truboxl / openc2e

openc2e

openc2e is an open-source game engine intended to run all the games in the Creatures series.

Games

openc2e is intended to support:

• Creatures (1996)
• Creatures 2 (1998)
• Creatures 3 (1999)
• Docking Station (2001)
• Creatures Playground (1999)
• Creatures Adventures (2000)

Status

Working

• Agents (COBs) work
• Imperfect physics
• Creatures biochemistry
• Sound effects

Todo

• Actual creatures (C3+ creatures work somewhat, C1 and C2 ones don't work at all)
• Physics improvements (Especially C3+)
• Network ability (the Docking Station warp)
• Serialization (world saving, creature exporting, ...)

There are lots of open issues that still need solving.

Building

Dependencies

openc2e depends on:

• SDL2
  • SDL2_mixer
• re2c
• Python
• CMake
• Boost.Serialization (optional)

Linux

Ubuntu

On Ubuntu 18.10 and up, you'll need these packages:

sudo apt-get install \
  build-essential \
  libsdl2-dev \
  libsdl2-mixer-dev \
  cmake\
  libpng-dev \

macOS

Install dependencies using Homebrew:

brew install cmake qt

Windows

Install Python, and Visual Studio's C++ CMake Tools for Windows.

Open the folder in Visual Studio and it will automatically run CMake and set up the build system.

Compiling

Create a new build directory and compile:

cmake -B build .
make -C build openc2e -j4

Running

You should provide a path to a game's data files with the -d or --data-path flag:

./build/openc2e -d /path/to/Creatures2

The engine will try to guess the game based on files in the directory. If it can't decide, it will default to C3/DS.

Advanced Usage

To see an overview of all available options, use -h / --help:

./build/openc2e --help

Choosing a specific engine to emulate

You can tell openc2e to run as a specific game type with the -g / --gametype flag. The following values are supported:

Flag Value	Games Covered
c1	Creatures 1
c2	Creatures 2
c3	Creatures 3, Docking Station
cv	Creatures Adventures, Creatures Playground, Creatures Village
sm	Sea Monkeys

This may be useful if you are building a minimal testing environment for a specific game engine.

For example, if you wanted to run as the C2 engine:

./build/openc2e -g c2 -d /path/to/minimaldata