IssaSoft Productions Forums

Build 51:

-Multiplayer: Uncommented connection code, so now you can connect to the other player.
-Multiplayer: Added error trap code for client if they cannot connect, so it wont just crash.
-Added code to chicken sort function so if there was only 1 chicken, it would exit. This fixed a bug in the slaughterhouse where if there were two chickens, and you slaughtered the second one, the first one would get deleted.
-Caves now go to the correct underground maplayer, and stairways in caves correctly lead back to the overworld.
-Added area captions to the view map screen
-New code was added for Arcade Mode, Chicken Catching, and Tournament Mode to base the maximum stats of chickens based on their type and rank. This is intended to put a cap on each stat based on the type of chicken, for example, a sky chicken would have a maximum power of 150 and no higher. This also adds more strategy to the game. In some cases the maximum can only be reached with stat-up items that you find through the game.

-Map editor: (For Eco's information) Added zoo sign, and also made it so when you place a tree tile on the map it places an entire tree.

Whoa!

I've been away since build 35.

Boy, has this game improved since then.
I'll give feedback on build 50 as soon as I've tried it out properly.

Build 52:

-Added all the rest of the tournaments. (Note, some you cant play yet since either the area doesnt exist or there is no tournament for that area added yet). You can enter any tournament at any time (except castle, you need the 3 medals), however the difficulty is in the following order: Crossroads, Desert, River, Plains, Arctic, Islands, Forest, Mines, Swamp, Mountains, Volcano, Castle.

-Massive overview of all code! I went through every line of code, removing old code, rewriting some code to make it better, and doing some cleaning up. In the process I found some little bugs too. Also small things like you cant breed if you have one chicken, and error checking when renaming a chicken so it has to contain characters.
REMOVED: I have decided to remove chicken abilities on the map. For one it makes the game a little more confusing for players that you can only get to certain areas by using an ability. Second its kinda not worth the programming hassle and I really cant see a lot of uses for it. All I see are people emailing me "there is a rock on the road, how do I get rid of it" instead of reading the help file or reading the training page and figuring out to use an ability on the map. More hassle then benefits.

-Medals: Started to code for it. Basically you must acquire the three medals to even be allowed into the castle. To get a medal you must fight a boss opponent! The medal of faith is located in the islands. The medal of wisdom is located in the mines. The wisdom of power is located in the volcano.

Build 53:

-REMOVED: I have removed all weather effects. Again, one of those things that is a hassle to program with no real benefit. The map is already sluggish, adding clouds will just make it way too slow.
-Tutorial: Added a few more screens
-Bug Fix: Fixed a crash bug on screens where you can select chickens (tournament, equipment, etc). If you clicked on the left arrow and you had 0 chickens the game would crash.

Ok, as it is now, I really look forward to getting more tournaments.
I just wander a bit until I get a level 4 chicken, slaughter the rest, and buy 20 seeds or so. Then I enter the the second tournament.
Maybe the first tournament should be harder? And the money rewards for a tournament where the opponent uses 10 seeds should be way higher...

But it is *much* less buggy now. That's a relief. Great work.

Some other suggestions:
-You shouldn't be able to enter the next area without a chicken of a specified level (3 or 4 for second area)
-The level of random chickens in the first area should be max 2, seeing as you start with a level 2 chicken. If not, you'll lose the first tournament alltogether. If you don't make the second tournament tougher, that is.

Bug reports:
-When I have two chickens, and only two, they will both get slaughtered if I choose to slaughter the last of them. (The second.)
-When I try to use a special ability, (and I'm only talking about those added, of course,) for instance Jump with sky chicken or Fireball with Demon chicken, it will use much more skill points than it should, and not do any damage. Perhaps they are not actually supposed to work yet, and I missed it? My apologies in that case.


Great, great! I see that you've already adde the other tournaments. That was quick, even if you can't actually enter them all yet.
Does that mean you've created more areas too?

The special abilities should be working, I will look at them. For the MP used, I need to update the help file and stuff so dont believe what you read.

The bug with two chickens being slaughtered, that has been fixed, I caught that already.

The level of chickens among areas will change greatly towards the end of the game. Each area will have certain types and levels.

You should be able to enter any area in the game at any time, you shouldnt however be able to beat the tournaments there until you level.

I am planning to release build 60 around August 5th, we'll see how much I can get into it.

Build 53:

-Item counts now appear on the item screen
-Trainers with the tonic ability now get their bonus on item screen
-Bug Fix: Fixed an issue if you clicked on the chicken portrait on a chicken selection screen (tournament, equipment, inn) when you had no chickens.
-Inn: Correctly deducts costs. Now also heals MP as well as HP.

K, so the question people are asking me is "When will build 100, version 1.0 be released!"

Simple answer is I have no clue. But I am hoping to get up to version .99 or so by the end of the year. Then I plan to keep it version .99 for a few months until I finally release it as version 1.0. So in short, the final version wont be released until early 2006 although a very close to final version will be released before that. But who knows, maybe I can be a super programmer and get it all done before then!

FIND ME LOTS OF BUGS SO I CAN FIX THEM!

Issa wrote:The level of chickens among areas will change greatly towards the end of the game. Each area will have certain types and levels.

You should be able to enter any area in the game at any time, you shouldnt however be able to beat the tournaments there until you level.

Won't everybody just walk to the last area (or as far as they get) and catch a lvl 20+ level chicken there once they start the game then? (avoiding the hostile ones)

Issa wrote:FIND ME LOTS OF BUGS SO I CAN FIX THEM!

YESSIR!
*goes off to find bugs*

Won't everybody just walk to the last area (or as far as they get) and catch a lvl 20+ level chicken there once they start the game then? (avoiding the hostile ones)

Yea this is true. I have thought of a solution already. The agressiveness of chickens will vary depending on how many chickens you have in your inventory of the same rank. For example, if you have a level 10 chicken, then encounter a level 10 chicken, this chicken will be very less agressive. If you have a level 1 chicken and are encountering a level 10 chicken, it will be aggressive.

So basically the solution is solved by the fact that if you encounter any chickens that are of a higher rank than yours, it will be agressive. Encountering lower ranking chickens will be more passive.

And when I release the beta 99, I will begin to actually play the game and beat it a few times, thats when I'll see if anything needs modifications, so maybe this wont work but I think it would.

Build 53:

-FBall ability now does damage
-Sneak ability now added to battle, 100% chance attack against opponent
-Mirror ability now added to battle, immunity for 30 seconds
-Dodge ability now added to battle, 25% chance to dodge a physical attack

Note: In the final version damage, skill points, etc, will be finalized and will match the help file. Right now its just for testing, I will balance everything later.

Build 53:

-Added Might chicken ability: +1-6 attack
-Added Protect ability: +2/+2 defense
-Added Haste ability: 10% more speed
-Opponent ability usage logic now in place: If the opponent uses a special ability, it will randomly equally choose between them. If the opponent doesnt have enough mp to use the ability it will just defend instead.
-Begun adding chicken area code. For example, the desert area, you can only find desert chickens. You have a .004% chance of encountering one per step.
-Limited the rank for buying chickens and finding chickens to 30. This way you cannot buy or find a very high ranking chicken, you must level them up.
-Added counterattack ability: If you are successfully attacked you will counter attack
-Rewrote attack code so now its more cleaner and just in one place, this also fixed some issues where bonuses werent being added (like in the Jump/Sneak ability)
-All passive skills (counter attack, might, etc) in battle now will last three minutes instead of 30 seconds. This will make it so you dont have to keep casting abilities, and also these skills will require much more skill points. Again, towards the end of the game this will be balanced, maybe some skills will be less, to see in future builds

Note: In battle only one ability can be "active" at one time. I will add code so a little text message will appear stating what is active.

ToDo: Totally need to redo a lot of the battle code to make it cleaner.

WOOOHOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Build 54:

Finally was able to send data between a server and client!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes! Yes its true! I made a breakthrough, I was able to code a working server/client multiplayer connection and send data between it for chicken fighters in .NET!!!! I jumped up and down a few times with my hands in the air I am so happy right now!!!!!!!!!! I swear I've worked on this code for 50 hours or something trying to figure out why it doesnt work.

To all you future programmers out there working in VB.NET. If you make a public variable, then declare the same variable in a private scope, VB WILL NOT catch this mistake! The client kept crashing because I created a private variable, set the object to a server connection, then tried to access the public variable later thinking it was connected, when it wasnt! It was one line of code I just had to remove to fix it all!

Maybe multiplayer will be done by version 1.0!


-Multiplayer: Created a separate form for the server and client instead of two of them, to clean up the code.
-Multiplayer: Added code to ask the user if they really want to close the server/client when it is currently connected
-Multiplayer: GUI changes, layout is different
-Multiplayer: Chatting is now all functional.
-Multiplayer: You can now load a saved game, and choose your very own chicken!!!!
-Multiplayer: You can now choose options and everything. You can now get all the settings done, but cannot start the battle yet. So everything up to the actual "start fight" is working. Which is good! Means the multiplayer code is working really well.

Almost done with multiplayer eh?

So, I finished the game, and I return and see what? NO NEW BUILDS! Lol jk. When is the next build coming out?

Uh, its build 54 right now man. I will release build 60 before I got on vacation for a week around August 4th. But yes, I ran some tests on multiplayer with some people and its working pretty well, just cant start a battle yet. Wont do that code for a while.

Build 55:

-Battle: added more spells and their animations (Wind, Glacier, Snowball, Flood, Earth)
-Battle: added attack animation
-Battle: redone animation code so its more reusable and cleaner

Build 55:

-Multiplayer: Disconnect code now working properly. KeepAlive timer will disconnect if the server/client disconnect.
-Multiplayer: You can now start a battle with your opponent. (Although you cant really do much once you do)
-Battle: Optimized when the captions are refreshed. Instead of every speed tick it is now only refreshed when an action is taken. In mutiplayer this caused a 100% spike on my machine with two battles and refreshes occurring every 50ms or less. Now it should only occur every couple seconds at least. 100% spike dropped to about 30-50% now.

Build 55:

-Saved Files: I am not saving the map tile data in it anymore, this saved about 2mb per saved game. I also added some dummy variables in case in the future I want to add something to save so people dont have to start new games.
-Music: Added much more music to the game (Still some bugs so dont tell me about them, I know)
-Tournaments: The Islands and Plains tournament are now active and working.
-Multiplayer: Well its official...you can battle with each other online! You can now attack each other only though. I have been testing it with a buddy and it seems to be going well, you can load up a saved chicken and battle it online and see who wins.
-Bug Fix: When catching chickens, chickenNextExp is correct now
-Buying Equipment: Added prevention code in case you buy the same equipment or something weaker.
-Buying Items: Added code to limit the # of items you can buy of each to 99.

Well back to programming! Have a lot of to do!

Build 65:

In a few days I will be releasing build 65. This is it, the build that has a working multiplayer in it, and its working good! Right now everything is in good shape, smooth sailing with the programming, no more walls to jump over. Just a lot of tedious stuff now like finishing the map, adding the rest of the graphics, etc. The code has become very stable, no major crashes anymore and little bugs are harder to find.

-Multiplayer: Everything is working just like the single player battles.
-Map: Much improvement, begun the mines and castle. Added music, catching chickens based on areas now (for example, the desert pyramid has dark and desert chickens, island only has aqua)

There is so much in this build I'm not going to list them all out, most of the programming was in the battle and multiplayer area.

I am going to run with this build for a while before I start programming again, I am going to start a new game and play it. Level up a few chickens, beat all the tournaments I can, and see how everything is going. Its a great time, I get to finally play my own game!

So again guys, we need to find all those bugs, send me improvement requests, and lets get version 1.00 out before the end of the year! Once 1.00 is out I will start my list for 1.01 adding more features and improving the game to make this the best chicken fighters game ever! Its got everything the 2002 version was lacking, hopefully this will cheer up all the fans out there that have been waiting so long! Build 1 of chicken fighters was on February 21st of 2004, its been 18 months so far!

This is going great! Amazing how much dedication you put into your games!

Why did i disappear? Hehehe.

Your work inspired me to make SHORT HIGHSCORE GAMES!!

Lol, im using a program called Gamemaker. It doesnt do anything amazing (well, I cant do anything amazing with it yet, im just a programming newb), but I managed to get a decent game goin on. Only problem is, it hurts my eyes. So much movement and flashing, but ill fix it. Maybe if your interested, I'll show it to you when its done.

Heh, im ready to map, so whenever your ready! Ill check tomorrow.

You ARE releasing 65 tomorrow, right?

Build 70:

-Added code to show skill icons depending on the skill
-Bug fix when pressing ESC at tournament screen
-Added code to repeat background music when it stops
-Autobattle now stays, so when you battle again it will automatically be set
-Added Inns/Weapon shops in tournament buildings so you dont have to walk back and forth
-Pressing KeySelect (Enter by default) will be the same as clicking Enter on the tournament screen
-New Feature: On the status screen you can now create a report, the report will list your trainer, cash, and your chicken stats. Die hard players can now have a printout of their chickens taped to their monitors at all times!
-Balancing out the tournaments: Making the first two much easier, giving more cash for beating all tournaments.
-Bug Fix: A huge slowness bug on the battle screen, it turns out the damage messages would scroll down over 5000 pixels until they finally stopped!!! Changed it to 300 pixels now. No wonder battles get so slow after a while!
-Judges: Added judges, they are the medal gatekeepers, they will let you fight for the three medals that are needed to beat the game.
-Demon Chicken: Added its final ability, Frenzy, which allows it to attack twice.
-Arctic Chicken: Added its final ability, Freeze, which will slow the opponent to half its speed for the next 30 seconds.
-Battle: Fixed bug where when the opponent casted a spell it showed the hero's chicken instead, and some other minor bugs
-Rainbow Chickens: Their abilities are now set at the start of battle, they are all random.

Many of you are wondering why I am not really programming that much, its because I am actually playing the game. Trying to see how its working, balancing out stuff, fixing bugs when I find them, and just playing through as far as I go. This will be build 70, a minor upgrade in terms of new features but major in terms of modifying whats currently there. I'm also reworking some code, think of build 70 as a maintenance release.

Build 75:

-Auqa Chicken: Added its final ability, Focus, which will give you +10 behavior
-Multiplayer: Fixed crash bug when using items in battle
-Multiplayer: Added more clean up code when disconnecting
-Battle: Coded Skill Point usage so spells use the correct amount, before every spell was just 10mp
-Multiplayer: Added a log file to record server/client connections and wins/losses. This file is encrypted and viewable from the multiplayer screen. Will be useful for tournaments to determine who won.
-Upgraded all code from VS2003 to VS2005
-Upgraded all Sound code from DirectX 7 to DirectX 9
-Battle: Fixed status so it shows when you are regenerating/frozen/blocking better
-Battle: Numerous little bugs fixed
-Forfiet counter added to the status screen
-Battle: Added caption pictures, numbers appear when you heal, color of the damage changes depending if healed or hurt
-Bug Fix: Casting spells in battle causes overflow error due to the helmet defense lowering the damage down to a negative number
-Added many more sound effects

Build 80:

-Bug Fix: Forfieting when chicken catching will automatically give you the chicken
-Multiplayer: More bug/error handling added
-Multiplayer: Using spells will now show the other player

I just want to tell you that you are doing a great job. I would like to see the areas a little closer together though, as it's frustrating just walking for 5 minute straight, only to have you chicken killed and you have to go back to the nearest town...

Haha true, but its ok if your near the town you want to go to and die.
Because then you at the town you wanted to get too.
And plus they still making..... Its nowhere near done there will be more towns.




Cyaz round!

Yeah, well, I just don't like it when I march all the ways to the forest or something (They don't HAVE a portal to get there!!) and then you die and have to go back to the desert/islands/hometown and then have to march back to the plains. (They don't have a portal to go there EITHER! I mean, everywhere else there's a tournament there is a portal but...) Also, how do you get to the Volcanoish Island? And, is there something special about the iceland/castle places?

There will be a quick way to get to every tournament in the game via the Select Area screen, when the game is done. You must visit the area first though. Also not all the towns are finished so thats why you wont find them.

Duh.....It's just, I wasn't able to get the portal/link/whatevah to go to the plains until I competed in the tournament. AND HOW DO YOU GET TO THE ISLAND??? [/i]

Yea, you "get" to an area when you talk to the tournament lady. Then you can return to that exact spot at a later time. I dunno what island you are referring too, remember map isnt done so its probably you cant get to it anyway.

Wellsirs, I got me a new username, it's being verified right now..{tjhombre(Chicken Fighter)} The old one was TJ BAILEY(Chicken Lovah)

So, how are you supposed to start/complete the Robotic chicken quest?

Oh yeah, you oughta make the DEMON chickens look like this....... ,

Not to mention that you need to have a save editor like you had in CF2K2... That was awesome. I took a lvl 1 chicken with 0 xp, and raised everything to max in editor. When I was done, I had 74 speed 90 Attack, etc...Ridiculous really, I easily beat out the castle in about 5 hits... MWUAHA HA HA HA HA HA

Oh, yeah, my new username has not been "Verified" yet....

Its not going to be, nobody gets accounts, I already explained that in another forum. Its disabled, need to get rid of the links.

Crap. Why? I wanna be your friend...

Not to mention that you need to have a save editor like you had in CF2K2... That was awesome. I took a lvl 1 chicken with 0 xp, and raised everything to max in editor. When I was done, I had 74 speed 90 Attack, etc...Ridiculous really, I easily beat out the castle in about 5 hits... MWUAHA HA HA HA HA HA

I dont think thats going to be in a build, i think you'd have to wait till the game is done. Even so... why woudl you want to cheat the game?

When I try to run the game, I get an error saying that I need to install a specific version of .NET Framework.

Where can I get it? :S

Microsoft's website.

Build 80:

-Title Screen redone
-Castle added
-Bug Fix: Trainer abilities were not being set at all when starting a new game! How did I not see that before!
-Optimized all the code by changing And to AndAlso, and Or to OrElse to cut CPU times. Change "A = A +" references to "A +=" to optimize memory usage. Changed Me.Close to Me.Dispose in most areas to clean up memory. Overall the game is faster now and it cut the exe by 200k, also I notice its using less memory.
-All music (previously it was just sound effects) use DirectX 9 now, which means no more MediaPlayer crap to deal with! Much cleaner and faster and less dll's to install!
-Volcano added
-Bug Fix: Fixed the code to finally get rid of this subscript out of range error that sometimes occurs when you hit cancel on the tournament screen
-Bug Fix: Fixed bug which caused opponent never to use a special attack
-Battle: Changed cooldowns for special abilities, instead of them all ending in 30 seconds, some end sooner like hide ability works for 10 seconds
-Added the first medal: Basically medals are won by random encounters. There are three medals and they are each carried by three chicken fighters. One medal is found in the Castle, and there is a one in 50 chance encounter to battle the fighter who carries it, he is hard, but if you beat him you get the medal!

So what you're saying is that I just run around in the castle to get the random event(hopefully)?

No it happens when you enter the tournament. The person you fight could be the boss holding the medal.

Oh, gotcha.

Any reason why my dude is walking slower?

I dont know, the drawing code is horrible. My new game has 3 layers and its 500 by 500 wide. It takes 20 seconds to draw the entire world. In Chicken fighters it has 1 layer and its about 400 by 300 wide, it takes about 3 minutes to draw the entire world! Its slow I know, its the code, I could fix it but why bother wasting my time you know.

Oh. Well, go right ahead with the new game.

The new game you're reffereing to is the MMORPG right?

It could be MMORPG or single not sure yet.

But its the one that you are calling an MMORPG right now, right?

Thats the one I'm calling my next game I dunno what it'll be. MMORPG or whatever.

Noticed that the chickens seem to have opponents depending on their position in the list - Chickie 1's opponents use Jump, then even numbered chickens get fireball & snowball, while odd numbered chickies don't seem to get any spells chucked at them at all.

Also, in one of the houses in the first town there is a lovely never-ending supply of free seeds in a desk. Fun, but presumably a bug.

And ... if you sell your first chickie and then go searching for a new one, it keeps telling you that your chickie has kicked the bucket on every step once you get into the desert area. Somewhat annoying.

I noticed that if you use auto-repeat on the arrow keys to walk around, the game slows heaps, the further you travel. If, on the other hand, you type the keys individually (but you can type them fast) the game stays at the same speed.

Also ... you can't change the options for midi and sound from within - it gives and error. I was able to do it from the ini, though.

And ... the first chickie you get only has one skill.

I LOVE this game - there don't seem to be many like it. Just Coliseum and Pokemon Battle Simulator. Oh, probably Battles of Norghan too, but it won't run on my laptop. snarl.

I also LOVE the Demon's Mantras, too. Can't wait for your new extravaganza of masterly RPG gaming!

ps I'm Lilian Barber of Australian 'vampiric' fame, in case you're wondering about the Username. I'm only a humble little telepathic cricket-loving computer-nerd poof, but Australia thinks it's much more exciting to entirely reverse my personality. Computer games save my sanity. And Barry Sheehan, of course. And my family and pets.

Cool thanks for the comments dude! I will see about all the bugs and fix them.

Three more I forgot:

Once you have gone into a desert cave, Dark chickies show up in the desert as well as the cave. Not sure if this is supposed to happen...

When fighting another chook, the name on the right hand side and the one used in the middle text area are different.

If you have 12 chickens, you can save the game, but when you try to load it again it gives an error. Maybe an array of 0 - 11 instead of 1 - 12?

Thanks again for writing such a spiffy hot damn game. I also enjoyed CF2000 and 2002, while we're on the subject. Just a thought - perhaps you could have an option for turn-based - pause the game when it gets to your chicken's go, then resume. The new battles are so fast (which is great, no complaints), but sometimes it's hard to get the mouse clicks in quickly.