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Alex, John and Drew are off to Korea today. Wish them luck in their mission :-D

Also, looks like there is another patch planned for the IC Stress Test next week. If you spot something that concerns you in the stress test, check in on the IC Bug Report forum and see if your problem has been previously reported. Now’s your chance to help make sure the full game’s as polished as possible!

Good Game Thanksgiving weekend!

Just wanted to link you all to the Stress Test Stats page, this is the link that shows up in the IC Online Login Screen. They’re ironing out some kinks in it, so the numbers aren’t totally right. Click on people’s nicks to see more details.

Also, point to note in IC Online. Don’t click on these 3 games (1v1, 2v2 1_01, Angryproctologist w) in the games list. They’ve been there for at least 24 hours, and result in a time out when trying to connect to them.

I just noticed that version 1.1 of the IC RDN tools have been released…

Here are the reported changes since version 1.0:

Fixed pipeline.ini issue on Windows 9x installations.

Added improved Direct3D initialization failure messages.

Added missing textures for Lab.

Added missing textures for Temple Gong.

Added missing sound files for Volcano multiplayer map.

Removed Sound Patch Editor (see item README included with tools for details).

Miscellaneous bug fixes.

So.. what are you waiting for? Go and get them!

I won’t post the full list here, but instead, link you to the article.

Feel free to post your comments about which unit you are most excited to combine!

The shooters over at FiringSquad have put up a 3 page preview of Impossible Creatures. Several screenshots illustrate the article.

Quote Power Activate!

Players will very likely spend as much time in the Creature Chamber as they will playing the game. Finding the perfect combination is really quite the obsession. Our own experiments with the creatures in the demo (available in this month’s PC Gamer) resulted in hours of quality time with the big beige box. Animals of any type can be combined; there’s nothing to keep a creature designer from taking a fish head and putting it on a terrestrial or even flying creature.

Note that you can also find the demo on Maximum PC. There will also be an Internet demo in December, downloadable from several major download sites. Spotted on Ve3d.com.

After hitting the 20,000 mark, Fileplanet has shut off access to the IC Multiplayer Stress Test.

As mentioned previously, there will be a ‘full’ Internet demo out sometime in December. No word on if it will have Multiplayer.

Thanks to Sabine at ICCenter for the heads up.

Spotted over on Impossible Creatures Center, there’s a patch available in the Stress Test. Should download for you when you login.

Fixed issues in Version 1.0.1
1.) UI issue occurring in lobby screen where the highlight or selected game would change to another game without user control
2.) UI issue with scrollbar on Player Lists

I know I experienced the first problem myself, glad to see Relic and Microsoft are on top of these.

To all our American readers we would just like to say have a happy and safe Thanksgiving. I believe in fact that Alpha_1 said it best to celebrate this holiday:

Good friends,
Good drink,
Good grub,
Lets eat!

Take care everyone.

PC IGN has an article up about Impossible Creatures Animal Design. Andy Lang, the Art Director for IC, submitted a detailed history of why the animal styles in IC are the way they are. He also goes into some of the technical and design challenges they faced.

Impossible Quote!

When Alex first pitched Impossible Creatures to us we all thought it was basically impossible. “So we have to combine two animals together, get their geometry, textures and animations all to blend so the end combination would look believable.” Okay that was hard enough, but the second big problem: how do we get animals to visually compete against mecha, military and fantasy based games?

This is a follow up to Andy’s earlier article at PC IGN, Impossible Terrain.

Thanks to Andy for the great article. Spotted on Ve3d.com.

Looks like Prophet’s interviewed Alex over at Gamespy. It’s a 4 pager, with a fair bit of new info.

Quote action!

GameSpy: Let’s talk about the skirmish mode and multiplayer. What kinds of game modes will be available and what’s been done to streamline gameplay so that games don’t take three-six hours?
Alex Garden: There are three game modes in Impossible Creatures: deathmatch, Destroy Lab, and Hunt Rex. Deathmatch mode is a destroy everything game, Destroy Lab sets the lab target for victory, and Hunt Rex mode gives each player a powerful hero unit that they can use, but also need to protect.

Check it out. Thanks to those that sent links in about this.