During the last week, the OpenClonk homepage moved to another server. Nearly everything should be working again – only the master server, that shows you all the running online games, still has some problems. Creating and joining online games is possible, but the web interface won’t show these games.

This move does not only finally give us HTTPS support for the homepage, but is also done in preparation for the new mod database for user-created content!

We hope that the master server will be fully functional again in a few days!

Download here!

The changes and fixes can be viewed here, with most importantly the fixed editor mode under Windows. The new editor really allows content creators to easily design scenarios and we are looking forward to many inspiring creations!

It took us more than two years, but waiting is over! OpenClonk 8.0 has arrived and we are of course intending to put out new releases much sooner from now on. Promised!

Download here

Unfortunately, we have been told that the macOS build does not work. However, we have no developers with a Mac who could fix the issue. If you’re a player on macOS, you can get the previous release from here. If you’re a developer on macOS, we’d be happy to receive a fix via the forums or as a pull request on GitHub.

There have been over 2’500 commits (changes) since the last release! Apart from many small improvements and lots of bug fixes, this release includes many major new features.

New Editor

Clonk has always strived from its community-driven content, and we just made scenario creation a lot easier! Sven2 rewrote the scenario editor mode from scratch to allow easier scenario creation. Now in addition to drawing maps, you can also place switches and doors, dialogs and triggers, set starting options, and much more. You can create melees, parkours and even small adventures using a simple point-and-click-interface.

You can also access the editor directly from the main menu, so give it a try! For more information, see the previous blog post: The New Editor and Twitch Stream editor demo.

Improved Networking

OpenClonk 8 should allow hosting internet games with zero router- or firewall configuration. We achieved this by adding support for IPv6 and implementing UDP hole punching. In a future blog post, we will describe the networking changes in more detail.

If you had difficulties playing OpenClonk over the internet before, be sure to try again with OpenClonk 8!

New Scenarios

Script Improvements

• New proplist prototype and effect syntax. Effects are “dynamic timers with properties that can be attached to objects”. The new syntax makes working with them easier.
• Script-defined dynamic fragment shaders allow special effects in scenarios.
• Regular expression-based functions for matching, splitting, and replacing strings allow advanced text processing from scripts.
• Additional warnings that can be disabled with a directive.

Future Work

Not everything we’ve worked on in the two years since OpenClonk 7 made it into this release. Here’s a preview of stuff we hope to finish for OpenClonk 9:

• Larry is a platform for sharing player-made mods like scenarios and objects. In contrast to previous such websites for Clonk, like CCAN, Larry will be fully integrated into OpenClonk. Finding new scenarios will be possible from within the game.
• OpenClonk can currently only be played with mouse and keyboard. While this decision simplified controls compared to previous Clonk titles, we lost split-screen play in the process. OpenClonk 8 already re-introduces experimental gamepad support, which however is still too limited for most scenarios. We hope to fix this and support proper split-screen play again in the future.
• Cable cars will be added soon to the main content of OpenClonk and will mainly serve as an automated transportation system for resources between producers, mines and other structures. Our hope is that this will make settling more interesting and setting up automated production lines more fun!

Last Sunday, we hosted a twitch stream showcasing the new features of the editor and demonstrated how to build a scenario in multiplayer!

The scenario is a simple settlement adventure and can be downloaded here: FindTheDiamond.ocs.

You can also watch the Record on Youtube.

A new design contest has started! The topic of the contest is “Mining” and submissions will be accepted until Christmas.

The competition is organized by Fulgen and is open for entries from both Clonk Rage and OpenClonk. If you don’t know how to build a scenario yet, try out the new editor available in the latest development snapshots! If you have an idea but don’t know how to build it, feel free to ask in our help board.

Here are the rules (translated from the announcement the clonkspot forum in German):

The topic of the contest is: mining

Rules:

• Both scenarios (i.e. maps) and objects will be accepted.
• For scenarios, the difficulty should be medium (e.g. no bugs should need to be exploited).
  • Optionally, the difficulty can increase with the amount of players.
• Submissions should have a description and title image.
  • If possible, it should be both in English and German.
• For objects, both meshes and sprites are allowed.
• Scripts should be free of errors.
• Submissions are allowed for both OpenClonk and Clonk Rage.

Evaluation (scenarios):

• Fun: is the map fun?
• Idea: how does the map stand out from others?
• Multiplayer: is the map suited for multiplayer gameplay?
• Script: is the script error-free or are there bugs that affect the gameplay?

Evaluation (objects):

• Utility: is there a sensible application for the object? Does it use/add mechanisms that are fun? Is it easy to use (e.g. not having a myriad of menus)?
• Script: is the script error-free?
• Visuals: does the look match the object?

Submissions

The contests starts on Nov. 07th 2016 and submissions will be accepted until around Dec. 24th 2016. There is no limit to the number of submissions per participant.

Submissions should be posted as a new thread in the clonkspot board “contest submissions” (note that you need a clonkspot forums account to access the board) with a description in the post and the object or scenario as an attachment.

Hi folks,

Since the 7.0 release quite a number of new scenarios have been seen in online play. I would like to present five of them to you:

Lets start with Knüppeln by Kenny:

 

Then we have Melting Castle by Sven2:

 

 

Next is Clonk Volley by Kenny:

 

Also there is Jump Off by Maikel:

 

But literally all the current rage is about the Hot Ice explosive extension made by Sven2 and Luchs:

If you want to join us playing, there’s usually a few games going in the European evening hours. If you cannot join because the game is advertised as “version 8.0”, you can usually join by downloading the latest development snapshot. It’s a zip file with everything contained to run the latest development version; just unzip it to a new folder and run the contained openclonk executable.

Stay tuned for the next overview of new scenarios – coming soon! 😉

One of the main strengths of Clonk has always been its easy script interface and its openness for user content. Unfortunately, players often don’t realize how much they can do in the game because we don’t ship an editor and few players will dig into the game folders to realize they can create their own content.

Fortunately, this is changing now! We are reworking the old “console mode” to be a full-fledged standalone editor capable of creating a variety of interesting scenarios.

First, the editor will be easily accessible from the main menu of the game. No more tedious navigation to developer pages hidden on our website is required.

Second, the editor has been streamlined to be easy to understand and throws you right into the action. There is now a “new” button directly on the welcome page of the editor which allows you to set a name and basic parameters for a new scenario. The new map is automatically created and loaded into the editor for you. Recently edited scenarios can also be re-opened directly from the startup page. In the future, we also seek to add quick tutorial links onto this page.

The editor itself has been written in Qt, a state-of-the-art and cross-platform user interface toolkit that contains all the little things like dockable toolboxes and native user interface widgets which make the program easy and fun to use. Many new features have been introduced:

• Less cluttered user interface: All tools and viewports are arranged into dockable dialogues so there will be no more floating “object property” dialogues that got lost behind the viewport somehow. Of course if you want you can still undock elements such as viewports and e.g. move them off to a second screen. All tools (player/object/landscape cursors, brush modes, etc.) have been combined into the command bar on top.


New editor main interface

• Easy-to-use object properties: When selecting an object, its basic categories can be set directly in a property list on the right. With properties, you can connect switches with doors, create enemy AI clonks, configure goal and rule objects, etc. Properties can use custom delegates for each type. For example, the shape delegate can be used to mark a region in the map such as trigger regions for enemy AI clonks. Colors can be chosen from a color dialogue box, numbers can be set in a spin box, etc. More complex types such as arrays of IDs can be defined in script.


Connecting a spin wheel to a stone door is very easy. Targets are listed by distance and the hovered element is highlighted in the viewport (left door in the example screenshot).

• The object creator shows a list of all loaded definitions. Simply select a definition from the list and use a single click into the landscape to place the object. Object placement has a preview and allows rapid placement of many objects.


Simply select an object in the list and left-click to place it.

• Selected objects can be rotated and scaled by dragging a scaler and rotator knob. Rotation in multiple of 45 degrees es possible by holding Shift.


Drag the pink round knob to scale and rotate the selected object.

• Obscured or lost objects can be found in the object list. The list is organized by containment so objects in chests can also be found. Effects are also shown and can be edited.
• Landscape painting has been improved: Instead of the brush preview in a hidden toolbox (that showed the wrong size anyway), you can now see the projected brush size as an overlay while painting materials. For static maps, the landscape can be switched to a “flat chunks” mode that makes it easier to draw e.g. vertical tunnels for stone doors or find any remaining sky pixels underground.


Shows the new brush preview (white circle) and the new “flat chunks” mode, in which it’s easier to see errors in the map. Flat chunks mode can be enabled and disabled at runtime.

• Start positions and start properties such as wealth, materials and construction plans can now be set easily through a “player start” object. Player start objects can be placed anywhere to denote a possible starting position. Multiple start positions can be defined for each team in melees or simply as random possible starting points. To make things easier for newbies, scenarios created through the “new” command already contain a centered player start object.


The player start object (here: One start object for each team in a team melee) can be used to determine player start positions and conditions.

The editor has not made it into the master game branch yet. However, if you are comfortable with git and compiling your own engine, you can check out the qteditor branch. German speaker can also follow the editor development blog on clonkspot.

Note that this is a newbie-friendly editor for creating simple scenarios only. To do advanced scripting, build objects or contribute to the original game, you can either look at Windmill or follow the guidelines on our development page.

If you have additional ideas or suggestions for the new editor, please leave a comment here or in the forum thread!

Heyo folks,

I’m involved in the music and sound design of Open Clonk – and there has been quite some progress lately.

As you might recall we introduced an ambience-system in an earlier blog. Along with that we started to extend the audio content of the Clonk world bit by bit which could already be experienced in the 7.0 release. The biggest change there was the inclusion of voice tracks for the individual Clonk-skins. Also the new animals got quite some amount of sounds, but we are far from being done yet.

I made a teaser with upcoming sounds – so with some imagination you can already dream about the acoustics of the next major release.

Since the sound folders grew in size and number they had to be structured which was possible thanks to the effort of Zapper and Sven2: .ocg files can now contain sound sub-folders. Everything now is categorized, making it a lot easier for content developers to access and use sounds.

 

Music wise there is still demand for coverage of the more distant and eerie places of the Clonk world. Here is the first of a new set of compositions as a teaser, stay tuned 🙂

In the last release a few new animals have seen the light of day, also somewhat due to the the Milestone Project. There are some old, familiar animals that were re-imagined for OpenClonk and some animals completely new to the world of Clonk. I will start with the ones that old Clonk veterans will surely know.

The Wipf

The Wipf is a very iconic necessity for a Clonk title and it was a pitty that we had to do without it for a few years. But, hooray, those sad days are over now. The Wipf is mainly known for running and jumping around in the landscape and ruining your mine by digging tunnels straight into the closest lava basin.

The Wipf was first introduced with Clonk A.P.E. in 1995 and had since then been in every Clonk title during the past 20 years.

The Chippie

Known from Hazard in Clonk Planet, the chippie returns to suck your blood while looking surprisingly cute and innocent. Unlike back in the days, where you would find the chippie when looking for equipment in crates, it can be found in eggs in the underground now – similar to how zaps could be found in the earlier Clonk titles.

Chippies will be freed from their eggs either after some time when the egg is not covered with earth or by flinging the egg on the ground – for example by shooting it into the enemy base with a catapult. The chippie will jump at unsuspecting Clonks and suck their blood, slowly draining their life.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=VGkMcvqyPOg

Underwater World

The underwater fauna has been extended by a squid (in both peaceful and aggressive versions) and by a new type of piranha. In addition to the new animals, the navigation of the fishes has been slightly tweaked to better handle smaller lakes.

The squids are generally just peaceful and curious creatures that love to follow and inspect other things and creatures. Shrouding themselves in ink in order to flee when hurt, they are harmless to Clonks.

However, the bright red version of the squid is everything but harmless. Lacking teeth and claws, they will follow Clonks to surround them in a thick cloud of ink which drains the Clonk’s breath pretty fast. Yes, this is physically accurate. I looked it up.

This makes diving pretty dangerous when around red squid as long as you don’t pack extra air.

 

The following short video shows the two piranha skins and some red squids. The bright red piranhas are a bit smaller and like to hunt in packs while the bigger ones generally hunt alone.

 

Flies, Fireflies and Zaps

Zaps are back as well! Zaps are small, stingy beings that you should not infuriate. Unlike previous Clonk titles where you would find zap nests buried in earth, they now hang on trees. As you have probably expected, they do not like when you try to chop down their home.

The flies are just decorative little things that love to be around water or corpses – well, who doesn’t!

Even more decorative are the new fireflies. They come out at night to create quite a romantic atmosphere.

 

Bats and Puka

These are two more new inhabitants of the world of which one had previously never been in a Clonk game.

Bats populate caves and do not like to be disturbed by Clonks. In case you happen to find yourself among bats, be prepared that they will want to defend their territory!

The Puka is an animal without a counterpart in the real world – feeling at home around water, it will generally just lie around sleeping. When it finds itself troubled by a Clonk it has the unique ability to teleport away to a safer location – and I would try not to stand directly next to it when it disappears!

Thanks to David Oerther (ala) and Martin Strohmeier (K-Pone), OpenClonk now has a quite extensive athmospheric soundtrack!

You can listen to it right here on the blog (or use the Popup player)

… or, simply download the game and enjoy it while you play. As previously teasered it is dynamically chosen which song is to be played depending on your situation in the game – the time of day, if you are underground or underwater etc.