Basic Information[]
Creativerse features several game modes: default ("Survival"), Adventures, and - since February 19th 2020 - Creator Mode.
Adventures are basically instances of game worlds and mainly feature player-created mini-games or enables all players to explore massive player builds without access to the actual game world.
Other than this, your gameplay can vary depending on the settings of the game world you're playing on.
For example, "PvP enabled/disabled" can change the gameplay experience significantly. PvP can be enabled/disabled on game worlds by their owners and on player claims by claim owners. This option is available to both "Pro" players who have bought the Pro DLC and F2P players who play Creativerse for free.
It is possible to create PvP arenas with claims on otherwise Non-PvP-worlds and PvP-safe areas on otherwise PvP-dedicated game worlds. Mind the world options when entering new game worlds and the symbols that are displayed when entering claims.
Another setting to note is the Creative World setting option, which determines whether you can enable Creator Mode in a particular world. Creator Mode can enable you to access an infinite amount of certain blocks, materials, equipment, consumables and/or objects, in addition to providing a hover ability (air walk) to assist with free building and invulnerability of your player character.
World owners who have bought the Pro DLC can allow it on their game worlds for all players (including F2P players playing on this world), only certain players (depending on their permission rank or individually), or they can disable it, limiting the world to the default survival mode.
Your personal gaming experience might differ just as well depending on your preferred play style - for example if you decide to either attend to the existing Quests that will lead you through your first dozens of hours in Creativerse, or else to ignore these in order to experience a free sandbox gameplay and setting yourself an individual goal like unlocking all crafting recipes or building a whole city or creating a fun Adventure, etc.
Standard Game "Mode"[]
The basic game progress of Creativerse is a typical never-ending sandbox gameplay that encourages crafting, exploration, PvE-combat (fighting Creatures) and building/constructing - with no pre-defined game goals whatsoever.
Since update R54 on May 1st 2018, the most popular game goal has become to complete all Quests and by that to unlock all Badges that will grant permanent buffs to the player character on all game worlds of Creativerse. Such, quests can only be completed once per Steam account. By completing one quest after another, new players will be led through the general gaming progress rather comfortably, and all features will be introduced.
Players have often referred to the basic game progress as "adventure mode" before actual Adventure creation tools were implemented to Creativerse. Since tools for shareable player-made content were implemented, players can now set themselves the goal to create and publish Adventures and/or to add their own Blueprints to the Creativerse workshop if they want to.
Some players might also call the basic gameplay "survival mode", even though Creativerse does not have a hunger bar nor does it require periodic sleeping/resting, and there are no illnesses/madness threats to fight. When selecting the "Pro" world option "peaceful creatures", all creatures except summonable event creatures will become defensive-only and can easily be killed safely by building.
The only live-threatening circumstances for player characters are the possibilities to drown, freeze, burn, be corrupted, or die by falling. Poisoning is currently only possible when being hit by certain creatures that have a random chance to deal poison damage over time (Mossy Leafies and Feral Pigsies).
There is no "end boss" to best in Creativerse, but there are very strong creatures to kill and tame like the Thing or Rockzilla. The event creatures that you can summon during Halloween month and Christmas month, like Troggington or W'urm, are even stronger.
There are no achievements to unlock or collect for Steam nor ingame for Creativerse as yet. However, Steam will provide you with random rewards for your Creativerse purchases via Steam - like cards, backgrounds and emoticons for Steam. These rewards are random as defined by Steam/Valve and cannot be chosen or influenced by Playful (the developers of Creativerse). Also please note that simply playing any F2P game will usually not unlock any Steam achievements as per Steam rules, instead only actually spending money will.
Other than what QB's Quests suggest to accomplish in Creativerse, players can freely define their own sandbox game objectives that they want to achieve.
Optional game goals for the basic game progress[]
Questing[]
With update R54 on May 1st 2018, 43 Quests were implemented to Creativerse. And even more Quests have been added with later patches, including the whole Rancher quest-chain.
The first bunch of Quests (all the "Rookie" Badge quests) will reward you with Coins for the Store (7 quests with 350 Coins in total). All the other quests except for 2 purely optional ones will grant you Badges with permanent bonuses like damage reduction, critical hit chance, the ability to prevail longer under water before starting to drown and a significant reduction of taming times.
The developers have stated that this is just the beginning of more "QB fun".
New players will automatically be shown the very first quest "Welcome to the Jungle" (with the task to place your Touchstone) as a tracking note in the left bottom corner of their screen (that can be disabled optionally). The last quest and such the common "goal" of questing is "Oooh Shiny!" that will ask players to defeat (kill) 20 common bright blue Keepas, 10 uncommon blueish white Silver Keepa and 5 rare yellow Golden Keepas.
Crafting[]
During the basic game progress, players usually unlock all the basic (free) crafting recipes one after another until they can craft Lumite Mining Cells and Lumite Swords as the first and most typical main game objective.
Optional game goals based to crafting would be to unlock all existing free crafting recipes and/or to even additionally collect all existing rare Recipes from randomly spawning Treasure Chests and/or Creatures plus eventually all holiday-themed Recipes that will only appear around Halloween and Christmas.
Building[]
In a way, building - at least to build a base that protects from Creatures and provides space for storage as well as building smaller additional structures like ladders, stairs and the like - is generally a main objective of the game.
The "necessity" to build a base is already mentioned in the first note that players have in their inventory when starting the game, and building is also encouraged by the developers through different means.
Playful organizes regular building contests that will provide several winners with unique prizes. These contests have very specific rules and the developers themselves decide about the "best" builds that have to fit the contest theme as well as being original and carefully made. These contests are announced on the official forums http://steamcommunity.com/app/280790/discussions/0/ , but also on the main game screen and social media.
The official forum moderators, who work closely with Playful, additionally host biweekly "Build & Share" challenges. The prizes usually consist of Coins for the Store and are chosen for five contestants by a random lottery-like drawing instead of a jury that would select the "best" builds.
Specific game worlds called "Playfulverse" are dedicated to building and can freely be joined by all players - these game worlds are regularly featured on live streams that the developers provide on Twitch, YouTube and Mixer.
Also player-made videos that are chosen to be featured on the main game screen of Creativerse are most often centered around machines or structures that players have built. Moreover, Youtubers can embed Promo Codes for Creativerse that will provide everyone who watches the video with free item packs for a certain timespan.
Additionally to that, building is the main activity required to create Blueprints for the workshop and for Adventures to share with other players. Especially the Creativerse workshop with Blueprints is very popular.
Combat[]
Action oriented players often aim for killing or taming the boss mobs of the game as their personal game goal/s - namely Things to obtain the Super Extractor crafting recipe, and Rockzillas just for fun. The more interesting combat challenges arise for a month around Halloween and another month around Christmas, as soon as Haunted Idols and Trog Traps become available that can be placed to summon very strong opponents.
PvP however is more of a "neverending" optional gameplay defined by game world and claim options that can be spiced up with buildings to be conquered that can be protected by simple traps and/or challenging jumping / pathfinding courses.
Exploration[]
Exploration is encouraged while unlocking crafting recipes that require materials that can only be found in specific Biomes or Layers of the game world. Often animal materials are required for crafting, and can only be obtained by fighting or taming Creatures that solely spawn on/near specific blocks that originally belong to certain biomes or world layers.
Hunting for Treasure Chests that randomly spawn on many types of natural blocks can also motivate players to explore the Creativerse game worlds.
However, simply by collecting specific natural blocks from biomes/layers or buying them via workshop, players can optionally build artificial biomes that will enable most (but not all) Creatures as well as specific tiers of Treasure Chests to spawn there. Very few Creatures seemingly cannot be spawned on artificial biomes.
Something that also seemingly cannot be spawned on artificial biomes are Crops. However, it only takes one specimen of the 4 existing Crops to then multiply them infinitely, and they can also be bought via workshop.
A purely optional additional exploration-related game goal that players can define for themselves is to uncover all areas of one or more game world/s on their map/s.
Survival[]
The basic game progress is not called "survival mode" officially; and to avoid character defeat for a long time is not rewarded by the game in any way. Instead, even in "hard mode" (a "Pro" world-specific combat option), players can always retrieve everything they have dropped upon defeat.
Creativerse does offer several survival challenges including environmental hazards, but no hunger bar and no experience points. Player characters can temporarily "die" (be defeated) from falling, drowning, burning, freezing, poison, corruption, taking explosion damage and by being hit by Creatures or players, as soon as their health bar reaches zero points.
In this case a message will appear on the screen "you have been defeated" and player characters will then always respawn at their touchstone (or at the spot where they've entered the world for the first time) with all their health restored.
Depending on the "Pro" combat difficulty setting of the game world , player characters can either respawn with all their inventories unaffected (easy difficulty) or will drop everything that they've carried in their inventory (standard difficulty) plus even their equipment and quickslot contents (hard difficulty) into an urn called Death Statue that is always retrievable.
There is no special hard mode in Creativerse that would let players lose their stuff or even their player character for good; and it seems extremely unlikely that this kids-friendly game will ever offer such a mode.
Creator Mode (also called "Creative mode" or "Creation mode")[]
A creative mode called "Creative Worlds" was added to the game with update R65 on February 19th, 2020. This mode can be enabled for all previously existing worlds created by players who own the Pro DLC. As soon as you buy the Pro DLC, this option will be unlocked for you. In order to create additional new game worlds with Creator Mode enabled, you must also be a Creativerse Pro member. Not all players are automatically entitled to use Creator Mode on Creative Worlds either, this depends on the decisions of the world owner.
"Pro" players can turn any of their game worlds into a Creative World via "Edit World" options (Press "ESC" and click the button "Edit World" below your world image). There (at the bottom on the right side), you can select which players will be allowed to turn on Creator Mode on your world. You can select the minimum permission rank there which will apply to all players with this or any higher permission rank. As long as the world option is anything else but "No Creative Mode", the world is now a "Creative World".
Only "Pro" World Owners are allowed to switch Creative Mode on/off for their worlds. Additionally to the minimum permission rank for Creator Mode players, you can also grant or block creator mode permission for each player individually on your world by pressing "ESC", clicking "Players" below your world image and selecting the according player from the list (as long as the player has been to your game world at least once).
For the sake of free building with Creator Mode, two more World templates were added to the game - Flat Worlds. Two flat world versions exist: "Sand" (15 layers of Sand on top of the deepest layer of the world) and Grass (15 layers of Grass and Dirt with no "underworld" underneath). They feature no surface Biomes nor any underground Layers, but instead allow for creating very large and tall builds without the need to "clean up" and level any of the usual game world templates before being able to do so.
On a Creative World, all players who are allowed to, can toggle between Creator Mode and default "survival" mode at will by pressing "Esc" and selecting either "Enable Creator Mode" or "Disable Creator Mode" (when Creator Mode is active). Creator Mode permission can be granted to F2P players too (via general world option and/or via player setting). Each player who is allowed to use this mode can turn on Creator Mode on and off individually whenever they want, independently from the World Owner and no matter if the World Owner is online or not. When exiting the game while in Creator Mode and waiting for a while, Creator Mode will disable itself.
Creator Mode gives players access to nearly all items in the game, mainly all placeable blocks, objects and liquids - depending on their former purchases and former progress in the game. When tapping the "crouch/safe walk" key while in Creator Mode, you'll automatically receive 999 items of whatever your cursor points at, as long as it's something that you can find in your Creator Mode inventory and there's a free slot in your Creator Mode quickbar. Creator Mode also unlocks the ability to hover (walk in the air) by double-tapping the "Jump" key (default key: Space) and renders player characters immortal. You will see affliction scales like usual (for drowning, freezing, heat and corruption), but your player character will not lose any Health points. Stamina is also not drained while in Creator Mode, so "Pro" players can use their Glider infinitely.
You can alter anything on your own claims via Creator Mode, but not on other players' claims, no matter the claim settings. This also applies to the World Owner. There are no claim settings that would allow other players to use Creator Mode on claims. Filled storage chests and/or filled display containers cannot be pulled either while in Creator Mode.
On the other hand, please note that most things that you "pull" (pick up/take) from the game world while in Creator Mode will simply vanish, they will not appear in your quickbar or inventory! If you remove any of your equipment (mining cell, tools, armor, weapon) while in Creator Mode, then it will be gone too. If you accidentally "pulled" your Touchstone in CM, try teleporting to it and click "Reclaim" at the bottom of the window that pops up. It doesn't matter if any other Touchstone in the list is highlighted, you will regain your own.
Player versus player[]
PvP is not a real game mode in Creativerse at all, but an option instead that can be turned off (or on) by players for game worlds as a whole and on player-claims separately too. This can be changed again / toggled anytime while playing the game - by both claim owners and world owners.
Since claim options override world options, PvP arenas can be created on otherwise Non-PvP game worlds, or PvP-safe areas can be created on otherwise PvP-enabling game worlds.
Sandbox games like Creativerse enable players to create tower defense challenges for PvP opponents by building forts or castles with deadly traps. In Creativerse you can trigger traps (including dangerous Creatures spawned by Mob Spawners) by sensors, you can add switch puzzles, pressure plates, labyrinths, jumping/flying courses and/or other obstacles to overcome.
Such builds can alternatively also be shared with all players via Adventures or by capturing traps with Capture Blocks and uploading the Blueprint to the Creativerse workshop.
"Peaceful" worlds[]
Players who buy the "Pro"-DLC via Steam can use an option for their game worlds that will change all usually aggressive Creatures to defensive types that will not attack player characters on their own. Out of habit, players and sometimes even developers still use the term "peaceful world", even though this world option can now be toggled anytime while playing.
Additionally to that, the "Pro" game world option "sparse Creatures" significantly reduces the amount of Creatures that will spawn if you should prefer this in order to "just build in peace".
During the Early Access phase of Creativerse, players were only able to "create" game worlds with fixed world options that could not be changed later on. One of these options was "peaceful" - already meaning that all aggressive Creatures were defensive on these game worlds back then. This was improved with update R33.
Combat difficulties[]
Another "Pro" game world option that can be toggled anytime is for combat difficulty that has already been mentioned above concerning consequences of defeat (temporary player character "death").
When this "Pro" world option is set to "easy" combat difficulty, Creatures will only inflict half the damage points than in the standard difficulty, and upon defeat, player characters will not drop any of their belongings, but respawn at their Touchstone without losing anything from their inventory, equipment slots and quickslots. Even with this combat difficulty setting, Creatures will not have less health points and/or armor points though.
In "hard" combat difficulty, Creatures inflict twice the damage than in default difficulty, and when being defeated, players characters will drop everything from their inventory, quickbar and equipment slots into an urn - their retrievable "Death Statue" (which is a one-way container and can only be placed after being emptied). The Glider and Flashlight that can be bought with the "Pro"-DLC will never be dropped though. This combat difficulty will not provide Creatures with more health points nor with more amor points.
The standard combat difficulty provides Creatures with balanced medium damage infliction and player characters will drop only the content of their inventory into Death Statues, but not any equipment nor any contents of their quickbar.
Hardcore mode/Perma-death[]
There is no permadeath mode for Creativerse. No player character will die for good/forever, and no game mode will make players lose their stuff forever when being defeated.
Players can only lose what is flammable and then catches fire (as soon as items start burning, they are lost and will not leave anything behind) and whatever players decide to delete themselves by using the trash bin symbol in the bottom right corner of the inventory menu.
Players can also lose items to other players though if they do not protect their stuff properly on public worlds or invite non-trustworthy players to their own game worlds. It is recommended to set newcomers on your own game world to "visitor" by default. On public worlds it is recommended to claim areas for bases and again set all the claims to "visitor" by default - each claim has its own options.
If the world/claim option for fire spreading is enabled, then all flammable stuff can catch fire one block/unit after another, even if the fire is started outside of a claim. Fire will stop spreading at the claim borders though if you just leave the (default) option "fire spreading" disabled for your claims. Corruption spreading is enabled by default though, however it is no actual danger anymore. If you disable this option, Corrupt Bombs cannot be used though to corrupt corruptable blocks and liquids. The Explosives that can be disabled per option are only the placeable ones that can damage the area (and buildings alike), mainly all types of TNT and Excavators.
Even visitors can open doors if these are not locked, and visitors can also activate activation devices (Switches, Pressure Plates, Sensors) no matter their permission settings. So it is recommended to use Number Pads together with Number Comparison Gates and a number code to lock doors properly, while disabling the door option "can interact" for all doors. You should also close your base properly with a roof and take care to not leave holes of 2 blocks in height.
The default permission setting for activatable objects and storage containers is "builders", so "visitors" will not be able to use your crafting stations nor will they be able to take your stuff from chests. You might not want to allow access to your stuff to everyone freely on purpose by changing the permission settings to "everyone" or to "promote" untrustworthy players to high permission ranks.
Adventures[]
Although Adventures aren't called a "game mode" officially, they definitely are very different from the basic game progress.
In Creativerse, you can play through any player-created Adventure anytime for diversion without affecting the basic game progress at all. You can also create Adventures in nearly unlimited amounts yourself on any of your own game worlds, even as an F2P player - no purchasable game content is required for this. To check out Adventures that players have already created, you can simply click the button "Adventures" on your main game screen.
Adventures are temporarily playable "instances" (in reality never changing copies) of whole game worlds that are intended to be provided with game content that other players can then enjoy.
The most common type of Adventures simply lets other Creativerse players take a look at interesting buildings or structures, without needing to permit everyone to enter the actual game world of the adventure creator.
However, Creativerse players can create Adventures with completely different gameplay styles, like rollercoasters, jumping courses, scavenger hunts, quests of many kinds, optionally including stories that can be told by signs combined with objects, tamed creatures, sensors or switches that will trigger the display of texts, etc., featuring Mob Spawners for fighting challenges, Loot Spawners, traps (often made with Block Phasers) and other types of gameplay content.
Adventures can define different game goals, either only one or many, to be reached in a specific order or at leisure. World options can be set to provide more or less challenge and possibilities. Digging can be disabled so that players won't be able to leave the Adventure area that is walled in nor to conveniently dig through walls of labyrinths for example. Flying with Gliders and/or using the Flashlight can also be disabled, and "Pro" players can set their game worlds to low gravity, peaceful Creatures or other interesting options to let free players experience them. Still anyone can create Adventures with all the basic options and game content.
So this type of gameplay is something completely different from the "Adventure mode" that Minecraft offers, although is possible to create Adventures where players aren't allowed to dig/take nor place anything (except for specific exceptions).
Offline mode[]
Just like most MMORPGs and many browsergames, Creativerse cannot be played offline, since all game worlds and save files only exist on several servers of Playful Corp located in America, Europe and Asia.
Creativerse has been designed and developed as an online multiplayer game for easy access to not only game worlds but also to Adventure instances and the Steam workshop in order to upload and download player-made Blueprints.
Since 2020, Playful Corp. is said to consider how to create an offline mode for Creativerse that will allow to create/save actual "solo" game worlds on your own computer and fully execute Creativerse on your local client alone, or even to enable you to run your own Creativerse online server.
The (possible) future of Creativerse[]
Speaking of game modes: "spectator"-like game modes or even actual "hardmodes" with perma-death are not envisioned by the developers yet, since very few Creativerse players have ever suggested these to Playful Corp.
As for spring 2020, another game-changing large feature to hit Creativerse was free paintability of all blocks and objects: nearly all placeable objects, blocks and liquids now accept two different colors that can be freely selected/combined, also neon glowing colors can be used, and by painting lamps, their light is colored accordingly as well.
As another feature, a drone camera was added, additionally with many screenshot-modification filters.
In general, more performance improvements are also on the short list.
The overall goal to create "the ultimate sandbox game" that Playful had defined for Creativerse from the very beginning is still emphasized. However, it is debatable if this has already changed with the implementation of the Quest system on May 1st 2018. It is not actually completely "optional" since it grants up to 350 Coins for the Store as well as permanent buffs for the player character on all game worlds of Creativerse - through Badges.
The developers have always read through player suggestions carefully and over time have added many of these to the game, like
- the character customization,
- the "peaceful creatures" mode,
- quests with significant rewards,
- more basic shapes than blocks like columns and corner blocks,
- pets
- crops to grow and food to cook,
- events (Halloween and Cristmas),
- block rotation,
- player-made blueprints shareable via Steam workshop,
- machines like sensors and arc signs,
- several themes for recipe packs like medieval, industrial and galactic,
- and much more.
Playful has even stated that the ideas from their player community have changed the direction of the game significantly over time.