someone3lse

bunch of ice

If you're a longtime Spore enjoyer like myself, I'm sure you've seen these videos or others like them, where invisible limbs (either with vanilla glitches or from the Dark Injection mod) are utilized to make creatures that float above the ground, giving them the illusion that they're flying (or swimming).

But the most well-known, "tried and true" method has always felt a bit...

... janky.

This is achieved by attaching a single invisible limb to the front of the creature, which causes it to walk by hopping on that invisible leg. The single-legged walk cycle gives the appearance that the creature is flapping itself up and down, either flying with its wings or swimming by propelling its tail. The length and angle of the leg changes the stride, and in turn changes the speed of the "flight".

However, I'm not satisfied with my dragon being so floppy. It might work fine for some creatures, but the exaggerated animation is simply too exaggerated for my tastes.

So I've done some experimenting. The method I came up with a couple years ago isn't too different, but it has three feet instead of one.

This smoother motion is definitely an improvement, and it's what I use for most of my floaty creatures. Yet, I still wasn't satisfied with this dragon's flight. The tail still feels a bit too floppy, and it looks like it's leading with its chest rather than flying with its wings, as if it's being dragged along by something.

This design proved to be a winner! The wings look more like they're providing powered flight, and the floppiness level of the rear is more appropriate. The legs are a bit cumbersome, but since they're invisible limbs, they won't render when the creature is encountered in-game.

But as I was composing this post, I thought to myself...

can I make the wings truly flap?

The answer is yes, it can be done!

With another pair of invisible legs attached at the elbow joint of the wings, each with three feet, this dragon has truly taken flight! It certainly isn't perfect, but considering the capabilities and limits of Spore, I'd say it's pretty damn good.

The limb that creates the wing, the one which these new invisible legs are attached to, isn't just cosmetic--it's a fully functional wing limb from the Unshackled mod (check out my review of the mod here!). The wing limb provides the creature with the glide ability, complete with animation. Miraculously, even with these invisible legs attached, the wing limb animates exactly as it should. I really did not expect that.

The rules were fairly short, only being a dozen or so pages. The main bulk of the hundred of pages long core book was information on the kingdom. And not just political information or trade, but massive charts and calendars that told you what the weather was in what area on a specific day.

You could do an entire months long campaign that chronicled a family running out of food in the winter and trying to get to the neighboring town in order to find food and shelter. Supplements (both official and fan made) added new dimensions of detail, like war breaking out between lords, or a years long winter, ect.

Since the gameplay itself was really straightforward there were barely any rules questions. Instead, the online discussions would be long stories about someone's merchant almost making it to a town before the local festival, only to be stopped by a wheel breaking, or similar such tales.

The biggest community was a "living kingdom" that were hundreds of concurrent campaigns run by a group of two dozen GMs.

Normally, this was a no brainer: Even if we took the long path, we'd make it to the city with plenty of time to sell our wares. The problem was it was the rainy season, and we risked losing a lot of time (and wagon wheels) in the muck on the long path. If we lost all that time and didn't sell enough wares AND had to repair our caravan, we might not have enough money to make it through the winter. It was almost equally as bad as getting mugged.

So we risked the short path. We laid out a map and planned our journey: Less than a week. We'd arrive way ahead of schedule. Our GM flipped back and forth between a few pages, checking where we'd be on what days, referencing that with the bandit's path that time of year. Then she announced that we'd dodged the bandits entirely. We went nuts. It was SUCH a huge deal: We'd make way more money, we could even potentially purchase bigger wagons. It was awesome.

Character has 2 PhDs: either they did a dual degree program and are braggy about it, had a life-changing experience after their first degree and pivoted their whole career, or they find the structure of being a PhD student, despite all its stress, more comfortable and familiar than the stress of finding a Real Job and have a very indulgent advisor.

Character has 3 PhDs: who keeps accepting them to PhD programs. Either this person needs psychological help or their department needs to be investigated for its academic standards. Probably both