catalogue file

Did you know it is possible to tint your text in a catalogue file? While I have seen my fair share of tinted text in DS, (usually in official CreaturesLabs/Gameware agents) I haven't seen a lot of user-made agents making use of it. So here's how you can add a splash of colour to your agent help files:

Once you have opened the catalogue file that you want to edit, you can add tinting with <tint R G B>. This will make it so that all text after it in the string will be tinted depending on what numbers you enter. For example, <tint 255 0 0> will make the text to the right of it red and <tint 255 255 255> later in the same description will revert all following text to plain white again.

So now that we have our catalogue file set up, let's test it ingame:

Ta-da! Tints may also be applied to ToolTips, but I wouldn't recommend tinting your ToolTip text because of the bright blue box that ToolTips are usually contained in. It might not mix very well compared to the colours of the agent help window.

KeyD Keycode Table

The KeyD CAOS command is a rather interesting one, as it allows you to make your agents check if a key is being pressed. This can be used for keyboard control using a timer, or just to check if a user is holding a certain key as they activate your agent. Regardless, it is a useful command that allows you to add more functionality to your agents. But a problem that most developers experience when they try to use the command is that they have no idea how to get the KEYCODE integer for the key they want to use.

Now while some people prefer to manually boot up the game and open up the Keycode displayer (Shift + Ctrl + K) to find their desired keycode, I couldn't help but notice that there was no table of keycodes anywhere in the community, or at least I couldn't find one available anywhere. So here's a KeyD keycode table:

Keycode	Key
8	Backspace
9	Tab
13	Enter
16	Shift
17	Ctrl
18	Alt
19	Pause
20	Capslock
27	Escape
32	Space
33	PageUp
34	PageDown
35	End
37	Left
38	Up
39	Right
40	Down
45	Insert
46	Delete
48	0
49	1
50	2
51	3
52	4
53	5
54	6
55	7
56	8
57	9
65	a
66	b
67	c
68	d
69	e
70	f
71	g
72	h
73	i
74	j
75	k
76	l
77	m
78	n
79	o
80	p
81	q
82	r
83	s
84	t
85	u
86	v
87	w
88	x
89	y
90	z
91	Windows Key
92	Menu (R wndws key for some)
93	Right Menu
96	Numpad 0
97	Numpad 1
98	Numpad 2
99	Numpad 3
100	Numpad 4
101	Numpad 5
102	Numpad 6
103	Numpad 7
104	Numpad 8
105	Numpad 9
106	Numpad *
107	Numpad +
109	Numpad -
110	Numpad .
111	Numpad /
112	F1
113	F2
114	F3
115	F4
116	F5
117	F6
118	F7
119	F8
120	F9
121	F10
122	F11
123	F12
144	NumLock
145	ScrollLock
186	;
187	=
188	,
189	-
190	.
191	/
192	' (` for some)
219	[
220	\
221	]
222	# (' for some)
223	`

Site Redesign

Hello everyone. It has been a very long time since I last made a post or update to this site. I have redesigned the site to be more comfortable to use and to be more committed to its purpose. I will be resuming activity here, but Observing Albia is going to go into inactivity as blogging about Creatures gameplay just isn't really my kind of thing. The Downloads page has been redesigned to be much quicker and easier to navigate as well.

You can expect plenty of development-related posts here in the future, including tutorials and musings about the technical and design side of the Creatures games. I want to know what you think about the redesign, so feel welcome to use the new Like/Dislike buttons on this post to show me what you think of the new redesign compared to the old design.