We’ve got a whole new look for the player avatar! Plus Arena crowds, much-requested Life Block sizes, Creature Builder improvements based on your feedback, and more. Patch notes for this latest update are below. As always, bugs are expected in these work-in-progress builds so we really appreciate any bugs reports and feedback you send our way on the Pre-Release forum.
* If you’re not familiar with Pre-Release, it’s the unstable developer branch we use for testing new stuff. More info here.
Patch Notes
New Features/Improvements
- The player avatar has a new look! Let us know what you think!
- We wanted the player character to fit in with the direction of our updated art style and proportions. The old avatar stood out as cartoonish and a bit childish so we felt it was important to update it to match the fidelity and realism of the new environment and creatures. We also wanted to make sure it felt like a proper adventurer as you and your creatures explore the world of CHKN.
Old vs New. Off to adventure!
- So, we aged it up and raised the camera higher off the ground, reworked the proportions to fit within the game and look better next to the new creatures and environments, made it gender neutral so you can tell your own story, increased the detail while still keeping it optimized, and gave it proper newbie adventuring garb.
Come, Dochickat! We have trees to chop and death to thwart!
- And, of course, all the animations have been updated too! Run, roll, jump, and pet your way through the world.
https://youtu.be/nUAev3SQxSI
- NOTE: Using old armor sets will turn your character back into the old avatar for now. We’re working on new armor sets soon.
- The baddies of CHKN will need an update as well, so expect a revamped Poacher soon.
How It’s Made: Avatar Edition. Much digital sewing is required to get the new adventuring gear just right.
- Arena battles now have an audience!
- We’ve added creature/avatar spectators and crowd sounds to cheer your creatures on.
- Arena ring art has been polished up and new team member support banners added.
Pay no attention to crazy zombie chicken spectators. They’re just here to enjoy the show.
- Improved progress saves:
- Take your Adventure Mode progress with you into Multiplayer games, so you don’t have to start over with new creatures and inventory.
- Whatever items/creatures you have when you exit that Multiplayer game comes back with you to your Adventure.
- New Creature Builder improvements based on community feedback:
- Light tutorial added to help first-time builders
Prompts at the top and highlighted guides help you build your first creature: an adorable baby chicken.
- “Creature Front” arrow graphic changed to be less intrusive when building
- See a preview of stat changes while placing additional Life Blocks on a creature
Green shows stat increases. Red shows decreases. Placement also matters! Try different positions to see how the creature’s stats are affected.
- New half-sized chicken blocks added for more variety and creative opportunities in your creature designs
- Life Block naming made consistent (which also makes ordering of the Life Blocks in the Creature Builder more consistent and easier to find)
- Missing Life Block icons added
- Creature stat formulas changed to have diminishing returns
- Life Block stats, item stats, and ability values have been tuned for balance
- Creature defense now shows average defense amongst damage types (rather than total) to give you a better overall comparison
- You can now access inventory and other tabs while using the Creature Builder
- You can now add/edit descriptions for your Bonded creatures on the Party screen
- New achievements are in progress (You’ll see some achievement tracking notices pop up in the UI. We’ll hook these up to Steam once we’re tracking)
- Upgraded to latest version of Unity engine (for bug fixes, new development features, and better performance)
Bug Fixes
- Multiplayer fixes:
- Active scene synced on multiplayer games
- World data syncing issues solved on first connect
- Static objects display correctly in multiplayer
- Trees now animate when being struck in multiplayer games
- Trees now fall over for clients when broken in multiplayer games
- Creature thumbnail image generation fixed
- Infinite loop caused by creature flinch animations fixed
- Bad polygons fixed for the snake mouth
- Creature builder root assignment bug fixes
- Creature leg offsetting corrected
Quick links for testers:
- If you want to see what’s new on Pre-Release, here are the instructions
- Please post your bugs and feedback on our forums
- You can also join us on our CHKN discord to post bugs, feedback, or questions (or just hang out!)
Thanks for all your testing help, everyone! We hope you like these latest updates. Our next Pre-Release update is coming in about 2 weeks and will be all about Adventure Mode survival.
- Team CHKN
https://store.steampowered.com/app/420930/CHKN/