Is your version of DS installed properly?

So.... here's the deal.
Whatever I end up releasing during CCSF isn't going to be released on the official CCSF site; it will only be here (Unless Laura feels like linking to everything on a whim as it's released). The main reason for this is that I am a lazy bum that can't make deadlines (or maybe have way more of a life than I realize), and instead of doing a bunch of stuff ahead of time, I am trying to use these weeks to sort of clean out my project closet and finish up the stuff that's been unfinished for years, or at least package up the stuff that I know I'll never work on again, and get it out there in one form or another.

So you may want to watch this space in case anything neat appears. I have actually pre-written several "release" blog posts for things I'm not even done with yet in some hopes that it will motivate me, so we'll see what happens. Between this, trying to fulfill my own blogathon challenge (it would be quite silly if I didn't, now wouldn't it?) and taking part in NaNoWriMo... well, let's say this will be an interesting few weeks.

Oddly, I have a "release" for you today. It is possibly the most boring release ever. Nonetheless, I believe it is at least somewhat important.

Many of you already understand the woes of trying to get Creatures games to work on newer versions of Windows. Getting DS or Exodus to install, luckily, is generally much less of a pain, but it still has its problems. Certain combinations of Exodus and newer versions of Windows produce a problem when unpacking agents; instead of unpacking certain files, most notably Catalogue files, into their proper places, the game sees these files as some sort of threat and instead sticks them somewhere in your documents folder. Then when you go to use the agent, it autokills or throws an error because it can't find the file.

This produces nightmares, both for the people trying to use the agent and the developers getting bombarded with emails about their agents being "broken". But it can quite easily be fixed by installing DS or Exodus to your My Documents folder instead of the default location in Program Files.

Is your installation of DS able to properly unpack files? Download this agent and give it a test. It will bring up a window that will tell you if it extracts catalogue files properly. If it doesn't, take measures to fix it by reinstalling. Some have even had success by just moving the DS folder from Program Files to My Documents or the root directory, though I can't vouch for this personally.

Your game will need to be able to properly unpack catalogue files in order to work with several (supposedly, hopefully) upcoming releases, so make sure you're ready!

On a final note, I'm going to try to keep LNA up and running throughout the CCSF, and will be populating the world with various CCSF releases, so keep an eye on it if you're into that sort of thing.