Creeper World 4 is the latest installment in a long running series by Knuckle Cracker. It takes the traditionally “2D” top down fluid simulation and turns it into 3D which is actually pretty nice. I absolutely love the game and think it’s an improvement kind of over CW3, but that’s not what we are here for. We are here for tips! Let’s begin.
Tips & Tricks
- Consider power first before everything else. You need energy to build things and power weapons. All of the fun tools that help you push require other resources, but surviving requires just power and you need to establish a power grid first.
- Sometimes its not cost effective to build a tower when there is plenty of energy coverage. You have to wait to earn the energy back for creating it.
- Mortars are very powerful for dispersing creepers and only cost energy. Cannons are great at getting rid of ground level creeper (i.e. keeping it back from the mortars). You can finish almost any map, even custom maps, by just moving cannons and mortars forward. It’s just slow.
- Build a tower in front of a cannon so that you can keep fly a cannon in front of it and keep walking forward.
- Anti-creeper is amazing, even in low quantities. Use it often.
- Use the TERP in more than just “build a giant wall to protect you.” You can make choke points with the TERP to funnel creeper in through an entrance. You can use it to build sinks if you’re on high ground that creeper will have to fill to move forward. Lots of uses for the TERP.
- Platforms too. If you can use them, use them. You can sneak around and hit deeper creeper and they’re generally safe out in the void as the creeper rarely stays off of land. Eggs and creeper nests can still put creeper out on non-land areas though, so keep a sniper and a missile launcher at the ready.
- Don’t be afraid to use quicksave (F5) or just restart on a bad start. You can win or lose in Creeper World within the first 5 or 10 minutes of a game.
- Use 1x/2x/4x wisely. Things can get out of hand quickly at 4x however, if you’re doing good already then it can help move you to the end of the game quickly.
- Snipers and missiles are absolutely required if there is sacs or blobs on a map. You’ll need a lot of snipers too and missiles. Their placement needs to be spread out too. Missiles should cover everywhere, at least two because they don’t fire until the actual projectile gets within their range. Snipers should be on the front line facing any nests.
- Absolutely always flood AC everywhere you can. It can buy you time even against giant flood walls.
- You can turn off things that are burning resources if you need them.
- You can put an ern inside of a weapon to increase its fire rate / range. Just change Ern setting to “want.”
- Totems create a shield once activated.
Mini-Walkthrough
Each of the main worlds is effectively a tutorial for the main units in the game. There’s a few additional units that you can use in custom maps (along with custom units themselves), but essentially each map is an introduction to a new tool.
Each map also, surprisingly, plays out the same. One of the bigger tips is to consider the TERP more often as a great solution in stopping creeper or forcing it into choke points. While it’s slow to raise or lower ground, creeper is also slow to go higher than it currently is unless a wave comes through. You can use multiple TERPs.
The game isn’t finished on the last stage. You can play the epilogue by zooming out.
Wallis is the hardest mission you’ll face and the only one you need a walkthrough for. To beat Wallis you have to be conservative with your resources early on because the wall will come down later and a wave of creeper is coming at you. Only activate one of the temples that spawn the bouncing ball at first until you get more arg. Then build a ton of cannons at the front shield and keep your side defended.
Snipers are really going to be the solution here. Once the door comes down and you have enough snipers to deal with all the things coming at you, you’ll be safe.
I used the TERP to build a little bit more safety and slow some of the creeper down myself.
Connect to the other orb spawners when you have the arg and you should be good to go.
Story
Creeper World 4’s story is kinda strange in that it’s more of a prequel than a sequel to the other games. Major spoilers for Creeper World 3 ahead.
So basically, the game starts you off on mars where you’re attacked by creeper and use your experimental rift engine. You land on a “foreign world” and then your system is like broken, you pickup an AI, rift jump and rinse and repeat until you have the hippy, sarge and a cultist like AI with you along with “ada.” Now, you basically keep bumbling around until you find a note from your colleagues back on mars.
They came after you, realized that you’re time traveling through dimensions but are stuck on mars and they’ve left some powerful tools to fix your rift engine and let you do whatever you want to do on three worlds, that will lead you to the main world.
You get to the main world, die due to some EMP type device thing, get the rift engine all fixed up and ADA restored and everything going well, get revived as an AI and then you’re basically on an eternal struggle fighting the creeper everywhere.
The folks from mars by the way found their own like civilization that wasn’t under attack from the creeper and kind of settled there.
Special Achievements
Achievements are in the GoG version, but only inside the game. Steam achievements are supported.
Parallel Universe: Destroy your base in creeper. Map resets and you have to play through a normal mission on that map.
Farsite Farside: Connect the temple on the top right to the liftic on the bottom. It was at one time supposed to be run out of liftic, to the minimum needed to win the map but when I connected the temple to the liftic, I got the achievement.
21 Guns Salute: Go to the Before Time map and build 21 sniper rifles.
The rest of the achievements are obtained finishing the story.
