Since it's officially SPOOKY SEASON, we wanted to share some special community creations to help celebrate. (It's really just an excuse to look at more of your creatures because we love seeing what you guys make but shhh.) Real quick though: thank you for your kind words and understanding on our last post. You guys are amazing and we truly appreciate all the support. Thanks for sticking with us. Hope you're all staying safe! Okay, TIME FOR SPOOKY!!!!! [url=https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1701761196]
Flownid by Cohollow "Some believe that a Flownid swarm is one of the signs of the apocalypse." Yup, sounds legit. [url=https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2264271129]
Giant Cartoon Cat by hunterkillerofficial It's okay. It's just a cat. right?! [url=https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2264764940]
Farm Totem by plantguy760 Put a bunch of these outside your house to scare away those pesky trick-or-treaters. [url=https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2017995157]
Primus All Terrain Creature by $teamygreenfart NOPE.JPG [url=https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1931933360]
Creeper by are-bugg If your friend ventures out at night and doesn't come back, this is probably why. [url=https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2079875746]
Chicken Omega Prime by UltraDLee Winner of "best armor costume" 17 Halloweens in a row. [url=https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1803362214]
Flower Flower Dancer by A duck in a tree VERY good at stealing souls. And hula. [url=https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1607102213]
Elder Dog by Paradox Said to bring bad luck to those who would step on its lawn. [url=https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2225221211]
Dog House by Cleistopsis Okay, it's technically not very scary but had to share it for the pun alone. chef's kiss Also, if you're not checking out the creatures being shared by the CHKNeers over on Discord, you're missing out.
Sentrey By Markeddeer93. That's a LOT of lasers.
Chair by mana. Yup. It's a chair.
Cockadoodledoombringer by ThatGameGuy103. Perfect name A+ would flee from again.
Gramera by miiko. An absolute unit. Happy Halloween! - Team CHKN

What is happening with progress on the game? There are some fair questions over on the Discord. We firstly want to say that we love you guys and CHKN! And we're still committed to the game. We're a very small team and we've run into some pretty big issues with some really tough decisions to make. And then 2020 happened, so we've also been a bit distracted by real life to be honest. (We hope you're all doing well!) Here's where we stand: We're adjusting our roadmap for a version 1.0 release: adding some key features; more content and creatures; balancing for continual progression; making the abilities system more understandable; among other things. But, performance and data reliability (solo and multiplayer) are critical for 1.0 release and weve run into a big challenge in how to best tackle them. We've been researching engine and system update options and have not yet made a decision. These would be very big, very complex tasks and we currently are not completely sure that they'd fix these issues. As a small team, we can't afford to implement changes with this level of complexity unless we can be sure they'll work for our players. So we've slowed down on other updates to focus on this big research project and determine the best course of action. In the meantime, we've also needed to take on some other non-CHKN work to keep the lights on. So, please forgive us. We're a bit tortured by this decision of how to best move forward with these options and most of all, we need to make sure we do the right thing for the game (and you guys). As soon as we have news, you'll be the first to know! Stay safe, friends. - Team CHKN
(New) CHKN Logo by Tycothepug

CHKNs Interactive Arena Featured at PlayNYC

You guys! DanTDM will be featured playing CHKN on a brand new episode of Player Select on Disney XD! We're pretty dang excited.
Join Dan and his ever-faithful, tiny chicken, Felipe, for all the adventure and Egg Toss you can handle.
This episode also includes Jacksepticeye playing Animal Super Squad (made by fellow chicken enthusiasts!), Markiplier working virtually in Job Simulator, CrankGamePlays staying out of Hot Lava, and Laurenzside taking on a super fun death course in Guts And Glory.
The brand new episode of Player Select premieres on Disney XD Monday, May 11th at 8pm (in your local US time zone). Be sure to check it out! - Team CHKN

April 1st is CHKN's birthday! Seriously, it's not an April Fool's gag. Though it's kind of a fitting birthday, don't you think? To celebrate, we just want to say THANK YOU to all of our CHKNeers: players, testers, designers, artists, video creators, bug reporters, Workshop-ers, explorers, multiplayers, streamers, sharers, and YOU. We love hearing about your adventures and checking out all the awesome things you create. Youre all amazing. Thanks for helping us make this game and were very grateful for your support!
Don't forget that, for one day only during our birthday, sparkly loot bags will become sparkly birthday presents! Meet up with your friends in game to celebrate and whenever you see a loot bag drop, we hope its a fun reminder of how far CHKN has come with all your help. Thanks for an amazing year! - Team CHKN P.S. For those of you who have been checking up on us during this time (THANK YOU!), we're all doing well, staying in our respective homes and washing our hands on the regular. We hope you all are, too. Please stay safe everyone! <3
https://store.steampowered.com/app/420930/CHKN/

It's time for more of our recent Workshop favorites, created by the CHKN community! You can subscribe to any of these in the Workshop to bring them into your own games. (Click on the links and hit the "Subscribe" button, or search for them in-game.) Modify them, befriend them, or fight them to the death. It's up to you!

Hell Cobra by ReverentDeath

Whether you've already celebrated the new year or will be celebrating the upcoming Chinese and Lunar New Years (or all of the above!), we wish you a very happy 2020 from Team CHKN! We're celebrating by downloading more amazing player-created creatures. Here are a few of our recent favorites.

Feathery Disaster by Sanderson Vill

First off, happy Thanksgiving if you're celebrating next week! Otherwise, happy friday. :)

Amazing Player Creations

Chimera by iamcorn

Cyber-Chick by nicolamicallefstafrace

SCP-173 (The peanut) by Maciek

Zombie Pigman by Firestone

Homestead by

CHKN Upgrade Progress

Unity Upgrade Progress + More Testing Help Needed

• Any oddness you experience in multiplayer
• Crashes and performance issues
• Saved game issues
• Any other bugs you run across!

Player-Created Creature Spotlight!

Thank you to everyone who's been reporting multiplayer and game data issues! We've got fixes in progress and a workaround for you to use in the meantime. We could also use your help testing our fixes on Pre-Release. More info below.

Game Data Issues

In this menu you will see a list of all the saves of your current adventure game, along with a timestamp of when it was saved. The bottom of the list is the most recent, so start there and work your way up to find a save that has the recovered data.[/olist]
The Load Save screen. Choose an older save from the list to load it and check if your lost data is there. If you have questions or need more help, hop over to the #bug-reports channel on our CHKN Discord and let us know.

Pre-Release Update & Testing

Our in-progress fixes have been pushed to Pre-Release (CHKN v0.7.7).

• Updated to latest version of Unity Engine
• Replaced networking framework with new solution to fix bugs and improve performance

It's a short list but they're big changes. We're still evaluating the Unity update and the networking framework needs more testing so we could use your help! We need folks to play multiplayer on Pre-Release and report anything out of the ordinary. Tell Us...

• Any oddness you experience in multiplayer
• Saved game issues
• Crashes and performance issues
• Any other bugs you run across!

You can report your findings on our Pre-Release Forum or the CHKN Discord. And don't forget to also submit a bug using the in-game reporting feature so we have your game data for reference! Thanks for your help!
Hit ESC in game and choose Send Feedback/Report Bug to view this form. If we need to contact you about your report, you'll see our replies here as well.

Community Spotlight

As always, there have been some amazing community creatures and video creations from the community recently, so it's time to spotlight some of our favorites! Player Workshop Creatures You can subscribe to any of these player-created creatures in the Workshop to bring them into your own games! If you'd like to see your own creations in a future spotlight, be sure to share them over on Discord in the #creatures channel. ("Cat Bike") by goat It's a motorcycle! Out of creature parts! An amazing amount of work went into this cat bike so that we can have motorcycle races with our friends in CHKN. Thank you, goat.
Shin Tsozilla by Rathymos According to Rathymos, this fearsome beast wreaks havoc on new CHKNeers and destroys all their freshly built structures. We believe it. Beware the Shin Tsozilla!
Dragon Knight by Drake the Demon Who says dragons and knights can't get along? Maybe some of them work together to rain fiery destruction down on their enemies!
Living Hamburger by wat94115 With no mouth, it will surely starve to death, which is pretty ironic actually. But we love this tasty burger anyway.
Let's Plays Japanese streamer Jun (Unko-chan) started his CHKN life with a (mostly) chicken friend called FENIX then gets the TELEPORTING VANISH ability and a basilisk so things get epic. Check out the whole stream for some fun adventures! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdEeOl6v72g CHKNeer friend Jacemachine pits his famous Diogenes creature against one of his viewers' in a head-to-head arena battle. WHO WILL WIN?! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_Hyt46JZgQ To share your videos or streams, make sure they're tagged as CHKN and post them on our Discord in #videos so we can get the word out! Thanks again for sharing all your beautiful creations with us, and for testing our fixes in progress. It helps a ton. We'll keep you updated on the progress. - Team CHKN
https://store.steampowered.com/app/420930/CHKN/

As always, we've been inspired (and a little scared) by all the amazing creatures and videos you guys create so it's time once again to spotlight some of our recent favorites! We've also fixed a multiplatform bug that was causing players to get stuck loading at 20%. If you've experienced this in the past, please download the latest update and try again!

Workshop Creatures

Let's Plays

Thanks, CHKNeers!

Thank you so much for the bug reports since the last update! The in-game feedback form sends us a ton of info along with your reports and it really helps us squash these bugs more quickly. Weve released a few patches with many fixes since then, including the top-reported issues with saved games and multiplayer, so here are all the patch notes in one place. You can also report bugs and see patch notes as soon as updates are released over on the CHKN Discord. Happy Friday!

Creature Improvements

• Friendly creatures do a better job avoiding running into the player when pathing.
• Creature movement improved so they backup correctly when walking into them.
• Creature to player collision is now less erratic during combat.
• Charge ability to will no longer damage structure floors.
• The player will now dismount automatically when a creature is affected by a control-based status effect (fears, possessions, etc).
• Possession abilities (like Purrfect Charm) are now represented in the UI when active on a creature.
• Increased mill and hatchery out-of-range distance slightly, and a message is now displayed if a party creature cancels a job at a mill or hatchery due to moving out of range.

Gameplay Improvements

• Club tool can now break stone.
• Fire will now be put out when underwater.
• Reduced incoming damage if the player is hit while riding.
• Changed Life Shaper level to learn new recipes.
• Player weapon melee range increased.
• Riding a creature can now automatically toggle to third-person camera.
• Depth of field added to post processing.
• Added new console commands to rescue missing Loot and Chests: /LiftLoot and /LiftChest
• Shift + Click shortcuts for managing inventory now works with either shift keys

Multiplayer Bug Fixes

• Fixed bug that broke a clients saved game if the host changed the game mode to Adventure from Creative game via the console command.
• Fixed the map showing the other player indicator for yourself in multiplayer games (now just correctly displays the self indicator).
• Fixed riding state in multiplayer where players did not sit on the saddle correctly for clients.
• Fixed party creatures not syncing correctly for clients if spawned through the creature collection.
• Fixed bug where creature guardians and other players tamed creatures could be tamed.
• Fixed feedback for clients when striking things they cannot break.
• Disabled taking damage for clients in multiplayer until they have finished loading.
• Chests now show the correct items for clients.
• Fixed creature naming bug in party screen for clients in networked games.
• Fixed errors with tamed creature data in networked games.
• Fixed players becoming invisible over time.
• Fixed saddle and structure casting on the wrong player in networked games.

Other Bug Fixes

• Added a fix to infinite loading when continuing a save
• Added save game corruption check to attempt to recover if in a bad state.
• Fixed bug with achievements that failed to include players tamed creatures as contributors.
• Fixed garbled looking creature arms that would appear at times.
• Fixed party slots not reflecting actual state on game initial load.
• Fixed fire rendering on stomps.
• Fixed chicken wing flap sound timing and added sound to the right wing.
• Fixed hatchery bug that would cause hundreds of eggs to spawn in the world, whoops.
• Fixed egg physics so they dont fall on LOD change.
• Fixed issues with health and death values causing creatures to not see entities.
• Added safeties to creatures where actions are being done on them before they are fully assembled.
• Fixed bugs with Purrfect Charm ability.
• Fixed an exploit allowing use of infinite items.
• Fixed item rendering when entering riding state.
• Fixed bug in creature animation system that could cause it to be stuck in state that prevented it from using abilities.
• Fixed the map compass waypoint icons.
• Added safety code to animation networking to prevent running logic before creature is assembled.
• Fixed a display issue with the countdown when an out of range creature is added to a party.
• Fixed issues with navigation stopping distance that prevented creatures from using mills and hatcheries.
• Fixed summon bug that prevented spawning a party creature.
• Fixed Dragon animations.
• Fixed teleporting underwater on death when riding a creature
• Fixed issues with ride command distance checks.
• Fixed bugs with creature collisions.
• Fixed bug with camera offset when riding.
• Fixed creature data issue that could cause save corruption and loss of party or tamed creatures.
• Fixed non-responsive creature state
• Fixed creature brush to correctly brush tamed creatures when used

Known Issues

• Summoning tamed creatures to join your party while in multiplayer isn't working. Were looking into it!

Community Creature Ideas!

Today's Deal: Save 35% on CHKN!*

Look for the deals each day on the front page of Steam. Or follow us on twitter or Facebook for instant notifications wherever you are!

*Offer ends June 25 at 10AM Pacific Time

The Dragon makes its triumphant return thanks to all the CHKNeers that voted over on our Discord! Plus, by popular request, leg blocks can now be arms depending on where theyre placed. There is also a new heart resource for building creatures, tamed creatures have been improved, and more. Check out the patch notes below and download the update to try the new features and improvements for yourself! And be sure to join us Tuesday (6/11) for next dev stream! More info below.

New Creature Type: Dragon!

• Wing, leg, eye, mouth, tail, horn, spike, and body blocks (from S - XXL and half sizes) are all added to the game. Show us what you build!
• New Dragon-based wild creatures have been added to the world. Find them in Adventure mode to nab their blocks or discover their new abilities. Speaking of which...
• You cant have a Dragon without FIRE. The Fire Breath ability has been added.

• Add a Dragon Tail for the other new ability: Tail Slash.

Arms Added!

• By popular request, legs can now be arms!
• Depending on where you place it, a limb block will act as an arm or leg. If it touches the ground, leg! If not, its treated as an arm and animates/acts accordingly.
• That means its now much easier to tell when a leg will touch the ground or act as an arm when you add it to a creature while building.
• Arm abilities coming soon (like Cat Scratch)!

Creature Building Resource: Hearts

• Building new creatures now requires a Build Heart resource.
• Build Hearts are obtained by defeating a temple and getting the Lifeshaper upgrade.
• Hearts can also be gained by dissembling tamed creatures.
• You can see the total number of Build Hearts you have on the player stats screen.

Tamed Creature Improvements

• Once a creature is tamed, you now own it and it can be swapped in and out of your party at any time.
• Tamed creatures will no longer experience perma-death. They can be revived by sacrificing Life Blocks just like other owned creatures.
• Removing a tamed creature converts it back into Life Blocks.
• Keep track of all your tamed creatures by clicking the Tamed Creatures button on the Party screen.

• Reduced the number of abilities a creature can have to 6 (from 8) to encourage building multiple creatures.
• Creatures will no longer help destroy structures. Sometimes you gotta do the dirty work yourself.
• Increased Cat, Dog, and Spider leg movement speed slightly.
• Creature bite strikes now have variable timings based off the length of the neck to make them feel snappy.
• Creatures now spawn at different levels that will affect overall CP.
• Creature revive in Creative mode is now free.
• Choose to spawn wild or tamed when spawning a creature in Creative mode.

Gameplay/UI Updates

• NOTE: Due to a save system upgrade, all defeated bosses and their protected Lifeshapers will have returned to temples in your existing saved games. This means you can get additional Lifeshaper levels in those games! Enjoy.
• Party creature UI now always displays on the HUD to show which creatures are assigned, active, or incapacitated.
• Removed the radial menu from creatures. Instead, interact by using the party screen and the Lifeshaper.
• With the radial menu gone, Ride now gets a dedicated button! By default, press [R] while facing a creature to mount it. [R] again while riding to dismount. (You can change all bindings in the Options menu.)
• Removed automatic riding from the riding blanket. Only the saddle will grant this.
• Vials in creative mode are now thrown on mouse click.
• Added a Co-op mode toggle to the Host Game menu.
• Brick and ingot recipes tweaked.
• Handy tips added to loading screens.
• Improved creature mill assignment screen to assign on click.
• Added ability to release creature from mills with world interaction key.
• Tool and outfit stations now require the structure station to be built.
• Changed hatchery to use assign creature menu.
• Stat scaling added to venom and fire damage.
• Sleeping parents no longer wake up when hitting their eggs.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed teleporting to random location when mounting a creature in a networked game.
• Fixed bugs with per frame damage that would grant too many items when destroying bushes, trees, etc.
• Fixed treadmills appearing from a previous save or networked game.
• Fixed creature yell ability animations.
• Fixed bad data entering creature sensing system that caused many issues.
• Fixed bad look angles.
• Fixed creature building cursor errors when switching menus.
• Fixed priority of which mouth is in control of a neck.
• Fixed issues with multiple heads.
• Fixed creatures not loading correctly when moving out of LOD range and returning to previous position.
• Fixed crafting structures not returning unused materials when being destroyed.
• Fixed a bug with save updating that broke party creature spawning.
• Fixed bug with creature wandering that caused them to stay still.
• Fixed a bug in follow distance calculation that caused creature to back up more than it should.
• Tamed creatures will no longer sleep when being saddled.
• Fixed bug with hatchery hatch time. Hatched creatures now start at level 1.
• Item name overlay background now sizes correctly to fit the text.
• Fixed a bug with switching states on players and creatures that would cause the wrong logic to run.
• Fixed hatchery egg position.
• Fixed possible bad states for creatures when using treadmills.
• Fixed to creatures picking up food instead of eating it.
• Fixed main menu news GIF decoder.
• Infinite fire bugs have been fixed.
• Old map waypoints are now properly removed when ending a game.
• Fixed Arena Intro UI alignment when in 16+:9 aspect ratios.

Dev Stream Tuesday @ 3:30 PM EST

Outta the way! Chest-hauling snakephant coming through! Our lovely CHKNeers have been asking for creatures to carry chests and its a great idea we couldnt refuse. Now youre no longer restricted by your own inventory slots as long as you have creatures with ample storage tagging along, that is. This update also has new wild creature nests to find while exploring, main menu and UI improvements, and more. Check out the notes below, play the new updates, and let us know what youd like to see next by posting over in our Discord. And join us on Monday @ 3:30 PM EST for our next dev stream! More details below.

Creatures can now carry chests!

• Lighten your load, collect more resources while exploring, or carry enough food for all your friends.
  • First, craft a chest mount and add it to your creature.
  • Then place a chest in the mount or tell your creature to pick up a chest using the chest UI or commanding with a whistle.
• Multiple chests can be mounted on a single creature but be warned! The creatures leg strength determines how quickly it moves under the added weight.

Wild Creature Egg Nests

• Eggs you encounter in the wild will now be found sitting in nests, making them easier to spot while exploring.
• Nests have a chance to spawn multiple eggs, meaning more chances to find the Life Blocks youre hunting for.
• The number of nests that spawn throughout the world has also been increased.

Main Menu/UI Improvements

• Added Create a Creature to the main menu for quicker access when youre feeling inspired
• Added announcements so the latest news is available in-game

• Polished and streamlined profile creation so its easier to manage your profiles
• Removed stress bars from the UI
• Streamlined in-game Party screen for easier creature management
  • You can now have 6 creatures in your party (up from 4)
  • Creature level is now revealed in the UI
  • Added the ability to SHIFT-CLICK on the revive screen to spend an entire item stack

Gameplay Balancing

• Disabled time-based creature spawning near player built structures.
• Changed starvation to no longer cause death. Instead will bring health down to 1 hp.
• Tamed amount no longer decays over time.
• Adjusted Glass Pane, Alchemy Table, and Vial crafting recipes.
• Taming a creature now resets its level to 1.
• Added ability to increase creature level by sacrificing Life Blocks.

Other

• Polished block-by-block assembly animation when spawning a creature.
• Editing creature modes now default with creature interaction items equipped.
• Changed save updater to only run before a save is loaded (this prevents long loading times if you have a lot of saved games)
• Save updater no longer blocks UI from refreshing.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed egg hatching spawn time that was preventing eggs from spawning in some situations. Eggs should spawn faster now.
• Fixed infinite loading when continuing from a save.
• Fixed a bug causing discovered creatures to be rediscovered.
• Will no longer grant taming achievement for untamed creatures.
• Fixed save backups from not being created.
• Creature collection now displays the correct amount of cards based off of screen aspect ratio.
• Fixed certain textures not using texture steaming.
• Corrected missing normal and metallic textures on treadmills and workstations.
• Fixed a bug with saddles and undo/redo that could break gamestate.
• Fixed stuck status effects (stuck electricity)
• Creature Animation/Builder fixes
  • Dynamic bone safety added
  • Cursor releases to edit orb when new window opened
  • Fix to end link ordering
  • Set end link priority when it has the same control block to block facing forward
  • Fixed siding issues with blocks with offsets (crab legs was most obvious)
  • Added code to override leg children attachment setting
  • Fixed siding on cursors

Dev Stream Monday @ 3:30 PM EST

You guys have been requesting quality of life improvements to inventory management so here they are! (Thanks, btw.) This update also has multiplayer fixes, ability balancing and other creature improvements, and more. Check out the patch notes below and download the update to try for yourself. Let us know what youd like to see next and vote in our polls over on the CHKN Discord.

Inventory

• SHIFT-CLICK an item to automatically move it between hotbar/inventory and chests
• DOUBLE-CLICK an item to gather all loose items of the same type. For example, double-clicking one Small Chicken Body in inventory will grab any other stacks of Small Chicken Body and join them all together in one stack. Super handy when youre low on inventory space.
• The store all/pick up functionality now works as intended
• Fixed frame drops that were due to inventory refresh

Multiplayer

• Fixed spawning in the sky or underground when a client returns to a local game from multiplayer
• Fixed possible ID collision errors with client party creatures when returning to their local game from a multiplayer game
• Fixed creature teleporting on dismount for clients
• Fixed client vs host Lifeshaper mismatches
• Fixed client party creature UI textures
• Fixed client riding when set to automatic mode
• Fixed client creature database record assignment
• Fixed initial quest state when returning to local game if not complete
• Fixed treadmill animation for clients
• Fixed client null exception on creatures when loading data

Creatures

• AI
  • Party creatures will now walk outside of the build sphere and no longer scream endlessly, thank goodness
  • Creatures will bunch up less often when investigating sounds
  • Fixed certain creatures knocking into the player and not backing up depending on how they were built
  • Fixed creatures becoming untamed when removed from the party
• Abilities
  • Charge and Dash no longer cause slow movement when hit if active
  • Laser Eye aiming is now slower and damage has been slightly reduced to balance its power
  • Dash now requires movement speed rather than agility
  • Fixed Egg Missile and Web abilities not firing in some cases
• Physics
  • Fixed creature popping up while moving or rotating
  • Fixed abrupt movement stoppage on creature Dash
  • Fixed a bug with creature-to-creature collision
• Animation
  • Changed the order of angle calculation in look mode to do secondary axis first (twist before bend) to improve creature look animations
  • Improved look targeting for end block when it's also the root block (This fixes creatures looking at odd angles.)
  • Set block animations to default to neutral emotion on creation (prevents odd eye states when adding blocks)
  • Turned off chain animations in tutorial edit mode to prevent issues
  • Fix to tutorial from voxel fix
  • Added autovoxel and voxel-to-parent to the Life Block add logic
  • Added autovoxel and voxel to cursor creation

Other Improvements/Fixes

• Added support for ultrawide aspect ratios (21+:9)
• Fixed a bug with treadmills that caused the screen to blur
• Disabled occlusion culling when Ansel is active for those sweet screenshots
• Texture quality is now only set on application start to prevent unresponsiveness (This means any changes made from the options menu will require a restart.)
• Seeing 2x Lifeshapers when doing an action with it equipped is fixed
• Added the ability for us to send in-game dev responses to players who submitted the feedback form so we can assist with any issues, ask for more info if needed, or just say thanks!
• Fixed a bug where it was possible to spawn more than the max amount of party creatures, whoops
• Fixed torch shader z sorting
• Fixed a bug with the creature database that would cause it to display duplicates of the same creature
• Fixed a bug in the world streaming system that could cause sacks and other movable entities to fall through geometry
• Fixed chicken armor art when dropped in the world
• Fixed stat bars for items when inspecting them
• Added safeties to entity loading/unloading to prevent saves from erroring on load
• Fixed out of bounds exception for creatures

This latest update has brand new features in the creature builder, improvements to creatures throughout the game, plus a ton of bug fixes thanks to our Discord helpers. If you have any feedback or issues to share, let us know on Discord!

New Builder Features

• Creatures now emote and look around while in build mode! This gives you a glimpse into their personality and lets you see how theyll move before you exit the builder. (Plus, its just fun!)

• Creatures stamina will not deplete while in build mode, so it wont get hungry while youre editing
• Rigidity settings are now saved in undo/redo states
• When clicking off a creature while Lock Selection Mode is active, your current selection will be deselected (instead of generating new blocks in mid-air)
• Background blurring re-enabled so you can focus on what youre building
• And if you havent tried it out yet, weve also recently added better rotation and more block sizes for all animal types. Building has never been better!

Creature Behavior Improvements

• Creatures will now get happy and excited when pet (in addition to the facial emotes)
• Creatures will now back up and give space when you walk very close to them
• Creatures will no longer look back through themselves when observing the environment
• Friendly creatures will no longer do a death spin when the player walks on their backs or dismounts from a saddle
• Spawning a creature from the collection now assembles it block by block
• The creature AI sleeping priority has been reduced for wild creatures
• General whistle commands are no longer applied to creatures powering mills (so they wont stop working while youre commanding your other creatures)
• However, mill creatures will stop working if the player is attacked or the creature is attacked directly
• Reduced creature animation stutter when colliding with another creature
• You can now assign a creature to an empty mill without having to unassign it first
• Reviving a creature now starts at 100% energy

Quality of Life Improvements

• You can now load prior saved game backups from in the game mode. (Hit [ESC] in game to see the option.) This helps in situations where save data is broken and you want to revert to an old version of your game.
• Life Blocks no longer litter your inventory in Creative mode when removing them from a creature in the builder
• The loot sack spawn distance has been increased so you can see it from further away
• Added a field for contact info to the in-game feedback tool so we can contact you if youre requesting help or more info is needed
• Added party menu key bindings to messages
• Added a new set of images/backgrounds to the loading screen rotation

Bug Fixes

• Fixed game state breaking bug involving items and sacks
• Fixed possible ways to break a new game before building a creature in Adventure
• Fixed an issue with creature AI and saddles that would cause it to freeze
• Fixed creature spinning for clients in multiplayer
• Clients will no longer get an infinite loading screen on death in multiplayer
• Treadmill animation fixes for clients in multiplayer
• Treadmill assignment fixes for clients in multiplayer
• Physics layer fixes for when a client builds a creature in multiplayer
• Fixed network syncing on chest and crafting structures for clients in multiplayer
• Fixed interact and distance check mismatch for chests and crafting structures
• Fixed applying force to the wrong entities which caused players to fly off creatures when dismounting
• Fixed AI bug where creatures would stop working on a mill to break trees and bushes
• Defaulted fur off for non Nvidia cards due to reported rendering errors (can be toggled in the options)
• Fixed undo/redo in non-Adventure modes
• Fixed creature neck eating animation
• Added limiting to chain targeting to prevent underground targets and targets behind and above creature
• Set forward chain look turn angle limits to be in line with upward twists
• Removed all creature sprite creation hitches
• Fixed health bar going to 50% after knockout in Arena modes
• Fixed Game breaking bug after leaving and loading a save game
• Fixed missing XXL mech dino block materials
• Fruit respawning fixed, will now respawn after the correct amount of time if an area is left and returned to
• Fixed double fruit spawning
• Fixed red damage effect being stuck on screen
• Fix respawning when not near set respawn location after death
• Fixed a bug in AI that made creatures not follow their target
• Steam Workshop sync now triggers high priority download instead of polling to fix endless-trying-to-download subscribed creatures
• Inactive party creatures now spawn at the right location if abandoned
• Ram horn now highlights correctly when selected in the builder
• Safety added to animation code to prevent bad states when building

Workshop Creature Spotlight

This update gives a performance boost to min spec computers. If youve had lag or framerate issues in the past, please try out this build and join us over on Discord to let us know how it works for you! We also added a variety of new Life Block sizes so you can build even more interesting creatures. Save them to the Workshop and share them with us - we want to see!

Performance Improvements

• Optimized FPS and UI rendering to improve FPS by 10-20 depending on hardware
• Reduced world streaming hitching by spreading updates over several frames
• Brought in low poly versions of trees for improved low end device performance
• World generation time greatly reduced
• Reduced initial load time

New Creature Life Block Sizes

• Additional Life Block body sizes added: Small, Medium, Large, XLarge, XXLarge, and all their half sizes are now available for all animal types to give you more variety and build options.

Balancing & Bug Fixing

• Creature/Temple world generation has been tuned. If you havent checked out the new larger world, nows a good time! Its procedurally generated and player-created creatures can spawn in the wild. You never know what youll run into.

• Tuned crafted player items for progression balance
• Additional pre-built, player-created creatures added to the game

• Fixed infinite loading screen after player death
• Fixed the creature collection filling up with white squares when the creatures data cannot be read from disk
• Fixed bug that would cause the player to become invisible and make the game unstable
• Fixed dragging to move or remove blocks in the creature builder
• Fixed bug that occasionally caused the player avatar to render without a head or arms after death
• Fixed odd rotations while swimming
• Fixed Lifeshaper upgrade failing to unlock after defeating a Temple Boss

• Fixed creature block neck shifting while building
• Fixed bad data on the Unicorn Horn that was preventing it from being used in building
• Fixed game hanging when quitting to desktop
• Fixed bad culling settings on world geometry that caused it to disappear
• Fixed throwing direction when chase cam is active
• Fixed creatures in party not defending the player if the creatures were issued a follow command
• Fixed tranquilizer darts not putting creatures to sleep
• Fixed distance check to mount when attempting to ride creature

Lots of cool stuff in this update (if we do say so ourselves) thanks to the feedback and testing from our friends over in the CHKN Discord. Weve got a lot of CHKNeers hanging out, sharing creatures, playing together, and calling out our bugs. ;) And were still growing. Come join us! Check out the notes below for all the updates in this latest patch... or just download it and jump in a game to see whats new!

Expanded World!

• The world has gotten a major expansion, with more temples, Lifeshaper upgrades, and wild creatures to discover!
• Everything is now randomly generated beyond the starting area. This means that new Adventure or Creative games will generate a different world and no playthrough will be the same.
• NOTE: If youre continuing from a saved game, world objects might float or be underground where the old world and new world meet since the world data has changed.
• Let us know what you find out there!

Creature Builder Improvements

• The new building workspace lets you remove and reattach groups of blocks without them returning to your inventory! Just move a block away from your creature and drop it there in the build sphere. You can pick it up and attach it again, or finish building and any disconnected blocks will return to your inventory.

• Improved undo/redo states
• Improved visual clarity on creature while building
• New and improved effects on building

More Updates

• Balance changes
  • Reduced the power of the initial starting area creatures and bosses
  • Cooked food now restores more energy; Log and branch durability has been increased; Breakable rock health has been reduced
  • Laser Eyes now can break stone
• Additional creatures added to the game for both the Arena and world generation.
  • Many of these were created by our community members! Big thanks to cohollow, jelly butter, hedgehog pug, Dinoman9877, lordofd, tycothepug, deathasholds, fallensolger666, and paradox for their awesome creations this round.
  • Share yours over on our Discord and they might end up in game!

• Added in-game Feedback and Bug Reporting, which makes it easier for you to report any issues you might be having. It will automatically send us a screenshot, your sessions log, and your saved game so that we can debug issues more quickly.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed Mac being stuck at 30% when initially loading
• Fixed several issues that caused ID collisions in multiplayer games and break the game state
• Fixed trees and bushes burning forever and not taking damage
• Fixed rare case where exiting a build sphere would cause player to be dragged to another location
• Fix to an error in building that would break game state
• Creature wing flapping is now synced over the network
• Fixed client creatures in multiplayer games not taking falling damage when being ridden
• Disabled undo/redo in multiplayer (This was causing inventory syncing confusion, especially when multiple players were attempting multiple undo/redos.)
• Fixed several bugs with the creature party system that would cause a broken game state resulting in frozen, non-reactive creatures
• Fixed several issues with editing a creature through the party screen
• Fixed several issues with storing a creature if it had an item in its mouth

Weve added even more control to the creature builder with some new improvements. Well keep this post short so you can get in and try them out! ;) New Builder Controls:

• New rotation tool! Rotate in all axes, rotate blocks that are already attached, and have more control over your creature builds
• New highlight colors on Life Blocks make it much easier to see what you have selected and where you can place them
• The undo/redo system has been reworked to be more smooth and consistent, so its easier to experiment while building

• Fixed a bug where party creatures would not summon correctly outside of the world area where they were stored
• Fixed item duplication bug caused by clicking Pick up all from containers
• Fixed a big where clicking Edit on the party screen of a creature did nothing
• Torch and Lifeshaper FXs will no longer stay on in your hand even after the item is unequipped
• Poachers no longer change appearance when taking damage
• Multiplayer:
  • Client creatures now set the correct LOD on connect (This fixes issues where creatures were missing or in wrong positions!)
  • Equipped items now display correctly when a client first connects to a game
  • Client creatures now correctly burn stamina when gliding
  • Clients no longer have to rediscover their own creatures in multiplayer games
  • Fixed a bug that caused certain quest conditions to not progress correctly for clients in multiplayer

Welcome to my mansion, Mr. Piggles. Please do not eat my entire farm, kthx. Creative CHKNeers have been sharing their Homesteads over on Discord so we think its time for a...

Homestead Screenshot Contest!

Updates & Bug Fixes (v0.7.3B)

• Crafting progression quests will now always trigger as you explore, regardless of whether youve completed the initial on-boarding quest
• You now need an open party slot to create a new creature in Adventure Mode (This is to prevent confusion people were reporting when creating a new creature and then being unable to add it to the party. You can still have multiple tamed creatures!)
• Life Blocks no longer open the edit sphere when used, so no more unwanted launching of the creature builder at inopportune moments (like combat, whoops). You can use the Life Shaper or select Edit in the radial menu to build whenever you like.
• Party/tamed creatures will now help remove stumps
• Bug Fixes:
  • Identified and fixed an issue that caused frame rate to drop over time
  • A creature being ridden in Automatic Riding Mode no longer moves erratically
  • The Build a powerful creature quest condition now works correctly
  • Fix to in-game HUD not appearing after completing the Build a creature on-boarding quest
  • Fixed input glitches that were occurring in the Creature Builder

Live Streams Today & Sunday

New Creature Builder improvements give you more control. Rigid neck or bendy neck? Its up to you! We want your creatures for our next dev stream! See more info below but first, check out the latest updates.

Creature Builder Improvements

• Easily control which blocks are flexible (or not) when the creature moves in the world with a new block rigidity setting in the UI, plus improved voxelation detection
• Reposition whole chains of blocks so they no longer rotate awkwardly
• Control building better with two additional axes of rotation on Life Blocks
• Preview how the creature will move with new animation feedback in the builder (so you dont have to exit and relaunch to get things how you want them!)

• On-boarding/Quest improvements
  • Weve modified quest progression and added additional on-boarding quests
  • All tasks are now powered through quest system to keep feedback consistent
  • On-boarding state is now properly tracked
  • NOTE: This means your saved Adventure game may ask you to redo quests youve already completed. You can do them again or just untrack them in the quest log to ignore them.

• UI Improvements
  • In-game UI tab names have been replaced with fancy icons for readability (and cuz it just looks pretty)
  • Tweens added to some elements
  • Minor polish to some colors, positions, anchors
  • Improved loading feedback during last stage before main menu
• Bug Fixes
  • Fixed a bug where quickly clicking the spawn creature button multiple times would cause duplicate creatures to spawn
  • Fixed a bug when editing a creature from the party screen
  • Fixed the phantom +1 notification bug shown on the Journal badge

Create Creatures for Our Next Stream!

Did you know you can customize your Adventure world with creatures from the Workshop? Give it a try to add some variety and surprise to your next adventure. Its easy: [olist]

Find a creature you likeit can be a friends abomination or browse hundreds of unique community creationsthen click on it and hit the + Subscribe button.

Click on your newly subscribed creature to see its details, then select Spawn in Adventure.
Floppy Horn by Jelly Butter![/olist] Youre done! These creatures can now spawn in the wild for you to discover. Creative CHKN players are adding new creatures to the Workshop every day so the possibilities for expansion are endless. You can also bring these Workshop creatures into the Arena to test them in battle, or into Creative Mode to experiment with them yourself. New to Adventuring? Try These... Might we suggest starting with a couple of our favorites? Hat Cat by Jelly Butter and Lazer Pea by cwilfinger both have low CP (Creature Power), meaning they can show up early on in your survival progress, and they have some fun abilities to discover Nine Lives, Hiss Stun, and Laser Eye.
For more challenging discoveries later on in survival, find creatures with higher CP to add. Or head over to our CHKN Discord to see what cool creatures the community is sharing right now. Share Your Own Creations If you want to share your own creations for other players to use on their Adventures, just select Sync to Steam Workshop on the details screen. Then your fellow CHKNeers can favorite, comment, and spawn it in their own games.
He was a chicken before it was cool.

Latest Hotfixes (v0.7.21)

The game has been updated with another round of hotfixes and improvements: Multiplayer:

• Option to open world to multiplayer added to the in-game ESC menu (in addition to the Online menu)
• Clients joining a multiplayer game will now be automatically grouped with the host by default. This prevents aggressive creatures from attacking other players. A toggle in the Online tab is available to turn off co-op mode.

Gameplay:

• Respawn checkpoint now scares away aggressive creatures (to provide a bit of a safe zone when you first respawn after death)
• Trees now grow over time!
• Riding: Improved movement and targeting when riding a creature try it out with the Glide ability!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_5sICucq5g Workshop:

• Clicking on a creature in the in-game Workshop list now launches the Steam Overlay to see its Workshop web page. See details, favorite, comment and subscribe from this page. (Click the green + Subscribe button!)
• You can now also see the Workshop page from a creatures detail screen in-game. Click View in Workshop at the bottom.
• Old shared creatures with obsolete Life Blocks have been marked as incompatible with the new game (v0.7+) and will no longer clutter the in-game Workshop (Read more info here!)
  Youll see an orange notice at the top of the page if a creature is incompatible.

Performance/Optimization:

• Minor pooling system tuning to improve small initial hitching
• Fixed a bug with dynamic objects world streaming to slightly improve performance

Chat With Us!

Join us on the CHKN Discord to tell us what you think of the game, share your creations and ideas, find multiplayer friends, or just hang out in the #share-your-pets channel thats currently full of cats!!! Come say hi. See you there! - Team CHKN https://store.steampowered.com/app/420930/CHKN/

Hey, CHKNeers! This weeks update makes fighting creatures in the arena more fun, with camera and AI/combat improvements as well as new pre-built creatures to test out. We want your feedback on creature battling in the Arena! Tell us what you think of the update and share your creature combatants with us on the Discord. This update also includes:

• New homestead art
• Better creature riding
• Fixes to loading and performance

Arena Update

• Cameras:
  • Knockdown camera greatly improved (better transitions, closer focus on face to show creatures reaction)
  • Camera bugs in Team Elimination mode have been fixed
  • Fixed awkward camera transitions in Exhibition mode.
• Combat AI improvements: Creatures no longer end up in staring contests; theyre much more aggressive in combat
• New Arena creatures: Added new prebuilt creatures to try out in battle
• Fixed Arena attack attempt & hits tracking

More Features & Fixes

• Optimization & Loading:
  • Reduced initial load time and optimized initial load memory usage. Loading should take significantly less time on lower end machines.
  • Improved auto-quality detection to choose performance settings more appropriate for your hardware
  • Added shadow distance setting to Options
  • The memory footprint of the game has been majorly decreased
  • World hitches (periodic framerate drops) that were caused by the game reading from the hard drive are now gone
• Creature movement: Speeds re-tuned so creatures are much more agile across the board (makes for better combat and riding)
• Riding: Added an easy-to-craft riding item for early game to make riding more accessible, and improved targeting when riding a creature

• Environment:
  • Melon & Squash art are higher fidelity and Raspberry & Blueberry items increased in poly count. Basically, these all now look more delicious
  • Bush textures got a visual tweak to bring them in line with other environment art
• Homesteads: All new art for wood and stone structure items!

• Creatures & Life Blocks:
  • A new set of creatures now have a chance of spawning in the world
  • Unicorn and Dinosaur Spike Life Blocks got a spiffy revamp
  • Added new Antler Life Block

• FX: Impact effects are larger in scale so theyre easier to see
• Item destruction: Disabled destruction of ability scrolls and item recipe tomes, and Electric Shock ability no longer destroys nearby items
• Multiplayer Bug Fixes:
  • Fixed an issue where creatures were missing for clients
  • Fixed creature riding for clients
  • Fixed a bug where party members in a multiplayer game would take damage from friends
  • Fixed a bug where bush impact sounds were not playing for clients in multiplayer games
• General Bug Fixes
  • Fixed a race condition with creature spawning that was causing multiple issues (abilities not appearing, duplicate creature records, and missing creature party avatars in the HUD)
  • Fixed a bug where players would teleport underground and bonded creatures would be lost forever if the player died while riding a creature
  • Fixed a bug where creature stamina while riding a creature would not deplete during sprinting
  • Fixed Creature AI triggering scared or angry routines at the wrong times
  • Fixed a bug where resolution settings were randomly changed/reset

Thanks to the awesome CHKNeers on Discord and the forums testing and reporting issues to us, weve been able to swat some bugs and continue to improve performance on lower end machines. Here are some notes from the latest set of hotfixes:

Bug Fixes & Optimization

• Loading: Initial loading sequence speed improved (specifically AI portion of loading speed 5x as fast)
• Spawning:
  • Creatures: Fixed a bug where creature respawning at very high rates (negatively affecting both gameplay/world population and performance)
  • Poachers: Fix for poachers spawning excessively and causing frame rate drops (and just being generally annoying when trying to progress)
• Multiplayer:
  • Structures now show up
  • Player Stamina fixed
  • Farming hoe and ground tilling fixed
  • Lifeshaper upgrades now work for all players
  • Fixed a bug where poachers were invisible
• Grass: Fixed disappearing grass, quality settings, optimizations, but theres an edge case we are still tracking down.
• Game Exit: Fixed bug causing issues for players who exit the game while the creature builder orb is open
• Screen Resolution: Fixed bug causing screen resolution to randomly reset
• Party Slots: Fixed bug causing occasional creature party slots to disappear

2018 is coming to an end and we just want to say a big Thank You to all of you. Your support and feedback has been amazing this year and we couldnt make CHKN without you. We look forward to a great 2019!

The Great Holiday Hat Hunt Ends Soon!

Vote in our Discord Polls!

Happy holidays, everyone! To celebrate and say thanks, weve got a special treasure hunt going on through the end of the year. Plus weve released optimization fixes to improve performance. Those notes are below.

The Great Holiday Hat Hunt!

Play the All-New CHKN!

Optimization Fixes & Tech Improvements

Improved loading[/olist] Theres still a point during the initial loading, before the loading bar shows 0%, where the game is temporarily unresponsive. It seems like the game may have crashed but it hasnt! Summon the patience of a saint and it will load after some waiting (how long depends on your computer specs). Were working on this! And for those of you that want more technical details, here's the full list of improvements:

• New rendering technique to render many instances of an object quickly for modern video cards. Increases render range while improving FPS.
• Implemented compute shaders to cull based off of camera frustum and occlusion. (Requires a modern card.)
• Added fallbacks for the above for low-end devices to maintain current FPS.
• World streaming system overhauled to no longer be gameObject based. Frees up resources for other systems, greatly reduces stutters, and improves LOD responsiveness. (Collisions always register quickly; no delay when traveling through world for things to load in.)
• Foliage system optimized to remove frame stuttering when traveling through the world.
• Improved quality settings. Render distance will now tune all systems to greatly improve FPS on low end devices. High end devices can now render up to 2x as much as previous build.
• Plus various bug fixes (FX no longer always attached to hands, throw animation is fixed, failed to load fixed)

Dog Armor is Here!

Our 5th creature-based armor is now in the game! If you want to keep warm on cold CHKN nights, hunt down some dog creatures and get to crafting.
Come, Chicky! Its time to get our revenge on those Lightcats.

Handy Links

• Join our CHKN discord! Hang out, chat about your game ideas, report bugs, or get help.
• Follow us on Twitter and subscribe to us on YouTube
• Sign up for our newsletter to be the first to know about CHKN News

Thank you for all your support this year. We love all your feedback and crazy creature creations. Happy holidays! - Team CHKN https://store.steampowered.com/app/420930/CHKN

Earn a special Discord role by joining our first ever multiplayer event! Well be there, too. (Its lonely in our developer basements. But fair warning, watch out for Gregs creatures. Theyre terrifying.) Let's join up and play the new CHKN! Saturday, Dec 15th 8-9 PM EST (Time zone converter) Its really easy to join: [olist]

Version 0.7 is now on the Live branch for everyone to play! Check out the highlights below or download the update to try them out yourself. And if youre a CHKN veteran, make sure to read *Important Notes for Returning Players* down below! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVDvnlrgxfY This update gets us another step closer to v1.0 of CHKN and we need your feedback! We know there are still some things to iron out in this build and wed love to know what youd like to see in the future. All your feedback really helps us prioritize development and improve the game. Please help us test and post your feedback on the discussion forums or in our Discord.

Creature Building

• Crab legs + Crab shell blocks = Hunker Down (armored force field)
• Mech Dino eye = Laser Eye
• Chicken Face (block, eye, mouth, comb) = Squawk Stun
• Cat legs + Cat tail = Teleporting Vanish
• 50% Cat blocks = Nine Lives (automatic revive)
• 4 wings = Wing Gust (knockback)

Arena

Adventure Mode

Art & Environment

** Important Notes for Returning Players **

• You can swap to this branch by right-clicking on CHKN in your Steam Library, selecting Properties, clicking on the Betas tab, and then selecting Legacy in the dropdown menu.
  • Swap back to none at any time to return to the latest live build.
• Youll be able to see all the old Workshop creatures in this build.
• Your old saves are still there! You can bring them to this Legacy build by copying them over manually.
  • Go to C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\LocalLow\Katapult\CHKN
  • Rename your SavedGames directory to SavedGames_legacy
• NOTE: Since the legacy build is now an old version of the game, its no longer supported.

Known Bugs/Issues

• If you have a lower-end computer, you might not see any grass. Weve turned this off for now to improve performance and are looking at replacements.
  • To turn off grass manually, go to Options -> Performance and turn off Grass Rendering.
• Sometimes a creature will get stuck on something in the world and stop following you. Were working on Pathfinding updates to fix this but you can use the Party menu to quickly store and spawn it as a quick fix in the meantime.

Patch Notes Too Many to List!

Roadmap

You tell us! (Post on the forums or Discord and let us know what youd like to see.) And check out our Roadmap...[/olist] We really want to know what youd like to see next. We love your feedback and read all your comments and ideas to keep us motivated in the wee hours. (What is sleep?!) Were working as fast as we can to make CHKN everything we know it can be and we couldnt do it without you.

Adventure Dev Stream!

Were really excited about this release and weve been having so much fun in our Multiplayer Adventure tests so lets turn on the stream! Tune in later this afternoon, Nov 30th @ 3:30 PM EST. Come hang out with us on YouTube or Twitch and tell us which creatures to build, help us survive, and ask us any of your burning CHKN questions!

Thanks!

First off, big thanks to all our previous creature contest entrants. The creativity of the MANY amazing Workshop creators really inspired us as we revamped creatures and repopulated the world. And we havent forgotten you, winners! Since not all the revamped blocks are in yet, itll be a bit before we can add your amazing creatures to the world but dont worry. Well add them in as soon as we can.
And special thanks to all our Pre-Release testers, Workshop creators, and everyone who supports us. Your feedback and comments mean a lot and really help us make CHKN better. Thank you! If you want to help us test, send us your feedback, or talk to us directly, here are some handy links:

• 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!)
• Follow us on Twitter and subscribe to us on YouTube
• Sign up for our newsletter to be the first to know about CHKN News

Back to work for us. Bye~~! - Team CHKN https://store.steampowered.com/app/420930/CHKN/

First off, happy Thanksgiving to all our friends in the US celebrating tomorrow! Weve already started getting ready for our CHKN Team feast...
Step 1: Finding the right turkey or is it TRKY? Before were full of way too much food, weve put out an update to Pre-Release with more improvements as we prepare to push to the Live branch. (Note that your previous Pre-Release saves are invalid and wont load.) Patch notes are below and, as always, bugs are expected in these work-in-progress builds so we really appreciate your help testing and reporting feedback on the Pre-Release forum. * If youre not familiar with Pre-Release, its the unstable developer branch we use for testing new stuff. More info here. If youre not a Pre-Release tester, check out this video for a look at some of the features and updates coming to the Live branch! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVDvnlrgxfY Well also be playing the Arena on our developer live stream today, Nov 21st @ 3:30 EST on Twitch and YouTube. Come hang out! Help us build creatures and see who comes out victorious.
And now, patch notes!

Creatures & Abilities

• Multiple body sizes added for the octopus and carnivorous plant blocks
• New feather and fur block accessories added
• New traits (blind, diet types) added to provide feedback when building creatures
• Stuns can no longer be applied in consecutive hits preventing stun locking
• Additional text added to abilities to show how to unlock them
• Ability preview images implemented
• Creature block voxel system re-enabled
• Reviving a creature now automatically spawns it
• Creature AI is now more reactive to incoming threats
• Friendly creatures now attempt to walk around the player
• Implemented a system to detect creature to creature collisions. (Creatures no longer run through each other.)

Crafting & Items

• Chicken Armor added!
• New Items: crab axe, pig slingshot, spider bow
• Logs from felled trees now appear as a single log bundle so theyre easier to see
• Added recipe tracking: pin recipes to add them to the HUD
• Adjusted some crafting recipes for resource and progression balancing
• Item recipes are now granted when first building and placing a crafting structure, or by finding crafting tomes when defeating or breaking a resource in the world
• Trough removed (non-functional temp item was confusing players; may return in the future when properly implemented)
• Creative mode spawn eggs are functional again

Adventure/Survival

• Gameplay
  • Temporary shelter added: use as a temporary respawn point
  • Hunger status added if low on energy
  • Crush damage removed if a creature collides with the player
  • Multiple mushroom types and pumpkins added to the world
  • Death message added for all damage types
  • Lifeshaper upgrading now requires defeating a Guardian before it can be obtained
  • Time based creature spawns and creature respawning implemented
• Balance
  • Loot drops tuned
  • Damage dealt to trees changed
  • Creature block drop rates tuned
  • Creature fall damage tweaked
  • Changed stamina regen to be percentage based and added AI routines for creatures to back off and regain stamina. (Results in fights that have a natural rhythm and more creature builds that are viable!)
  • Poacher toughness buffed
• Journal
  • Descriptions to world entities added
  • Descriptions of items tweaked
  • Badging added to the Journal
  • Data organization improved
• Quests & Onboarding
  • Tutorial quests and onboarding prompts added
  • Quest UI overhauled
• Map
  • Beacon added, use to tag a location on the map
  • Map functional. Location of death tagged and other placed objects automatically are added to the map

Arena

• Tournament mode added to the arena
• Arena camera tracking improvements
• Optional night lighting added to the arena

Art & UI

• Temple art tweaked
• New creature head icons added to the creature builder filter for easier identification
• Many missing icons added
• Spear animations added
• Improved sunset/sunrise lighting
• Holding E while walking over items will now pickup all items
• Ability to place torches removed
• Hitting foliage SFX added
• Effects
  • Life Shaper and ability scroll FXs added
  • Item FX more obvious
  • Particle FX improvements for fire and water hose
  • Implemented temple checkpoint FX and creature revive polish
  • Stun FX improved to read clearer as a stun
  • Party creature death particle tweaked
• UI polish
  • New loading screen implemented
  • New main menu implemented
  • New options screen implemented
  • Moved multiplayer options within tab menu
  • Ability browser UI reimplemented
  • Many other minor changes to create consistent look

Performance & Optimization

• Replaced foliage system with a new performant tech which reduces stutters
• Level of detail levels reimplemented for creature animation system to improve frame rates
• Improved pathfinding navmesh generation performance
• Texture streaming added to the options screen; currently a beta implementation. Disable this if you have a video card with 4gb+ of ram!
• World object colliders optimized
• Fur settings added to the options

Bug Fixes:

• Networking
  • Clients stunned properly
  • Clients flinch when damaged properly
  • Party creature death and revive fixed
  • Client save game fixes
  • Weather set for clients properly
  • Creature names no longer reset for clients
  • Adventure games now always show in join lobby. Error message prevents players from joining if they did not complete start of adventure mode
  • Clients now get proper notifications
  • Guards added to prevent game from glitching if null connections are detected
  • Treadmills now animate properly for clients
  • Treadmills now show attached creatures for clients correctly
  • Clients now properly see health bars
  • Fix to clients items becoming stuck which prevents them from interacting with the world
  • Egg crack and stone breaking sounds can now be heard by clients
  • Fix to clients flashing damage indicator endlessly
  • Fix to doors breaking chunk loading
  • Fix to clients not loading world data correctly
  • Fix to duplicate creature created on revive
  • Projectiles now display properly for clients
  • Quests are now networked
  • Fix to creature tamed status not saving properly when joining or leaving a networked game
  • Clicking store all on chests now works properly for clients
• Fix to bad rotation on crab eyes that did not allow them to see correctly
• Fixed dog tail clipping inside of parent block
• Graphical fix to many materials that did not handle depth correctly
• Fix to obtaining multiple Lifeshapers
• Fix to mechdino neck offset
• Fix to elephant ear offset
• Fix to chicken eye scared blend shape
• Fix to hatchery texture
• Sleeping creatures properly close eyes
• Rain volume hooked into master volume
• Ranged weapon throw height fixed
• Crab claw ability animations fixed
• Fix to using the whistle with the hotbar/offhand
• Fixed hopping creatures becoming stuck in place
• Fixed bug in damage formula that made per frame damage to become highly reduced
• Fixed bugs in animation system that caused an ability to become stuck
• Fix to creature building cursor seemingly randomly disappearing
• Shader fixes for OSX
• Rocks shader replaced (was causing server staggers on some hardware)
• Fix issues where save state was not being cleared when starting a new game after playing a saved game
• Bug fixes to creature revive UI
• Fix to creature stat previewer showing incorrect values
• Structure block removal grace period now works again
• Fix to breakables not respecting what item it was struck with causing damage to be applied when it shouldnt and vice versa
• Creatures will no longer eat lifeblocks
• Sign structure item fixed
• Loot bags can no longer be damaged
• Fix to double headed creatures having bad angles
• Fix to post-processing transitions that caused colors to pop instead of smoothly transitioning
• Fix to temple render settings becoming stuck on infinitely
• Water rendering now properly draws fog over it
• Journal 3d renders for trees, rocks, bushes, and items positioning and rotation improved
• Removed some duplicate/broken creatures from the default creature collection

Known Issues:

• Were aware of decreased performance on computers with integrated graphics cards (which are common on some laptops and lower-end computers) and Macs. Were working on fixes for this now.
• World streaming issues can cause an incremental drop in framerate regardless of your computers specs. We have a fix ready to implement in December.
• The radial UI for Observing is glitchy and doesnt always register what youre pointing at. Fix is in the works.
• If you have a 4GB+ video card, textures may be blurry due to new texture streaming tech implementation in progress. Go to Options -> Performance and turn off Texture Streaming.
• Autodetect will do this automatically on fresh installs of the game but current players will need to do this manually to overwrite the existing setting.
• Weve been unable to replicate a bug where the game gets stuck loading while syncing creatures so we believe its been fixed through other changes. But if youre still experiencing this bug, please let us know!

Quick links for testers:

• If you want to see whats 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!)
• Check out our Trello board development roadmap to see whats coming

Theres a new look for the poachers, new wild creatures, updated temples, new craftable items, and more. Patch notes are below and, as always, bugs are expected in these work-in-progress builds so we really appreciate the reports and feedback you send our way on the Pre-Release forum. * If youre not familiar with Pre-Release, its the unstable developer branch we use for testing new stuff. More info here.

Patch Notes

• The poachers have a new look! After the player avatar got a revamp, we wanted to update the poacher to match the new style, while still keeping it creepycute. (Thats a word.)

• Adventure Mode updated with new creatures for variety, and balance and tuning for more challenging and fun survival.
  • New wild creatures can be found throughout the world. (Legacy creatures have been removed.)
  • Creature spawning is now dynamic!
    • Different playthroughs may produce different creatures.
    • Toggle the Use in Adventure checkbox on a creatures detail screen in the creature collection for a chance for it to spawn in the world.

• Initial intro overhauled to teach the basics of survival without being too pushy and letting you discover things on your own.
  • Added a basic onboarding quest to point new players to crafting.
  • Some simple onboarding messages have also been added to trigger points throughout the world.
• Increased the length of days to allow more time to explore, gather, and craft in the safety of the sunlight.
• New craftable items added and existing item recipes tuned for balance
• Revive window in the Party screen now notifies you if you dont have any Life Blocks in your inventory.
• You can now assign tamed creatures to your party from the Party screen.
• Discovery and obtaining abilities are now functional in networked multiplayer games.
• Chests are craftable again!
• World/Environment
  • World temples have shiny new art and layout, worthy of the Lifeshapers power.
  • Improved placement of wild creatures, resources, and trees throughout the world.
  • Visual configuration of trees improved (more realistic growing/branching)
  • Rock walls improved with meshes.
  • Visual improvements to splat map and heightmap

• Arena
  • Improved automatic camera framing for all Arena modes
  • Arena crowds now animate when cheering on the challengers.
  • Improved arena banner textures
• Help added to in-game menu (press [ESC])
• Ability and trait slots now flash in the Creature Builder when theyre added automatically
• Added an edit icon to all editable text fields throughout the UI to make it more obvious that you can edit them

• Networking id collision fixes
• Networking creature building fixes
• Able to set abilities for more than first slot
• Creature-powered treadmill fixes
• Players now orientate correctly when starting a new game
• Checkpoint position fixed
• Fix to active quest display becoming stuck in the UI
• Fix to editing a incapacitated creature
• Fix to floating hearts after exiting creature edit mode
• Fix to creatures stuck in the wrong position in networked games
• Various animation/creature build configuration fixes
• Fix to becoming stuck on the loading screen when continuing a saved game
• Fix to dying 2x due to falling damage in networked games
• Fixed issue with creature builder stats reporting wrong values
• Creatures will no longer try to play with you when feeding or petting. (They ended up trumpling you most of the time or moving out of range when trying to feed.) They will still do this behavior with the ball.
• Creatures will no longer continue to chomp on trees after the tree is cut down

• Crab claw animations are nutso.
• Creature Building undo/redo can glitch out
• After updating the game, you may not see creatures around the world. If that happens, verify the game files through Steam. (Right-Click on CHKN in the library, select Properties, go to the Local Files tab, and click Verify integrity of game files.)
• Continued issues from last update:
  • Occasionally the game will get stuck on syncing creatures during start up.
    • Removing player profiles should unblock this. Were working on a fix!
  • Textures may be blurry due to new texture streaming tech implementation in progress.
    • In the meantime, you can force max quality textures by opening the console (press ) and entering: /streamingTextureForceLoadAll true
  • 3D renders for trees, rocks, bushes, and items in the Journal are not positioned correctly
  • Ability preview images are not yet implemented in the Journal (currently reuses same image for all abilities)
  • Discovery notifications say press tab to view but this is not yet implemented (press TAB and go to the Journal to see new entries)
  • The radial UI for Observing is glitchy

Quick links for testers:

• If you want to see whats 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!)

Be a master CHKN survivalist with the new Journal features! Plus new crafting stations, cleaner and clearer UI updates, and more. Patch notes are below and, as always, bugs are expected in these work-in-progress builds so we really appreciate the 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

• You’ll need the new updated Journal to survive and master the wild world of CHKN. It gathers all your collected discoveries and info for handy reference.
  • You can now observe almost anything in the world to log it in your Journal: creatures, trees, rocks, bushes, etc. Items you craft or find are also logged.
  • Updated Journal entries provide more in-depth information on everything you’ve logged. View Life Block stats and abilities, an item’s crafting components and station requirements, what kind of resources objects drop, etc.
  • The Journal UI now categorizes entries to make it easier to find what you’re looking for, and better organizes the data at a glance
  • The creature category now hints at creatures you have yet to discover. Explore the world to find them all!
  • Observing can now be done without binoculars, if you dare to get close enough to your target. (If you want to observe things from a safe distance, you can still craft binoculars at the Tool Station.)

• Adventure Mode has new gameplay updates for a more fun and rewarding survival experience.
  • New crafting stations added for clearer crafting progression
    • Use the new stations to build specific types of items you’ll need to survive, like tools and structures
    • Crafting recipes and station requirements have been updated for progression and balance
    • Treadmills are now pre-attached when you build a crafting station
  • Creature parts have more uses in crafting. Will you add a scavenged chicken leg to your creature, or turn that leg into a Chicken Rake? YOU MUST CHOOSE!

• Abilities are now “looted” when you defeat a creature with that ability for the first time. Defeat wild creatures to learn their secrets!
• Raw meats can now drop when a creature is defeated. Mmmm, meat.
• Creature Building tier limits have returned to Adventure Mode (Upgrading the Lifeshaper to unlock higher build tiers will return soon.)
• The Lifeshaper is now an item in your inventory. You can cast it to build or edit a creature if you don’t have a Life Block handy.
• The UI has been updated in several places to be easier to use and read, and to provide you more info about the world.
  • Tooltips have been added to all UI screens
  • UI palette has been adjusted: important parts are highlighted better and it just looks nicer yay
  • Additional creature attributes have been added to detail screens
  • The status effects UI now has labels to improve clarity[/list[
  • Creature Revival UI has been implemented on the Party screen
  • Arena cameras have been updated to pick more optimal angles
  • Creative mode now uses the same map/environment as Adventure
  • Additional missing item icons have been added
  • Some item sizes have been altered to be consistent with the new avatar
  • Fur shaders have been optimized for improved FPS

• Fixed a bug where removed player profiles prevented playing Adventure or Creative modes
• Steam functionality re-enabled
• Ability fixes:
  • Fixed Strike canceling before playing
  • Fixed triggering Egg Missile ability when player controlled
  • Fixed Laser Eye ability damage
  • Teleport ability can no longer go through walls
  • Fixed Fire Breath observation error
• Creepy blank eyes in the Arena crowd now have pupils. Bye, zombie crowd.
• Creatures no longer start in the wrong position in the Arena
• Tree health percentage UI fixed
• Tree art adjusted to fix bad overlaps/gaps

• Occasionally the game will get stuck on syncing creatures during start up.
  • Removing player profiles should unblock this. We’re working on a fix!
• Textures may be blurry due to new texture streaming tech implementation in progress.
  • In the meantime, you can force max quality textures by opening the console (press ‘) and entering: /streamingTextureForceLoadAll true
• 3D renders for trees, rocks, bushes, and items in the Journal are not positioned correctly
• Ability preview images are not yet implemented in the Journal (currently reuses same image for all abilities)
• Creature Builder stats are often reporting wrong values
• Discovery notifications say “press tab to view” but this is not yet implemented (press TAB and go to the Journal to see new entries)
• The radial UI for Observing is glitchy
• Adventure quests are not fully implemented; you’ll see some phantom quest text or broken progress updates
• Unlocking more than 1 creature in your Party not yet implemented

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!)

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

• 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.

• 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.

• And, of course, all the animations have been updated too! Run, roll, jump, and pet your way through the world.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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

• “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

Happy Tuesday, everyone! Here’s a list of patch notes for the latest Pre-Release update. Bugs are always expected in these work-in-progress builds so we could really use your help testing! We appreciate any bug 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 [Pre-Release v0.6.4]

• New Arena Mode - Exhibition Match:
  • Now there are two ways to play the Arena. In Exhibition Mode, battle creatures in 1 vs 1 matches. First to score 3 points wins! Play in spectator mode (CPU vs CPU) if you want to watch the action, or Player vs CPU if you want to control a creature directly in battle. Points are awarded by scoring a knockdown or by how well a creature did offensively before the round time ends.
  • Added in this “Exhibition” arena mode release:
    • Knockdowns trigger a snazzy slow down moment.
    • In the “corners” between rounds, apply bandages and feed to prepare for the next round.
    • New Arena art and sounds of crowds

• Automated Cameras in Arena modes
  • Cameras will now automatically follow the creatures and capture all the action (when you’re not directly controlling a creature). If you want to control the camera yourself, launch a game in Elimination Mode.
• Dev Console Added - Helpful for bug reports
  • This new console replaces the / (slash) commands previously used in the chat window.
  • Press ` (accent) to access the dev console.
  • Use /help to view all available commands.
  • You can now output logs directly from console, which is especially useful when sending us bug reports. Use the /savetxt command and find your file in your CHKN directory. (Usually in C:Program Files (x86)SteamsteamappscommonCHKN on Windows.)

• Many creature building improvements

• Click to select block/place is back, in addition to the existing drag & drop mode.
• Lock mode added that lets you repeatedly reuse a selected block.
  • When toggled on, whatever block you currently have selected in the Life Block tray can be used repeatedly, without re-selecting it each time.
  • Toggle it off to clear the selection and allow for manipulating blocks already placed on the creature.
• Traits added. Traits are automatically granted based off how a creature is built.
• Undo/Redo functionality improved
• Builder UI simplified and cleaned up (better creature filtering selection, clearer Life Block tooltips, consolidated tool buttons, improved block highlighting, cleaner abilities browsing/selecting, etc.)
• Code stabilized and many bugs squashed
• Block/Block chain rotation fixes
• Bug fixes with interacting with root block
• Creature animation system updates
  • Fixes to bounds issues, strikes, block separation, leg bends, creature look direction, root identification for certain block configurations
  • Animation smoothing improvements
  • Creature flinching functional again
• Creature block changes
  • Added icons for updated creature Life Blocks. (There are still a few missing that we’ll add on the next pass.)
  • Half-sized crab blocks added (will be adding more in the future)
  • Fixes to leg animations, snake texturing, highlight materials
  • Fur visual improved
• Crafting/Character screens overhauled... again!
  • UX made consistent, fullscreen UI, and cleaned up look
  • Many bugs squashed
  • Unneeded features have been removed

• UI overhaul (in progress)
  • Changing all screens to work in fullscreen for all aspect ratios.
  • Creatures in UI now animate and can be rotated with the mouse
  • Compare creature power with a new stats radar graphic.
    • Stats themselves are still being adjusted. Once we’ve standardized this, the radar will become more clear.
  • Arena mode selection and options now broken into its own flow

• Pathfinding fixes. Creatures should no longer walk through walls.
• Dog buffs now properly increase stats.
• Electric shock ability now uses energy.
• Multiplayer world syncing improved (trees/bushes) in Creative Mode. NOTE: Initial connect is still buggy. You may have to try multiple times.

Quick links for testers:

• Instructions for how to get on Pre-Release
• 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!)

Hey, everyone. We’ve got patch notes for you for the latest Pre-Release update. Since Pre-Release is work in progress, bugs are expected and we could really use your help testing. We appreciate any bug 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 [Pre-Release v0.6.3]

• Creature Builder UX Improvements
  • Toolbars have been removed and all actions are now done by interacting directly with the Life Blocks themselves. No more swapping “tools” as you build! This makes it easier to get Life Blocks exactly where you want them and removes unnecessary complexity. (The UI was getting crowded!) A quick guide:

• Add: Drag a Life Block from the tray on the left to your creature (Clicking to add will also be returning soon so you’ll be able to choose your favorite method when building.)
• Rotate: Use the [R] key while dragging, or click a Life Block on your creature to select it and then click the rotate button that appears
• Move: Click on a Life Block on your creature and drag it around wherever you want it. You can grab single blocks or whole groups.
• Remove: Click on a Life Block on your creature to select it, then click the trash can or use the [Del] key. (The block is returned to your inventory in Adventure Mode.)
• Camera focus: Now auto-focuses around the Life Block you have selected. No need to refocus manually.
• Tell us what you think of the new system.
• New Character & Crafting Journal panels in progress
  • New item inspection box lets you view stats and other useful info for items in various inventory and crafting panels
  • New crafting interface
    • Filter recipes using the icons on the left
    • See all the resources needed at a glance
    • Queueing added to workstations. Add up to 4 items so the station keeps working while you’re away (as long as your creature can handle the workload!)
    • Remember that some recipes require workstations to craft, even if you have all the resources. We’ll be adding this info to the UI soon.
  • Toolbox now replaces Crafting panel in Creative Mode for easy access to all items in the game
  • Character panel now includes a spot for some fun adventure stats. (They’re all 0 for now. We’ll be hooking these up in the future.)
  • More improvements coming as we work on this, including much-needed item stack functionality

• New Creature Power & Tiers System
  • A new stat called Creature Power (CP) combines a creature’s stats, abilities, and level to give you an overall estimate of how powerful that creature is.
  • Compare CPs when you run across a creature in the wild or face a challenger in the Arena to see if the fight will be more evenly matched.
  • As you build a creature, keep an eye on the new stats breakdown to immediately see how each Life Block you add affects your creature.
    • As more stats and abilities are added to a creature, it moves into higher Build Tiers (replaces the old “build limit” system) and CP increases.
    • Stats are broken down and color-coded per category: health, energy, attack, defense, movement speed, range, abilities
    • This new stat breakdown UI helps you strategize your builds and decide what your creature’s strengths and weaknesses are within each Build Tier. You may have to trade speed for health, or a combat ability for a farming one, depending on the type of creature you’re trying to build.
    • The current bright rainbow stat breakdown will be made much prettier in the future. ;)
  • Build Tier limiting is currently disabled in Adventure Mode, meaning creature progression is unbalanced and you’ll be able to make very strong creatures early on in survival. This will be working in a future build.

• 10 default creature combatants added to the Arena
  • These creatures are ready for battle so you can jump straight into Arena matches. Pit two of these creatures in the same tier against each other to see how they match up.
  • These span the tiers and have a range of abilities. They’re a great way to test out the new points and tiers systems before building your own creatures.
  • Find them in the Discovered tab

• Adventure Mode Updates
  • No more scene load between the temple and open world
  • Various visual improvements made to the terrain
  • Initial tutorial area size greatly reduced and quests have been removed for now in preparation for upcoming changes to the on-boarding/tutorial sequence
• Creature Art Updates
  • Texturing improvements to dog, pig, crab, and elephant
  • Eye shaders fixed
  • Dog fur improvements
  • Bad normals/vertices on dog mouth fixed
  • Leg animation improvements
• Creature data optimization
  • Creature data rewritten to reduce hitches and improve performance as creatures load in the world or when they are edited

Quick links for testers:

• Instructions for how to get on Pre-Release
• 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!)

Arena Battles Livestream with BrettUltimus

Pre-Release has just been updated with lots of new things for you to test out! (Additional creature revamps, abilities, AI improvements, and more.) As always, we need your feedback! You can post all your thoughts and bugs on the Pre-Release feedback forum. Thank you! * 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 [Pre-Release v0.6.2]

• New Abilities:
  • Dog Mouth = Lick Wounds (heal)
  • Dog block + dog mouth + dog eyes + dog ears (complete dog head) = Dog Barks (buffs and debuffs)
  • Crab Claw = Claw Punch
  • Mech dino legs + 50% mech dino blocks = Electric Shock
  • Cow body + cow legs + cow tail (cow butt!) = Cow Dung (fertilize your farm!)
  • Cow block + cow mouth + cow eyes + cow ears (complete cow head) = Graze (feeds on grass when it's hungry)
• New Creature Ability Previewer in progress: get more info on abilities, what they do, and what’s required to add them to your creature. You can see the previewer wherever abilities are listed in the game.

• Revamped creature updates in progress!
  • New blocks: Cow, Elephant, Pig
  • Spider updated (Note: If you’ve previously built with the new spider legs, you’ll need to update your builds to reconnect the legs.)
  • Dog textures/shaders updated
  • Fur material changes for improved furriness
  • Cat leg notes: front legs animations are a bit wonky at the moment; fix is in progress!

• Environment Updates:
  • Geographical changes to the main Adventure Mode map (after the initial tutorial area) NOTE: This will cause saved Adventure games to get stuck loading! You’ll want to start a new Adventure by creating a new profile on the main menu.
  • Art pass on environment pieces of the Tropical Biome

• AI Improvements:
  • Creatures now jostle for position. They’ll no longer try to not attack straight on when engaged.
  • All abilities are now triggered more intelligently
  • Fetch ball mechanic fixed
• Game Launch Fixes:
  • Initial launch time reduced
  • Memory issues affecting launch have been resolved
• Gameplay Updates:
  • Crafting balance changes
  • Adventure Mode quest changes
  • New tools added: New recipes for these items added to the crafting system, plus all new art based on creature parts!

• Creature Builder Updates:
  • Undo/Redo added to Creature Builder (Use the UI buttons, or default hotkeys CTRL-Z & CTRL-Y)
  • Additional Creature Builder UX improvements
• Tended plants now display a status effect so you can tell if they’ve been fertilized/watered
• OSX/Linux builds have returned!
• Various bug fixes across all systems (Thank you to everyone reporting bugs! It really helps us out.)

Thank You!

First off, thank you to everyone who entered our latest design challenge. You guys really put the newly revamped Life Blocks to the test! To see all the amazing entries, check out this Workshop Collection and subscribe to spawn them in your own games from the Bestiary. (Note that you’ll need to be on Pre-Release to get all the revamped Life Blocks!) All of the creations were really creative and you may see some of these creatures in the wilds of CHKN soon! Also, huge thanks to our guest judges, Jacemachine and squidking! They put a lot of effort into judging and discussing entries, thinking about how creatures look and fit into the world, and testing them in the game to see how they move and fight. Thanks, guys! On to the winners!

Winners

Runners Up

Congrats & Thanks!

Got a pig-snake-dog you want to share with the world? It's time for another Creature Design contest! Test out our new revamped creatures on Pre-Release and submit your creations. (Here’s how to access Pre-Release!) Guest judges from the community will help us pick the winners and the winning creatures will inspire the new wild ecosystem coming soon in CHKN! (We’re currently working on adding some of the past winners to the new Adventure Mode so look out for those!) You have until June 5th to enter. Winners will be revealed during our live stream next Friday (June 8). PRE-RELEASE TROUBLESHOOTING NOTE: If you were having trouble getting the Pre-Release to load, we also have some bug fixes and a solution for you at the bottom of this post! Now on to the contest...

The Rules

• Play the Pre-Release build and create a creature using Life Blocks from any of the 7 newly revamped creatures:
  • Chicken
  • Cat
  • Crab
  • Mech Dino
  • Dog
  • Snake
  • Pig
• Is it cute or intentionally abominus? Is your creature dangerous or helpful or playful? Use the new Life Blocks in creative combinations to make your creature unique.
• We’re looking for anything from small creatures a new player might come across early in Adventure Mode to large boss creatures you might encounter later in the game. Think about where your creature might live in the CHKN world.
• Judges will rate your creatures on:
  • Looks
  • Personality
  • Movement & Functionality

Our Guest Judges!

How to Enter

If you have multiple creature ideas, you can enter as many times as you like! Help us beat our record for the most number of entries![/olist] That’s it! Make sure to save your creatures to the Workshop before Tuesday, June 5 @ 23:59:59 EDT to enter them into the contest! We’ll announce the winners and show off our favorite entries during our next live stream on Friday, June 8 @ 3:30 PM EST. Join us then to see if you’re the lucky winner! And while you’re testing out the new Life Blocks, make sure to send us your feedback.

Pre-Release Troubleshooting

There were two major loading issues we’ve tracked down and fixed with the latest Pre-Release update. If you were having issues, here are the solutions:

• Game window doesn’t appear after pressing Play in Steam
  • This was a memory issue on our end and we’ve cleared it up. Download the updated build on Pre-Release and it should load properly (within 5 - 10 seconds) the next time you play.
• Loading screen stuck at “Loading Terrain”
  • This is an issue with some .dll files not loading properly because a runtime is missing. We’ve made a fix on our end so that Steam will now properly installs these files when installing the game. If you already have CHKN installed and Steam doesn’t update automatically for you, you can do one of these two things to force it:
    • Option 1: Go to Steam and uninstall CHKN. Then reinstall it. (If you want to make sure to save your games, back them up by copying them first! You can usually find them here: C:UsersYOUR USERNAMEAppDataLocalLowKatapultCHKN)
    • Option 2: Download the runtime separately and install it on your computer. It’s called “Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2015” and you can find it here.
  • Once you've done either of these, you should make it through the "Loading Terrain" screen and load into the Main Menu.

Arena Testing

While you’re in the Pre-Release, be sure to check out the Arena. We want your feedback on the new abilities creatures can use in battle. Let us know what you think on the forums.

Thank you!

Early Access lets us build CHKN together with all of you so we really appreciate all your support with testing, bug reporting, and sharing your feedback. It helps a ton. Thank you! Okay, time to get creating. We can’t wait to see your contest creatures! - Team CHKN https://store.steampowered.com/app/420930/CHKN/

Hi, everyone! It’s been a while! We’ve been in active development on quite a few new things for CHKN and it’s finally time to start getting player feedback! Please help us out by playing our work-in-progress build that’s now up on the Pre-Release branch. (GET INSTRUCTIONS HERE!) Thank you!! There’s some info below on what’s new in this update and we’ll also be doing a livestream Friday, May 18 @ 3:30pm EST to show everything off! Come hang out with us!

New on Pre-Release

• Arena Update & Bug Fixes: New abilities for you to try out in battle. Use the new arena glossary to see which Life Blocks you need to use in your creature to unlock each ability. Here are a few examples. Discover the rest by playing the Pre-Release!
  • Sample “ability” combos:
    • Crab legs + Crab shell blocks = Hunker Down (armored force field)
    • 2 Mech Dino eyes = Laser Eye
    • Chicken comb = Squawk Stun
    • Cat legs + Cat tail = Teleport Vanish
    • 50% Cat blocks = Nine Lives (automatic revive)

• All New Adventure Mode (In Progress)
  • A new map, new quest system, and new progression! Inspect wild creatures and collect their abilities to help you and your creatures survive.
  • This is early in-progress work so there’s missing art, incomplete UI, temporary copy, and other unfinished things, but we’d love to hear what you think so far.

• Creature Builder Overhaul
  • New Life Block panel and filters, updated UI, some new stats added, plus a new Move Tool that lets you move whole chains of blocks around on your creature. (No more deleting a bunch of work and starting over.) Try it out and let us know what you think!

• Creature Collections
  • Browse the new creature collection to see all types of creatures found in CHKN.
    • My Creations: Creatures you’ve built
    • Discovered/Bestiary: Creatures you’ve observed/discovered in Adventure Mode
    • Workshop: Creatures you’ve subscribed to in Steam Workshop, plus browse all creatures in Steam Workshop to see what’s new and subscribe to more
    • Favorites: Your favorite creatures from any of the previous lists

• This version is Windows only for now. We’re working on getting the other platforms soon.
• Multiplayer isn’t available on Pre-Release at the moment because of the new Adventure Mode. It’ll be back in a future update.

We Need Your Feedback

• How’s the new Creature Builder?
  • Is it easier to build what you want?
  • How about moving around parts of your creatures?
  • Is there anything you’d change to make building better?

• Do you like the new creature abilities?
  • What new abilities were your favorite in the Arena?
  • Were there any you didn’t like and why?
  • Did you have fun experimenting?

• Do you like the new Adventure Mode we have in progress?
  • Are the new quests clear? Even though it’s in progress, did you understand what you were supposed to do?
  • Did you get through all the quests or did you get stuck anywhere?
  • Is there anything you’d add or change about it?

• Do you put pineapple on pizza or is that an abomination?
  • Okay this one isn’t really on topic but we’re curious anyway.

Patch Notes [v0.6.1]

• Creature Ability System overhauled
  • Now supports granting abilities based off of Life Block makeup and construction of your creature (type of blocks used, how many, where they’re placed on a creature, etc.)
  • Browse abilities in the new Abilities Glossary
  • Assign abilities to a creature’s Ability Bar. The creature AI will use those abilities, or use them yourself by taking direct control of the creature.
  • Added new abilities to the system! Discover them in Adventure Mode or test them on new creatures in the Arena.
    • Egg Missile
    • Teleport Vanish
    • Hunker Down
    • Laser Eye
    • Squawk Stun
    • Tail Strike
    • Feather Storm
    • Nine Lives
• Animal art updates! 5 animal types have been completely revamped with new art and blocks.
  • Chicken
  • Cat
  • Crab
  • Mech Dino
  • Dog
  • More coming in the next update! (Snake, Pig, Cow, and more)
• Creature Builder overhauled
  • New Move Tool added. Move whole sections of your creature or remove them completely.
  • New Life Block browser for faster, easier selection; plus filter by animal type
  • Updated stats section with some new stats added
  • Updated hotkeys for quick tool swapping (add, move, camera focus, and grid toggle)
  • Updated highlighting to more easily tell where blocks can be placed, which ones you’re selecting to move/delete, etc.
• New Creature Stat system implemented: new stats added, more stats made visible to players, and all stats tuned for consistency
• Creature XP system added so creatures can progress through Adventure Mode
• Creature Stress system added
  • New stat bar added to Bonded creatures representing Stress
  • Stress increases during combat or work
  • If it reaches 100%, the creature will become Stressed and other stats are penalized
  • Playing with creatures reduces their Stress so take good care of them!
• Animation System Improvements
  • Support for front and back legs
  • Support for arms
  • Improved performance
  • Better quality tracking
  • Improved consistency for striking
  • Basic creature swimming added

• Adventure Mode is back!
  • Try out an early version of the new Adventure Mode in progress!
  • All new on-boarding to teach the ins and outs of CHKN.
  • New storyline: After being shipwrecked, you’ll need to craft items and build creatures to help you survive, then explore the island to discover wild creatures and learn their abilities for your own creatures, all while trying to save the world. No biggie.
  • New progression and balancing: new wild creatures, tweaks to stats and combat, crafting recipes changed, new XP and Lifeshaper upgrade system in progress, etc.
  • Note: Copy and quest steps aren’t final and much of the art is “greybox”
• Binoculars & Bestiary Added
  • Use the binoculars to observe wild creatures from afar to learn their stats, info, and abilities and log them in your Bestiary.
  • Once observed, those creature’s abilities are then unlocked for use in your own creatures.
• New Notification System added
  • Get notifications and some quick info about new items you pick up or things you discover in the world.
  • Get updates about completed or new objectives
• New Quest System Added
  • Track your objectives in Adventure Mode. On-boarding quests give way to story quests as you progress through the Adventure.
• New Journal added
  • Inventory menu expanded to a full Journal, with multiple tabs for new and existing functionality. Find everything you need in CHKN in this Journal.
  • Current status of each tab:
    • Character: Shows your armor, stats, and inventory (Currently using the old system while we finish this tab)
    • Crafting: Will house the new crafting menu. (Currently blank while we complete this system. Go to Character to craft for now!)
    • Bonded Creatures: Overhauled to provide more information about your bonded creatures.
    • Objectives: Keep track of things to do in the world. Only available in Adventure Mode. (a.k.a. quests!)
    • Bestiary/Creature Collection: Shows only your Bestiary in Adventure Mode. Otherwise, see the full Creature Collection including all creatures you’ve created, your favorites, your Workshop subscriptions, and browse the full Workshop.
    • Map: Find important things in the world. (Currently not finished. Use the binoculars (E) to set waypoints.)
    • Help: A list of topics if you need help while playing CHKN.
• Dialogue System added: The game can display messages to you as part of the story.

• Cooking Cleaver Added
  • Striking life blocks generates raw meat
  • Striking fruit generates seeds
• Crafting recipes changed for new Adventure Mode progression (new crafting menu and workbenches coming soon)

• New environment art! New trees, updated bushes with new fruits, better grass, more foliage added to environments, etc.
• VFX added for new abilities
• Trail effects added on existing strike abilities
• Fur Shaders added to dog and cat
• Post Processing adjusted to be visually pleasing

• Added Texture Streaming for improved memory performance and improved visuals
• Added auto quality detection to optimize the settings based off of PC specs
• Various changes throughout the UI
• Foliage rendering system changed to remove floating bugs and improved visuals
• Rough support for Map added

Creature Contest Coming Soon

Livestream Today!

The all-new Arena Mode (CHKN Brawl) and Creature Collection feature are now on Pre-Release (instructions below). We need your feedback! Test creatures in a new ‘creature brawl’ and tell us your suggestions on the forums or over on our Discord server. We want to know what you think.

v0.6.0 Pre-Release Patch Notes

• New mode: Arena!
  • It’s time for a good ol’ fashioned creature brawl. Pick two teams to enter the arena and battle it out in a best-of series format. The last team standing wins.
  • Choose creatures from your own creations or find contenders on Steam Workshop.
  • Spectate the battle or control creatures directly during the fight.
  • Check out our developer stream video where we test out the Arena.
  • Note: Multiplayer and more creature abilities coming soon!

Creature Collection Added

• Browse, search, add, remove, duplicate, and subscribe to creatures all in one place.
• Filter creatures by different stats or search using the text field.
• Wild creatures you discover while exploring in Adventure Mode are also added to the Collection under “Discovered”. (NOTE: Currently, all wild creatures are revealed to all profiles while we upgrade Adventure Mode.)
• Use the Collection to spawn creatures in Creative Mode or choose challengers in Arena Mode.

• New Profile-Based Save System
  • Save your progress, game worlds, and creatures to separate player profiles.
    • Creative Mode games are now saved per profile.
    • Adventure Mode games/progress are now linked to a profile. (NOTE: Adventure Mode is currently not available on pre-release.)
  • Note: In future, the profile system will track discovered wild creatures per profile and let you bring your profile’s bonded creatures and items with you into multiplayer games.
• Test drive of Procedurally Generated Terrain System
  • We are testing a new system to randomly generate terrains and more easily create new maps and areas for you to explore in various game modes.
  • Note: You’ll see new environments that are a work in progress.

Improvements

• Side stepping animations have been added to chicken legs
• Gameplay is now paused when loading so you won’t miss any action when playing single player
• New foliage system added for improved graphics and better performance
• Reduced fog. Go forth and SEE!
• Settings are now saved per branch so you can have different settings on Live and Pre-Release.

Quick Links

• Want to check out the Arena? Here’s how to get on Pre-Release. Your feedback and suggestions help us a lot. Tell us on the forums.
• Looking for a friend for multiplayer? Try our Discord server. (Thanks, SquidKing!)
• Watch on YouTube and Twitch
• Follow us on Twitter
• Sign up for our Newsletter

Back to work for us! Have a great weekend, everyone. - Team CHKN http://store.steampowered.com/app/420930/CHKN/

Creature Design Challenge #2 is complete and there were so many amazing wild creatures submitted. Thank you to everyone who entered. Seeing what you all create is really fun and gives us lots of ideas for how we can add and improve features in the future! Here are our picks for the winners! If you want to judge for yourself, check out the rules and then let us know your votes in the comments below. You can view all the entries in this Workshop Collection and subscribe to bring them into your own worlds.

Winner

Runners Up

Honorable Mentions

A wild Dubsheep under construction... We want you to design the first set of new wild creatures for the world of CHKN. Submit your creature combos and we’ll choose which of your creations will roam wild in our next release! Your challenge this time around is to create fun and interesting wild creatures made only using Life Blocks from up to 3 animal types. Players discover wild creatures while exploring so they can be friendly island inhabitants or aggressive foes. We had so much fun on the last challenge seeing your boss designs that we’d never have come up with ourselves. We also learned a lot from how you built your creatures. We can’t wait to see what you all come up with this round!

The Rules

Make sure to give your creature a name and be sure to add “Creature Challenge #2” to the title or description so we can find it.[/olist] That’s it! If you have multiple ideas, you can enter as many times as you like. Save your creatures to the Workshop before Tuesday, January 16 @ 23:59:59 EST to enter them into the contest! We’ll announce the winners and show off our favorite entries during our next live stream on Friday, January 19 @ 3:30 PM EST. Join us then to see if you’re the lucky winner.

Get Inspired in the Workshop

If you want to check out what other people have made and get ideas for your own creatures, be sure to browse the Workshop! You can rate your favorites and subscribe to download them to your own worlds. While you’re at it, check out this awesome CHKN Creature Wiki by squidking. There’s a rundown of some of the creatures you find while exploring the island, including screenshots, stats, and strategies.

New adventures for 2018...

We’ve got lots planned in 2018! First up is an “arena” mode that will roll out on Pre-Release next month. If you want to follow along with our progress, you can:

• Download our Pre-Release build so you’ll get the updates as soon as they’re available.
• Sign up for our newsletter to keep up to date with the latest news.
• Subscribe to our YouTube channel, where we post our developer videos and playlists featuring creator videos. (Check out our Best of 2017 Playlist!)

Thanks for all your support, everyone! We’re in Early Access because we want to build CHKN together with all of you and you’ve been amazing. We look forward to all your feedback, ideas, videos, and creations in 2018! - Team CHKN http://store.steampowered.com/app/420930/CHKN/

First off, thank you so much for all your support and feedback this year. (And all your crazy creatures!) You guys motivate us to keep making CHKN great and we really appreciate it. Happy holidays from the CHKN Team! We’re doing one last dev stream in 2017 so come join us! We’ll be live on Twitch and YouTube tomorrow (Fri, Dec 22) at 3:30 pm EST pitting our own creatures against some of your creations from the Workshop. Help us choose combatants or just hang out and chat with us! Now, let’s fill our last post of the year with some awesome creatures and a few sneak peeks, shall we?

Community Creature Spotlight

Pre-Release Work in Progress

Farewell, 2017!

Huge thanks to everyone who entered our inaugural Creature Design Challenge: Bosses! We had a tough time choosing but ‘tis the life of a CHKN scientist. If you didn’t win this time, don’t worry. We want to fill CHKN with all your awesome creations so we’ll have another design challenge for you soon. These are our choices. We also want to hear your votes in the comments below so we can put your favorites in a future release! Let us know which creatures you’d love to fight against (or even just run across) in CHKN.

Winner

Runners Up

Honorable Mentions

Winner Announcement Live Stream

Enter our boss design challenge! Your boss creature could be featured in a future game release, standing guard over some epic loot and striking fear into the hearts of players everywhere. Here’s how to enter. Good luck!

The Rules

That’s it! Your boss creature can use any Life Blocks in any combination you like. It can be scary or cute or a true abomination. It’s up to you.[/olist]
Whoops! Over 2400 orb limit! Gotta remove some parts...

How to Enter Your Creation

[olist]

Build your boss under 2400. Have fun and get creative!

Exit the build sphere and save your creation to the Workshop so we can see it. (Use the [Q] command on your creature and select “Save to Workshop”.)

Make sure to give your creature a name! Add “Boss Challenge” to the title or description to help us find it more easily.
[/olist] You’re done! If you have more than one idea, fear not. You can enter as many times as you like.

All creatures saved to the Workshop before Tuesday, Nov 28 @ 23:59:59 EST will be entered into the challenge!

Who Will Win?

Once entries are closed, our crack team of CHKN scientists will go over all the entries and try our best to narrow them down to a winner. We have a feeling this will be really tough but also very fun! We’ll announce the winners and show off our favorite entries during our next live stream on Friday, Dec 1 @ 3:30 PM EST. Join us!
CHKN Logo by Tycothepug We’ve always wanted to fill the world of CHKN with awesome creatures created by you guys so we figured we’d start big. We can’t wait to see your epic boss creations! - Team CHKN http://store.steampowered.com/app/420930/CHKN/

We’re in progress on development for the future of CHKN. We want you to test and give us feedback on the pre-release build. Full notes on what’s new and how to install it are below! Since it’s a work in progress, expect bugs, performance issues, unfinished gameplay, and other weirdness. You can report anything you find here on the forums. It really helps and we love hearing from you!

Download Pre-Release

In the dropdown menu, select “prerelease”.[/olist] That’s it! Steam will download the Pre-Release build and you can create a new game to start testing all the new content. (If you ever want to switch back to the stable release build, just select “NONE” from the dropdown at any time. Your saved games will still be there when you return!)

Testing Tip: Teleporting!

To help you move around more quickly while testing, you can also teleport. Hit [Enter] and type one of these /teleport commands into the chat bar. Then hold onto your shorts!

• New zone starting area: /teleport 3477 83 3366
• Old starting temple: /teleport -2593 69 439
• Forest temple: /teleport -1356 107 -137
• Desert temple: /teleport 82 129 402
• Swamp temple: /teleport -48 155 -1085

Patch Notes

New Features

• New Adventure Mode Starting Area: a whole new starting experience to explore!
  • Includes a new biome (Tropical Oasis/Beach) with improved art style for all new assets: vegetation, trees, terrain, textures, and items (food & resources)
  • New wild chicken, pig, dog, and cow creature variations (leave your favorites in the comments!)
  • First pass at updated tutorial mechanics and new prompts to teach new players in a clearer way
    • Tutorial messages will now pause the game and display important information the first time a player encounters an item or a game mechanic
  • Solve new puzzles, find hidden treasure chests, and defeat a brand new boss CHKN at the end of the zone
  • Completing the tutorial takes you to the old tutorial’s “starter temple” to continue your adventures in the larger world (which will be updated to the new art style in the future!)
• Updated life blocks and textures
  • Revamped chicken: updated life blocks (eye, mouth, wing, leg, comb) + new body block variations and textures
    • Smaller blocks are lighter, larger ones are tougher… experiment with Life Block combinations!
  • Updated dog textures
  • More creatures will be revamped in the coming months as we continue to add more meaning and depth to creature building.
• New creature ability: Glide
  • Chicken wings now unlock the Glide ability!
    • We’ll be adding more abilities/AI/animations unlocked by specific Life Blocks in the coming months. Suggestions welcome!
  • Ride a creature (using a saddle), then hold spacebar to jump and glide through the air.
  • Best to pick up momentum before hand by sprinting.
  • Consumes stamina per wing attached (if a creature is out of stamina mid-glide, it will fall to the ground)
  • Gliding fall rate is determined by the mass mass of creature vs the amount of attached wings.
    • Tip: Try making your your chicken lighter and/or faster to glide farther in a single jump.

Improvements

• Stamina bar added to the UI
  • Added for both the player (you!) and tamed/bonded creatures
  • Stamina will decrease when sprinting, running, rolling, performing melee strikes, and when using certain abilities. If winded, these actions will not be possible so keep an eye on it!
• Life Shaper Relic progression updated
  • Creature bonding/revival and creature building are now unlocked with two separate relics for smoother progression ramping
• Structure breaking updated
  • A structure item will now will break with one hit for first 30 seconds after placed for quick recovery when misplacing or just changing your mind. (Afterwards, hit points and minimal break damage values will be used as per usual.)

Bug Fixes

• Attaching to a top of a block now faces forward by default
• Game crashing bugs caused by poachers fixed
• Frozen unresponsive poachers fixed
• Rain volume not impacted by options fixed

This is a work in progress. Leave a post on the forums to let us know what you think so far!

Next Dev Stream: Community Workshop Creations!

Since it’s a holiday here in the U.S. this week, our next developer stream will be on Wednesday (Nov 22) @ 3:30 PM EST. Join us on Twitch or YouTube and show us your favorite creations! See you then! - Team CHKN http://store.steampowered.com/app/420930/CHKN/

Check out the awesome new lighting and rendering overhaul we just added to Pre-Release! This change is step one to upgrade CHKN’s graphics and look & feel. We’re still tweaking so please let us know your feedback, We think it looks pretty dang snazzy already so we wanted to share it with you first! (Click the screenshots below to see larger versions.)
Left is today’s game. Right is on Pre-Release. Note the lighting now has better detail (see horns) and sky is atmospheric (haze, clouds).
Venus flytrap in a new forest scene on Pre-Release (right). Fog effects plus color correction allows for warm night time atmosphere. Note the improved light reflecting off the eyes.
To the desert! The new skybox is in full effect (on right). The sunlight is scattered and reflected nicely off the beetle mouth... right before it bites your face. Here are the technical details, if you’re into that sort of thing:

• Upgraded Visuals (Lighting, Colors, Rendering and Effects):
  • Switched lighting from gamma to linear model to produce much more accurate and realistic lighting
  • Switched from LDR to HDR rendering to produce more accurate colors and better shader effects
  • Upgraded skybox to a new dynamic system for better day/night cycle lighting, atmospheric scattering, advanced fog, and dynamic animated clouds
  • Added new post processing effects to tie it all together (color grading, motion blur, ambient occlusion, bloom, screen space reflection)

We need your help to test full controller support on Pre-Release. If you have a controller handy, here are the details:

• CHKN will now automatically detect when you have a controller connected. Woot!
• We’ve added cursor emulation so you can control those parts of the UI without needing a mouse.
  • You can disable this emulation in the Options menu if you prefer the OS cursor, but heads up that this completely disables the ability to use parts of the UI with the controller and you’ll need to use a mouse, too.
• We’ve added default bindings for the following controllers (so far):
  • Xbox 360
  • Xbox One
  • Playstation 3
  • Playstation 4
• Steam Controller: Default bindings are coming soon. In the meantime, you can set your own bindings (for any controller) in the Options -> Controls menu.

New Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug that prevented saving new creatures to the Workshop
• Fix to UI errors when hosting a multiplayer game
• Fix to bad Adventure Mode starting point (that was causing players to appear on top of the temple instead of inside it)
• Fixed a bug that occured when all bindings were removed for a key that caused errors and conflicts across many systems (like creature building)
• Fixed bug that prevented beam creature revival
• Inventory and bonding screen can no longer be toggled when remote controlling a creature
• Improved charge ability collision detection
• Added check for duplicate blocks on host
• Added logic to place creature root in the correct position when the creature is reassembled
• Fixed floating legs on pause
• Fixed bug when placing blocks very quickly
• Fixed bug with saddle breaking all item usage
• Increased leg detection check range
• Added check for chain data being set on root chain before updating animations
• Added check to prevent rare client error message on creature death
• Various bug fixes across all game systems, mostly network related
• Fixed issue where tamed creatures would sometimes freeze after teleporting to player

Screenshots Now with New Ansel Support

Since our the last update, we wanted to get out another patch with some bug fixes and improvements to the Workshop. You can post any feedback and/or bug reports on the CHKN forums and we’ll take a look! Thank you!

Patch Notes

• Workshop
  • Workshop creatures and worlds can now be updated! Save your creation again to update the existing Workshop item (rather than create a new, duplicate entry).
  • Creatures and worlds loaded from the Workshop can now only be saved by the original author of that creation
  • The Arena has been updated! All players in a multiplayer game can now participate in the challenge together. We’ve also fixed issues resulting from the structure changes that came along in patch v0.4.0.
  • All worlds created before v0.4.0 have been removed from the “Community Nominated” list. (If you have any favorite worlds that should be spotlighted, share them in the comments below!)
• Creature legs will now always be level with the ground
• Added compression to network serialization to improve multiplayer performance

• Autosave now saves all chunks properly
• Fixed a crash bug involving navmesh generation when creating large structures
• Fixed problems with root swapping on creatures
• Fixed certain issues with the animation system’s tip and bend calculations
• Many bug fixes involving LUA scriptable blocks
• Fixed a bug that would move an item to the player from creatures
• Fixed issue with creature building over the network that would cause a desync between clients in multiplayer
• Fixed clients not being able to enter the edit orb in multiplayer
• Fixed network packet fragmentation to allow for massive structures
• Changed block removal to be more robust for clients
• Animation system now checks for null blocks for networked cases when in transition of removing blocks
• Fixed bug with bonded creatures which would cause them to freeze on death for clients in multiplayer games

Hey everyone! This release brings major improvements to creature building, as well as modified and new/added controls. We need your feedback on these changes! Please tell us what you like and what still needs improvement in this forum thread. (And don’t worry if the new controls take some getting used to. They did for us, too!) There are also some other neat things to play with in this update, like axe tossing and enrage potions and mounted attacks… just to name a few. (Pro tip: combine them all for a fun rampage.) Here are the patch notes!

Patch Notes

• Creature Building Improvements:
  • The camera has been updated to make it much easier to see what you’re building!
    • Camera now orbits the creature itself for a better 360° view
    • Pivot around by using the [WASD] keys, or by holding your right mouse button and panning
    • Camera pivot point can be changed by clicking [Mouse Button 3]
    • Zoom in and out using the scroll wheel on your mouse, or by pressing the [+] and [-] keys
    
    Get a full view of your creature by rotating around it.
  • The mouse cursor is now unlocked during creature building for faster block placement and selection!
    • Select a Life Block by clicking on it in your hotbar
    • Then just point and click where you want the block to go on your creature!
    
    Now use your mouse pointer to place blocks.
  • Use [E] to quickly toggle between Add Block and Remove Block modes
  • Added a new toolbar at the top of the screen with quick buttons for easy access to the various controls if you prefer using the mouse: building modes (add & remove), camera focus & reset, zooming, grid mode toggle (smart, small, off), creature name, and exiting build mode
• New Control Scheme: controls throughout the game are now easier to use
  • Right-Click will now always use the off-hand item (Left-Click is still your main hand action)
  • Throwing actions moved to a new key (default [Mouse Button 3] or [X].
  • Contextual interactions like petting and feeding have moved to the interaction key [E]. In cases where multiple interaction are present holding interaction key will reveal a radial.
  • Several items had their default actions modified to fit this scheme
  • Removed the whistle item and changed it to be always available via key press (default [Q])
  • Changed radial menu to be active as long as a button is held and dismiss on button release. Command is issued on key press up.
  
  You can turn on the display (in the options menu) to see a helpful list of controls while you play.
• All items are now throwable! And any weapons you hurl will deal damage when they hit their targets.
  Just be sure to pick your targets wisely.
• Updated on-boarding in all modes for new control scheme/creature building
• Additional improvements to creature animation:
  • Creature bodies will now naturally bend when turning
  • Creature’s root block will now be recalculated based off of its actual center to create more realistic animations
• New feature: Remote Control!
  • Use the Remote Control to directly control tamed/bonded creatures via mind control
  
  This Beetledodo is now yours to control! Muaa haa haaaa!
  • Automatically places a mind control hat on a creature. Destroying the hovering hat will release the controlled creature.
  • Left click does light attacks (bites) and right click does special attacks (charge, fire breathing, etc) if a creature has that ability. Tapping shift will cause creature to dash.
  • If a creature goes out of range, the connection is lost and control is returned back to the player. Interact key [E] will also exit control at any time.
  • Life and hunger bars swap to reflect the controlled creature.
  • When controlling a creature, the player is idle and vulnerable so be careful!
  • Changed poachers to use new remote mechanic instead of mind control hat. (Poachers will now drop the Remote Control as loot instead of the hat.)
• Improved Saddle Riding:
  • The first person camera is now smoother
  • Improved chase (third-person) camera placement
  • Mounted creatures will now show alongside other bonded creatures in the party UI
• Added player controlled creature combat while mounted:
  • Two modes: indirect control (default) and direct control
    • Indirect control: Set the direction and speed and your creature will navigate on its own from there, leaving you free to look around, use items, and even attack while mounted. (Tap the forward [W]/back [S] keys to increase/decrease speed.)
    
    Let your creature do the driving while you attack!
    • Direct control: You have full control of the creature (but can’t use items this way). Use [WASD] to move, Left-Click to bite, and Right-Click for any special attacks the creature has. Dash by tapping shift.
    
    Take direct control of your creature while mounted to control its attacks.
  • Change modes by pressing R by default
  • Tapping [E] will pet or feed the creature
  • Holding [E] will dismount
• Improved Pathfinding (Creature Navigation):
  • Pathfinding now creates multiple navmeshes of different sizes. This allows creatures to more accurately transverse the environment.
  • Creatures should clip through objects less often and should no longer get stuck on top of fences.
• New Potions: Antidote and Enrage!
  • Antidote potion: cures all ailments! Drink it, toss it, or feed it to a creature.
  • Enrage potion: causes a creature to temporarily go berserk and attack anything in range, even friends! Drink it yourself to get a damage buff for a short duration.
• Offset camera in chase cam slightly to the side when in locked mode to make it easier to see

• AI optimizations: FPS improvement in scenes with many active objects
• Smoother frame rates by reducing GC allocations (60fps on recommended spec machines, 30fps on minimum spec machines)
• Reduced FPS drop when loading new creatures
• Added item rotting and a max number of active items per chunk to improve performance (rotted items will not reload after leaving and then returning to a chunk)

• Fixed creatures juggling their food instead of eating
• Fixed herbivores not eating fruits (Herbivores will also now eat plants that do not contain fruits.)
• Fixed bonded creatures freezing after teleporting
• Fixed a bug that prevented unsummoning a bonded creature in networked games
• Fixed a bug that prevented scenario spawning from working
• Fixed backward-facing darts when fired or thrown
• Fixed a bug where blowpipe darts failed to do damage
• Fixed various null exceptions that cause all sorts of unpredictable game errors
• Action button descriptions now use the bound keys (even if you’ve changed them from the defaults)
• Fixed several item hand alignments
• Fixed immortal poachers
• Improved chase camera crosshair raycasting
• Improved character look direction
• Fixed a bug where statuses (slowed, fire, etc) would not be removed correctly if loaded from a saved game
• Fixed issues with the dialog box
• Modified creature collision detection to allow bites on larger creatures
• Fixed bugs in sensing that prevented creatures from seeing other creatures
• Improved bonded creature teleportation to happen less often

Next Up!

• New Adventure Mode starting zone story, progression, and content: First 2 new biomes with new look and feel for environments and starter creatures, plus new lore and characters will unlock features and items for you as you progress.
• New creature skills/abilities: Select certain blocks and combine them for special abilities, like a chain of blocks with spikes on the end for a hammer slam, or add a shield of turtle shell blocks to deflect attacks.
• AI updates for new behaviors: creatures will play with each other, chase sticks, have more personality.
• On-going: performance improvements and updates based on your feedback!

Updated animations (like this chicken reaching down for food in a more life-like way) are new, too! It’s patch day! We’ve got some major overhauls to creature AI and the animation system, to make creatures more intelligent. We’ve set the foundations for matching gameplay to our big vision for CHKN - make the world really come to life. We want to give players full control of their creativity to build anything they want and discover new behaviors and abilities along the way based on YOUR choices of which Life Blocks you use and how you put them together. A chickpigocrab will cluck, eat anything, and have dangerous pincers to protect itself, exactly how you imagine it would. Today, with this update, creatures are smarter, more responsive to you (the player) and the world around them, and look more life-like. The full patch notes are just below. We’ve also got details on what’s next on our roadmap at the bottom of this post!

Patch Notes

• Animation System Improvements:
  • Tween-based animation added: Animations are smoother, more life-like, and better portray a creature’s behaviors and emotions.
    • Since the animations are tied to the AI, this helps differentiate a creature’s behaviors so you can more easily make sense of its intentions. Is it curious about a sound it just heard that needs investigating? Or is it angry and about to charge and attack? These are good things to know when you’re trying to survive!
    • To start, creatures will now strike and flinch, which are responses to anger and fear. They can also kneel to reach food or go to sleep (which is super cute, btw). Future animations are now easier to add so more animations, including part-specific ones like pinching crab claws, are on the way!
    • Creatures now have different ways to orientate their necks. They can position them up right and face what they are looking at or move them in closely to reach. They will use the reach mode to eat food and to get close to things like the player as they approach.
    • Spines and other connected blocks will now move more naturally and react with the feet. Feet are also now better connect to the ground, making walking animations look much more natural.
  
  Flinching, better neck movement, and threat assessment… all new in this update!
  • Independent “chain” control: Chains are a row of blocks linked together, like in a neck for example. Each chain can now move independently, so chains with eyes on the end will look while chains with mouths will eat and strike. This means even individual blocks with eyes attached can now rotate and look around, making it much easier for you to tell what your creature is paying attention to!
  • Initial posturing added: This is a fancy way of saying that creatures look and move at different speeds if they are relaxed compared to alert. A creature wary of nearby enemies will look around more quickly in an alert state compared to a mellow creature snacking on a burger.
• New Creature AI:
  • New & Improved Sensing System:
    • Hearing added! Creatures can now hear and react to sounds, like other creatures coming up behind them or rocks thrown to distract them while you sneak by. Shhh…
  
  Before: The creature has no idea what might be going on behind it. After: “I HEARD SOMETHING DELICIOUS!”
  • Sight has been greatly improved, now taking into account exposure, lighting, and movement. Some creatures have a harder time seeing at night, while others like the cat, will have better vision at night. This new sight system also makes it possible to do things like hide from aggressive creatures in tall grasses under the right circumstances. Sneaky!
  
  What a dragon’s senses look like to developers! The yellow “cone” is the dragon following us with his eyes as we move.
  • Improved creature decision making:
    • Creatures take in all that new sensing info to recognize more of what’s happening around them and react to it intelligently (or not; some creatures will be smarter than others!).
    • This means better, more precise interactions with the world, objects, and other creatures!
    • This will also allow us to add more intelligent (and surprising) behaviors in the future! An elephant will see a fire, recognize that it’s dangerous, and then react on its own to put it out without needing your command.
  
  Instead of limited, hard-coded behaviors, creatures now have brains and make their own decisions.
  • New pathfinding system: This improves creature navigation as well as performance throughout the game. They can follow you and find their way around terrain more easily!

Smarter Creature Attacks + Player Dodge = Improved Combat:

• Creature striking added: leveraging the power of the new animation system, creatures will now prime (pull back slightly) and then strike to attack!
• Added creature flinching: Dealing enough damage in a single attack will cause a creature to flinch. Flinching will interrupt a creature’s attack!

He really, really didn’t expect you to interrupt his attack.

• Dodge player ability added: Now that creatures can strike, it’s only right that you be able to avoid it... if you time things right. ;) Tap the Sprint key ([SHIFT] by default) to roll in the direction you’re moving and avoid damage.

Or dodge fire. Dodging the fire is always a good idea.

• Added creature-to-creature collision: Creatures will push each other around based on their mass. You might want to strategize if your smaller creatures are going up against a larger one!
• Added attack knockback: Based off the amount of damage done, a creature can now be staggered into a direction.
• Added creature dashing: Creatures can now dash forward or back in order to get into a good attack position or avoid an incoming attack. Beware!

Dash and dodge.

• Updated creature damage detection: This is now physically accurate and takes other things (besides the target) into account, so objects like trees and other creatures can get in the way of an incoming attack. Run for cover behind your creature to shield yourself from damage!
• Third-person camera improvements: The camera is now locked in the direction you’re facing when in combat, making it easier to keep your eye on enemy creatures and any incoming attacks. This also improves aiming with ranged weapons. (The camera remains in free orbit as usual when out of combat.)

Multiplayer Improvements (Live for Testing):

• You can now turn “tethering” off in the options menu! When turned off, multiplayer clients can roam away from the host and wander the world. This is one of the biggest requests we’ve gotten so we’ve done some research and optimization to allow this option.
  • Warning: You may experience FPS drops and lag when traveling far from friends, especially flying around in Creative Mode. Please send us your feedback! We will continue to improve performance in the next update.
  • If you have any framerate issues or you just like keeping everyone together, you can turn this back on whenever you like in the options menu.
• Increased tether range when active
• Updated to latest version of multiplayer framework to improve stability
• Players’ heads will now rotate in the direction that they are looking
• Reduced max players to 4 to help improve performance
• Added support for multiple saddle riding on one creature!

Dragon riding is better with friends.

”Family trip…” by AbbsLP Hey, everyone! We wanted to tell you about CHKN’s next update, coming August 31st. Details below. Which also means testers wanted! You can preview the update, give us feedback, and hunt for bugs (there's a particularly annoying crash we need your help with!) by getting on the Pre-Release build. Here’s how.

Work in Progress: Creature Intelligence

• Creatures are aware of the world and can see, hear, and smell what’s happening around them. (If you throw a rock in a temple, you might just trick the mini-boss into investigating the sound long enough for you to sneak in and steal the relic!)
• Creatures are life-like, with a full range of motions and realistic behaviors. (Giraffes can use their long necks to eat off the floor or find food high in the air. And it’s pretty obvious that scorpion is about to attack you with its sharp tail.)
• Your Life Block combinations matter and creatures behave differently depending on the animal parts you used to build them. (A creature made of dog parts should be dog-like -- e.g. very protective and great at guarding. A chicken should be different and act like a chicken. And a Dogicken should be a bit of both!)

New Creature AI

Major Multiplayer Improvements Under Construction

Help Us Test on Pre-Release

Watch Our Developer Live Streams

Creature Bonding is here! This new system lets you easily manage, store, and even revive your bonded creatures. Plus we’ve got some big improvements to structure and creature building (see our note below about old structure overlap in saved games!), resource and hunger balancing, bug fixes, and more. Thanks again to all our Pre-Release testers for your help! Please share your feedback with us on the forums! We’d love to know what you think.

Patch Notes

• Added Creature Bonding: Easily manage your closest companions by bonding with them to unlock new features!
  • Once a creature is Tamed and 100% happy, hearts will appear over its head and the option to Bond will unlock in the interaction menu.
    
  • Press (B) to manage your Bonded creatures.
    • Store and summon your creatures from this menu whenever you want (like on a looong journey across the desert where food is scarce).
    • Newly created creatures are automatically Bonded if there is an available slot. Otherwise, they default to Tamed.
    • In Adventure Mode, obtaining more life shaper relics unlocks additional Bonded creature slots, from 2 active up to 4 active and from 2 stored up to 8 stored
    
    
  • Never adventure alone again! Bonded creatures will always follow their owner, won’t go wild if hungry or unhappy, and will be automatically stored when incapacitated.
  • Revive an incapacitated creature by feeding it Life Blocks through the Bonding screen, or head to a temple beam to revive for free with no resource cost (once you’ve obtained that temple's artifact).
  • Quickly see the status of all Bonded creatures at a glance in the main HUD.
  • Bonded creatures will only obey orders from their owner’s whistle when in multiplayer.
  • In multiplayer Adventure Mode, only the owner can edit a Bonded creature. Once a creature is in edit mode, party members can join in to add/remove blocks.
  • Tamed creatures are now your workforce!
    • They can be assigned tasks and won’t abandon those tasks to follow you when you leave the area (like a Bonded creature would)
    • You can have as many tamed creatures as you can handle! Just remember, they’ll go wild if not properly taken care of.
    • Since you aren’t best buds with Tamed creatures, they won’t follow your whistle commands, but they can still be tethered with leashes
  • TIP: Bonded creatures will always be with you and can be revived so they make great adventuring companions! Tamed creatures are great at working around your homestead, like powering Treadmills.
    

• Structures:
  • Updated casting system for easier placement of blocks and faster building (no longer requires fracturing of blocks)
  • Optimized structure blocks for improved performance
  • Added building sounds and particle effects
  • Added door opening/closing sounds
  • Doors and gates now always open away from the player
  • Connected gates now open together
    Big Chicken from Steam Workshop by goonthler
  • SAVED STRUCTURES NOTE: Structures in saved games and Workshop Worlds prior to this patch will be shifted and de-fractured after updating to the new system. This may (almost definitely) cause overlapping, floating blocks, and other impossible or odd behavior. Converted structures may also not fall apart correctly when dismantled. It’s updated in this way to ensure you don’t lose any blocks! They can be removed and replaced in the new system properly. If you have a game saved to Workshop Worlds, you can save it again after you’ve updated.
• Creature building:
  • Updated highlight system: Bad placements are now displayed with red highlighting, just like with structure blocks
  • Added smart grid system to automatically align similar sized blocks
  • Exposed grid toggle (Z) to allow switching between grids
    • Smart grid: Snaps blocks at their centers for easy alignment and quick placement
    • Small grid: Snaps blocks on a smaller grid for a bit more refinement
    • No grid: The grid is turned off (no snapping); completely free placement for fine tuning!
• Rebuilt wild creatures affected by recent Life Block improvements
• Updated tree drop rates: All blocks now drop when a tree is broken; rebalanced log yield and burning times to reflect change
• Updated Life Block drops: Reduced creature Life Block drops on death; added a new smoke particle when remaining, un-dropped Life Blocks turn to dust
• Reduced tamed creature memory decay by half
• Reduced tamed creature hunger rate
• Increased crab leg size 3x
• Added new sounds for material based hits
• Temple beam boss creatures will now defend the magical eggs
• Magical eggs now drop the boss creature's Life Blocks
• Beta branches now use their own save directory (more info in the Pre-Release FAQ!)
• The stat bar shown when hovering over a creature now stays on screen when looking at larger creatures
• Added a confirm dialog when deleting saved games
• Tweaked day/night cycle so night is shorter
  Greg built this huge mansion in 30 minutes. He’s very proud. Get it in the Workshop!

• Fixed an issue that made it difficult to get milk from udders
• Fix to destroying pooled objects which caused unpredictable errors
• Tamed creatures will no longer attack hatchery eggs automatically
• Items creatures are holding are now saved when saving and exiting a game
• Fixed rare issue when reloading a game right after exiting which could cause saved game to corrupt
• Minor tweaks on all lifeblock visuals (offsets, materials, animation speeds, missing mouth animations, bounding boxes)
• Minor visual tweaks to various items
• Fixed issue where fire would deal damage but not display
• Fixed missing colliders on tree tops
• Fixed issue where clients did not get correct tree information synced

What do you think of Bonding?

Vote for Creature Abilities!

CHKN at E3

Screenshot by SkyDude Hey, everyone! Creature Bonding is now up on Pre-Release and we could really use your help testing this new feature to work out all the kinks. We also wanted to tell you about some hotfixes we’ve made thanks to your bug reports and feedback. Read on for all the info!

Help Us Test Creature Bonding

Hotfixes

• Fixed multiplayer desync issues (caused by creature building errors)
• Fix to structures that were breaking some saved games
• Altered highlight visuals on creature editing to be more obvious
• Fixed colliders for world items (both physical and pick-up)
• Life Blocks being previewed no longer collide/interact with the casting player
• Shifted equipped item visuals to appear more in the player's hand
• Fixed creature bodies not bending
• Many tweaks and fixes to Life Block visuals/colliders/connections
• Fix to item scaling
• Fix to dart gun projectiles damage
• Fix to beetle armor right hand mounting point
• Fix to breakable object positions for clients
• Fix to network error on requesting health for tree blocks
• Fix to error when despawning sacks
• Fix to first-person items disappearing
• Fix to item logic that caused errors such as removing a Life Block after placing
• Fix to saddle riding in first-person mode

Creature Bonding Live Stream

Abilities Design Ideas

Speed loading game objects! Hooray for optimization! Happy patch day! We’ve been hammering away to improve performance and framerate, speed up loading times, and lower memory usage so the game runs more smoothly for everyone. Plus, that annoying FPS stutter/freeze every 30 seconds or so is fixed. *fist pump* (Thanks for your reports on this!) Try out your multiplayer adventures, fruit farming, and crazy creature hatching with better, stutter-free performance! Here are the full patch notes with all the optimizations we’ve done...

Patch Notes

• Completely overhauled the pooling system and related subsystems to greatly optimize game performance
  • Gameobject count has been reduced by 93%! This means better memory usage and 13x faster garbage collection performance (which was causing the main large stutter while moving through world).
  • Note: Really large buildings with lots of blocks may still cause some framerate stuttering. We’ll have a small patch coming out soon to fix this!
• Optimized code that was allocating too much memory per frame, which would cause stutters even when not moving through world
• Optimized world assembly routines to keep framerate more consistent
• Removed an error log message from networking that was crippling framerate
• Optimized art assets to increase graphics-related performance
• Refactored asset pipeline to easily allow bringing in future content
• Many small bug fixes

What’s Next?

Community Spotlight

Follow Us!

The Easter Bunny has come to CHKN! He didn’t leave us any chocolate but he did leave some Life Blocks to use in Creative Mode. ;)

• Bunny Body
• Bunny Neck
• Bunny Mouth
• Bunny Eye
• Bunny Ear
• Bunny Leg
• Bunny Tail

Creatures created by mary_wooten and Super Engineer. Happy Thursday! Today’s patch has multiplayer, creature building, and performance improvements; a Workshop update; and some bug fixes. We’ll get right to the notes so you can see what’s new...

NEW FEATURES:

• Multiplayer Party System!
  • Form parties with friends in multiplayer to create CO-OP or PVP teams
  • Creatures will be shared with other party members. No more accidental creature fights!
  • Friends in your party will not take damage from your fists/weapons. No more friendly fire! Go team! (Careful, though. You can still damage yourself and party creatures.)
  • Press

    in a multiplayer game to manage your party and invite others

IMPROVEMENTS:

• Creature building now supports attaching to legs and other animated life blocks
  Make your abominations even more abominable!
• Improved creature head detection
  Before and after!
• The moon now provides a bit more light during the night
  
• Workshop now features a "Community Nominated" section showcasing our favorite creations
  
• Reeds can now be planted and harvested
• All vegetation items can now be fed to creatures by hand
• Life blocks can now be fed to creatures by hand
  
• Tuned area outside of starting temple in Adventure Mode to remove herds (so that your creature is less likely to die right away, and it’s not as difficult to acquire more life blocks that early in the game)
• Optimized terrain textures to help improve performance
• Upgraded to latest version of Unity engine for minor performance improvements and bug fixes

BUG FIXES:

• Fixed issue where display of first person items would double in size
• Fixed multiplayer issue where clients could not see a player's Steam details
• Fixed multiplayer issue where nuke was still being displayed for clients
• Tuned pick up radius on various items (should now be easier to pick up non-block items)

April Fool’s! Okay, just kidding. No joke, CHKN really does turn one year old today! Pretty amazing, right? We just want to say THANKS to all of you. Since we’re building this game with the community, we definitely couldn’t have gotten to this milestone without you. So thank you CHKN players, testers, designers, artists, video creators, streamers, veterans, Workshop-ers, explorers, multiplayers, Tweeters, and sharers. You guys inspire us every day! We collect and watch your videos in our YouTube channel, awe at your creature combinations in the Workshop, love your screenshots and artwork… and we can’t do without your suggestions and bug spotting in the forums. You’re all amazing and we’re very grateful for your support!
To celebrate the occasion, we just released a patch with a quick art update to loot bags. For one day only, during our birthday, sparkly loot bags will become sparkly birthday presents! Whenever you drop one in the game, we hope it’s a fun reminder of how far CHKN has come with all your help. Thanks for an amazing year! We’ve got lots of new features and content coming up and can’t wait to share it all with you. We’re looking forward to another great year!
- Team CHKN P.S. If you’re a CHKN supporter, please consider signing up for our newsletter (if you haven’t already). You’ll be the first to hear about CHKN news! http://store.steampowered.com/app/420930/

Community Creatures

CHKN Run

SXSW Gaming

What’s Next?

Happy Friday! We’ve got some requested multiplayer improvements (like private games) and new Workshop features in this patch. For the modders out there, we’ve also added an early, bare bones version of Lua scripting that we’ve been working on for testing. If you’re brave and try it out, please let us know about any feedback you have or bugs you find! Here are the patch notes with more info and demos, as well as the included improvements and bug fixes.

Patch Notes

• Workshop Worlds
  • Share your whole saved game to the workshop, including any structures and creatures you’ve created
  • Take it even further and create your own worlds and levels to share and play with others, like obstacle courses, mazes, or maybe relaxing vacation resorts! Whatever you like.
  • To save a world to the Workshop, use [ESC] in the game when you’re ready, then select “Export to Workshop”
  • To load a world from the Workshop, use the “Workshop Worlds” button in the main menu

• Lua Scripting
  • Use the new scriptable block and button to create your own scenarios and events inside the game
  • Script the objects with Lua to trigger actions or effects when used, or automatically when a game loads
  • Save your own mini-games or scenarios to Workshop Worlds for others to play
  • Find the scriptable objects in the toolbox’s Special Items tab (the bag icon)
  • Use “/developer 1” to turn on developer mode (and “/developer 0” to turn it off again)
  • Place the item and interact with it (the [E] key) to start scripting

• Added editable signs. Place them in your worlds to guide other players or leave messages.
• Worlds and Scripting Demos
  • We’ve added our own early demos of these features so you can see them in action. Grab them in Workshop Worlds!
    • Arena Scenario: Build a creature within the time limit and use it to defeat increasingly more powerful challengers in arena battles. Upgrade your creature between rounds using the life blocks of your fallen foes and see how far you can get!
    • Bomb Run: Push the button, then RUN!
    • Fire Trap: Learn how to use scriptable buttons to trigger other items, like a deadly fire trap for your enemies *cackle*
  
  
  • Light Switch Demo: Control the power of the sun! (a.k.a. Learn how to control lights and time through scripting.)
  • Temple Disco: It’s a beautiful night for fireworks. Or a disco. Or both! Push the button and watch the show.
  
  
  • Water & Sand: Exactly like it says on the tin… an empty world with water and sand, open for whatever you want to make!
  • Keep an eye on the Workshop for more demos and mini-games coming soon!

• Added ability to set multiplayer lobby type (public, friends only, invite only)
• Added ability to invite players from player list
• Added button to view player detail in player list
• Removed Nuke item from clients in multiplayer (meaning only the host can use Nukes!)

• Fixed creature's ability to break things based on the damage values displayed in editor and on tooltips
• Fixed horse mouth collider (that prevented attaching blocks near it)
• Fixed venus and llama eyes to be the correct sides
• Some structure items that were in the Player Items tab have been moved to the Structure Items tab
• Fixed a bug with editing creatures that spawned from eggs
• Additional minor bug fixes

Find Us at SXSW!

Hi, everyone! We’ve got another update for you today with a hatchery for breeding, scenario spawning, creature-building improvements with voxels, Workshop and multiplayer updates, and a load of improvements and bug fixes. Thanks so much for all your feedback and bug reports! It really helps us improve CHKN and get these updates out to you more quickly. Please keep them coming!~ Here are the full notes for this patch:

NEW FEATURES

• Creature breeding! Craft a hatchery to allow your tamed creatures to lay eggs.  Feed them to speed up the process. Once an egg is laid, break it for lifeblocks or let it hatch into a fully formed creature!
  • Tip: Keep your other carnivores away from hatching eggs! Eggs are delicious, after all.
• Creative scenario spawning: Adventure Mode scenarios can now be triggered in Creative Mode by throwing a scenario egg. Find the eggs in the toolbox’s special items tab (the bag icon)
• Creature voxels: when building creatures and stacking like blocks, they will now form a solid object. Create walking houses with ease!

IMPROVEMENTS

• The water bucket can now water plants to make them grow faster. Best results if watered periodically!
• Added distance filtering to the “Join Game” menu. This will allow players to join a game outside of nearby regions. (Keep in mind, latency will increase when doing so.)
• Inviting friends to networked games now launches CHKN and connects automatically
• Added version checking to network games
• Added a “retrieving networked games” indicator to the “Join Game” menu
• Added a new background to Workshop screenshots
• Added a “Save Creature” screen to Workshop to allow more editing options before saving

• Added an indicator to the UI to display attack power needed to break a currently-unbreakable object
• Changed the player eating sound
• Rewrote creature ground detection to fix issues where creatures would fall through structure floors
• Decreased creature sliding to fix creatures walking through walls
• Nerfed cow leg speed to be in line with similarly-powered creatures

BUG FIXES

• Fixed issues with bad creature names
• Fixed particles that failed to show after a while
• Fixed creature bite detection for creatures with long legs
• Fixed a bug that caused sacks to be spawned from chests, mills, and cooking sources when leaving a chunk
• Fixed a server-side bug that would cause items, eggs, and Poachers become invisible over time
• Empty network lobbies are no longer displayed in the join list
• Fixed bad state settings when Ansel is active
• Fixed infinite item bug while crafting with an item in-cursor
• Fixed pathfinding on Metal Gate
• Fixed bug that caused creatures to get stuck when attacking eggs they could not break
• Feeding a creature will no longer cancel powering a mill
• Fixed network bug where clients changed the host's highlighted slot in the hotbar
• Fix to error with armors that caused players and Poachers to be invisible at times (and other errors)
• Fixed issues with inventory that caused sacks to sometimes disappear
• Fixed issue with Poacher loot that caused it to not generate correctly
• Fixed creature pursue calculations. Creatures will no longer get stuck trying to bite something.
• Improved distance check for breaking the wall in the Adventure Mode starting temple

New Streaming Schedule

Multiplayer is now available! Join a game and help us test it out! It’s still a bit clunky so the bugs you report will help us make it the best it can be. If you see anything at all that you think is strange, please post it on the forums so we can take a look. It really helps a lot! Like… maybe you fell through the world and now your friends are slowly sinking into the abyss of nothingness with you. *cough* Sorry about that and thanks for the quick reports! We’ll have a fix up for that bug ASAP. We’ve also got some other improvements and bug fixes in this update to share so here are the notes!

Patch Notes

• Multiplayer is here!
  • Grab your friends for crazy shenanigans in Creative Mode: collaborate on creatures and see what happens, pit them against each other, or start a creature zoo of epic proportions
  
  
  • Brave the wilds of Foot Island together in Adventure Mode: strategize with your friends, team up against temple Mini-Bosses, and never go up against a pack of wild camelamas alone again
    • TIP: You can grab items from another player’s bag when they die!
  
  
  • Have up to 8 friends together in one game
  • To host a game, hit [ESC] while in your game and click "Open game to multiplayer"
    • TIP: To see who’s connected to your game once it’s open, hit

  • To join a game, click "Join Game" on the main menu and check out the available games in the list
  • Find friends to play with on the multiplayer forum
  • Help us by reporting any bugs you find on the bug forum

• Added additional anti-aliasing
• Fixed layout of key binding UI
• Reduced nutrition of grass to be in line with other foods
• Moved “Workshop” button to be on main toolbar of inventory in Creative Mode for easier access
• Improve eating routine distance check

• Fixes to bad vertex in poacher's fingers
• Scan pathfinding graph on start/load of game
• Fixed bug that would prevent getting past the main loading screen
• Fix to structure and tree blocks that would get misaligned after taking damage

Steam Workshop

What’s Next?

Creature sharing is here! We’ve just released v0.2.3 with Steam Workshop, input mapping, initial quality settings, and more. Here are the patch notes:

NEW FEATURES

• Added Steam Workshop support for saving and loading creatures.
  • Show off your best creature creations by sharing them in the Workshop
  • Browse the Workshop to see what your fellow creators have made and get ideas for your own creations
  • Bring shared creations into your own games - edit them, add them to your zoo, or see whose creature is stronger in battle!
  • Save your favorite creatures to the Workshop in case you need to reincarnate them later *cough*
  • Menu is accessible through the ‘Creative’ tab (sack icon) in the toolbox in Creative Mode, or by pressing the U key in any mode
  • Creatures can be saved via the interaction menu (E key) on the creature
  
  
• Added control mapping support in-game for better control over key bindings. Menu is in ‘Controls’ tab of the options menu.
• Removed launcher. Quality settings and resolution will be prompted on first game launch, and can also be set in options menu.
• Added Ansel support

BUG FIXES

• Fixed bug with water quality dropping in some cases
• Fixed colliders around desert ruins

Multiplayer and More on the Way!

Join Us on Twitch!

Hey, everyone. Multiplayer is back in the Pre-release build and we’re pretty excited about it! It’s an early version of the new system so, like all things Pre-release, we need your help testing and hunting down bugs to get it ready for release. If you’d like to help, you’ll just need to download the Pre-release version of the game to play. There’s an FAQ here with information and instructions if you’ve never done it before and want to join in. Instructions on how to use multiplayer can be found in this FAQ. It’s the same for both Creative and Adventure Mode games. We’ll be watching the Pre-Release board for your bug reports and feedback. Please let us know what you find, and what you think. We really appreciate the help. Thank you! - Team CHKN P.S. If you see us in a game, come say hello! ːsteamhappyː http://store.steampowered.com/app/420930

CHKN version 0.2.2 is released! We’ve got updates to difficulty balance and poachers, UI display, performance optimization, crafting and resource drop rates, animations, and tons more. Here’s the big list of all the improvements and fixes:

NEW FEATURES:

• Added advanced video options to allow fine tuning of performance
• “Nuke” item added to Creative Mode: clears out an entire section of land for easier building!

IMPROVEMENTS:

• Optimized game logic to run less often where possible: should see FPS improvement in areas with many creatures
• Made FPS more consistent by assembling/disassembling objects over many frames
• Optimizations to terrain streamer loading
• Reduced frequency of call to garbage collection which causes game to stagger
• Improved performance in heavy wooded areas by consolidation of tree colliders
• Added level of detail to terrain to decrease terrain detail for far off areas
• Changed default quality to beautiful
• Creature stats are now revealed for wild and tamed creatures when under the crosshair

• Added player stats to the inventory screen
• Tamed creatures now have popover UI indicators if they are hungry, injured badly, or sad
• Aggressive dogs near starting temple replaced with friendlier bouncing giraffes
• Damage reduced for player by 25% for all difficulties
• Drowning damage halved
• Added a bonus to melee range when riding with a saddle
• “Difficulty setting” message displayed after consecutive deaths
• “Too low to break” message displayed when trying to break something without the necessary tools
• Increased Poacher tent cooldown to 60 min
• Changed poacher armor and damage to be based off amount of relics player has obtained
• Fixed issue with poacher tent spawning that would spawn a tent every time a saved game was opened
• Changed mind control hat to be able to be knocked off without a direct hit if creature's health is 30% or lower
• Adjusted mouth animation chewing speeds for llama, cow, sheep
• Reanimated venus fly trap mouth
• Reworked animations for pig, spider, elephant, giraffe, horse, and lizard legs
• Improved creature neck animations
• Removed unused audio files to decrease game size
• Changed mill placement to work off of grid
• Changed mills to add foundations if placed on uneven ground
• Changed stairs to use a new mesh to improve walkability
• Reworked fences to fragment better when segments overlap
• Improved creature root motion to connect with ground better
• Fixed bugs and added safety checks to structures to avoid breaking save games
• Changed cooking to only accept logs and trunks as fuel
• Added messages to crafting when attempting to drag items to the slots
• Added ability to separate stacks of items in inventory: while holding a stack, RIGHT-CLICK to place one of the items in a slot (LEFT-CLICKing still places the whole stack)
• Added stucco bricks, stone bricks, glass panes, iron ingots, and smelting

• Turned down recipe resource requirements for structures
• Reduced armor crafting requirements
• Increased logs per trunk from 3 to 4
• Increased drop rates for vines and sap from trees
• Changed night sky to be brighter in biomes where it was pitch black
• Changed creature saddle riding to only lose control when a creature is sad or scared
• Allow petting and feeding a creature when riding it
• Added AI routines to run to and pick up a player for saddle riding by using the whistle or interaction menu

• Reduced creature rotation based off of speed and removed rotation of saddle to reduce nausea when riding
• Added creature edit to the interaction menu for cases when player does not have a lifeblock
• Halved energy burn rates of abilities for tamed creatures

BUG FIXES:

• Fix to pig and horse mouth animations that were not playing
• Fix to canceling treadmill related crafting queues
• Cactus can now be placed on tilled ground
• Fix to frozen creature error occurring when placing saddle and other objects on creatures
• Fix to allow damage to tamed creatures in Creative Mode
• Fix to root rotations in creature animation to improve visual fidelity
• Fix to allow legs to attach to the top of blocks
• Fix to gap with certain arm blocks
• Fix to rotations on eyes and mouth when root is a head
• Fix to errors in creature ink shooting code
• Fix to tamed creatures attacking new unfinished creature in build sphere
• Fix to failing to identify mills in areas with many colliders
• Fix to bad terrain rocks
• Fix to snake rapture creature's eye
• Creatures no longer pick up bombs with their mouth
• Fixed material on metal gate
• Fixed bug that allowed unlocking achievements when correct action was not performed
• Fixed issue where drag & drop with inventory would cause a click 2x
• Fixed a bug that caused plants to not spawn fruits
• Fixed a race condition that would occasionally clear a player's inventory on save
• Fix to carnivores being able to eat fruits off of plants
• Fixed issue with creature saddle riding that caused movement to go erratic
• Fixed issue where creature would look at player when riding
• Fixed minor bugs with death messages
• Fix to bug in Creative Mode where picking up a relic would add a limit to edit orb
• Fixed bugs in creature AI which caused creatures to turn aggressive when they should have been scared
• Fixed issue where legs did not respond to collisions with entities
• Fixed issue with creature AI that prevented creatures from forgetting a threat long after it was gone

Happy New Year, everyone. Thanks for all your feedback on the Adventure Update! We’ve got a new patch for you today full of optimizations, improvements, and bug fixes. If you were having trouble with framerate (lag), loading times, or crashing specifically, this patch should help quite a bit. NOTE: Folks on 32-bit operating systems who were getting “invalid platform” errors will now skip the error but will likely crash during loading. We’re still working on this! We hope to bring back 32-bit support soon. Until then, the previous version is available to play (v0.1.15)! Right-click on CHKN in your library, select “Properties”, go to the “Betas” tab, and select “previous” in the dropdown menu to download that version. Here are the full patch notes...

IMPROVEMENTS:

• Added terrain streaming to lower memory usage and increase frames per second
• The Render Distance setting is now automatically selected based off of system memory. (You can set it higher manually if it’s not to your liking once you load the game. Just be sure you’re over minimum specs, otherwise you risk crashing!)
• Launcher settings (Graphics Quality and Resolution) will now take priority over in-game settings
• Improved “Stay” command to make a creature stays put in an area until commanded to do something else
• Improved AI so creature will not move away as the player approaches to feed or pet it
• Added a “Cancel” command to the whistle, which will stop creatures from performing the current action
• Creatures that become untamed will no longer become aggressive immediately
• Buckets now display interaction text based off of crosshair's target
• Creature legs now animate backwards when walking backwards (no more moonwalking)
• Death messages added
• Default creature names added
• Optimizations to item network syncing
• Water and terrain culling added to increase performance
• The tutorial starter creature can no longer be untamed or damaged while in the tutorial temple
• Hoe tool degrades less quickly

BUG FIXES:

• Time spent on black screen during initial load significantly reduced
• Fix to creature necks not animating correctly
• Fix to creatures climbing trees
• Fix to creatures walking through fences
• Fix to invisible water trigger in temple
• Fix to allow riding even if a creature is commanded to use a treadmill
• Fix to bugs with multiple creatures using a treadmill that causes it to glitch out
• Allow beams to be seen on all LOD levels
• Fix to missing onboarding with the campfire
• Fixed negative colliders on mirrored lifeblocks
• Orb limit in creative mode is now unlimited as intended
• Disallowed save game names with invalid characters
• Fixes to save game corrupting bug with structures
• Fixes to structures not displaying the right visuals on load
• Fixes to structures not orientating correctly on load
• Fixes to the stucco roof collider fracturing neighboring blocks
• Fixes to not being able to pick up items with auto-pickup setting off
• Changes to release unused memory when a chunk unloads
• Fixes creature movement to slow down when approaching their target and slide less
• Fix to workshops returning too many logs when canceling queue
• Mill and treadmill animation/sounds now stop correctly when unloading
• Sap no longer gives maple seeds
• Cactus no longer edible
• Temporarily removed the ability to open games to multiplayer since it’s incomplete (Coming back in the next version when it’s finished and working!)

It’s here! The Adventure Update (v0.2.0) is now released, just in time for the holidays. There’s still some work to do but we really want to get the update out to everyone and start getting your feedback on the new features. You’ll find some build highlights and the full patch notes below. We’ve also added a link to our bug/known issues list for your reference. Onward!

What’s New

Patch Notes

• Brand new environment: 5 unique biomes (tropical beach, forest, desert, swamp, volcanic) and points of interest to explore
• New wild creature combos, with unique “mini-bosses” to challenge
• New Adventure Mode intro experience (tutorial)
• 4 mysterious temples added across the map (look for the beams of light to investigate!)
• Magic eggs and lifeshaper relics added: unlock the ability to build more powerful creatures by finding the lifeshaper relics in Adventure Mode
• New creature stat system: Important stats are displayed on screen while you build a creature
• Creature-powered structures: craft building blocks and higher tiered items by putting your creatures to work
• New whistle command radial system with contextual commands
• First person hands, items, and animations for better immersion when using the first-person camera
• New contextual interactivity system: available actions change depending on what you’re pointing at with the crosshair
• Brand new UI/HUD throughout the game
• Environmental effects for each biome added
• Weather: relax on a rainy evening or find your way through the rolling fog
• New, completely rewritten creature animation system for improved performance and visuals
• AI completely rewritten for improved performance and more intelligent creatures
• New pathfinding implementation: allows creature to accurately transverse structures and uneven ground
• New tools added: like the club and hammer
• Player armor added: craft new armor to protect yourself in the wild
• All new food items added: like meatloaf, donuts, sushi and, of course, PIE
• Procedurally generated trees: different types of trees found in different biomes for environmental variety; also provide new types of tree blocks when chopped down
• New plants/foliage found around the island in different biomes
• Game difficulty setting added: Explore in peace or challenge yourself by giving your enemies the advantage. Choose from “easy”, “normal”, or “hard”. Creative Mode defaults to “peaceful”.

• Creatures now respect diet type: herbivore, carnivore, and omnivore; they will get sick if feed the wrong food type
• Creatures that have been commanded to attack another creature will no longer eat the lifeblocks of their vanquished foe
• Creatures will now automatically help break things: start chopping down a tree, for example, and your creature will come assist
• Creatures can now pick items up in their mouths: they’re helping!
• While building a creature, removed blocks no longer fall to the floor and need to be picked up; instead, blocks are magnetized to the player and picked up automatically
• Cooking now requires a fuel source (like some wood) and time for the item to cook
• Camp fire is now a low-level tool: can only cook low quality foods (get a furnace for higher quality cooking!)
• Creature lifeblocks and tree blocks drop rate has been reduced in Adventure Mode for survival progression balance
• Tamed creatures burn energy when using abilities
• Breakable objects now regenerate “health” if left alone for a period of time: for example, your walls will “heal” up soon after you stop a raid on your homestead
• Breakable objects now have a minimal attack value required to break them, and any damage that’s too weak will bounce off: for example, your fist doesn’t do enough damage to break an iron deposit; you’ll need to use a strong creature or craft a stronger tool
• Drag/drop added to inventory
• Improved flying speed
• Off-hand slot improvements: now easier to use items in your left hand
• World interactions reworked: now based on where the crosshair was placed when you first interacted to help prevent misclicks
• Explicit “Rotate Block” key added when building/place (R)
• Can't hurt tamed creatures while riding or if multiple valid hits
• Tooltip descriptions added to all items
• Partial controller support added and inputs cleaned up (NOTE: Only tested on Windows 10 with Xbox 360 controller so far. Please let us know if you test this out and have any feedback!)
• Lifeblock values adjusted for progression
• Structure block values adjusted for progression
• Item values adjusted for progression
• All new creature leg animations
• Smoother chunk loading
• Object pooling expanded to all objects in game to help improve chunk loads

• Sound fall-off values tweaked
• Tooltip now stays on screen near edges
• Floating structure blocks fixed
• Optimizations to many core systems

Known Issues

• For anyone on a computer with around 4GB of RAM (min specs), there will be some memory issues: lengthy black screen and slow loading at startup, and a lower framerate while playing. We recommend exiting any other big apps while you have CHKN running to help alleviate this. We’re looking into it!
• Creature collision detection is still in progress, meaning that sometimes creatures collide with objects in the world (walk through a huge boulder, for example).
• If you’re on a 32-bit OS, you may have noticed we increased the minimum requirements to 64-bit. This is temporary! We added a lot to this build and went over the limit, so we’re researching the best way to bring 32-bit back.
• You may notice a change to the multiplayer menus. We’re in the process of adding Steam peer-to-peer networking with lobby support for the next update, but it’s unfinished at the moment. We recommend avoiding multiplayer for now!

Tell Us What You Think

• Bug Reports: Submit bugs to this forum and we’ll take a look.
• Feedback: Let us know what you think about CHKN, or post your ideas and suggestions.
• Share: Tweet us @chkngame or upload your screenshots to Steam. We’d love to see what you create!

More to Come

Thanks you you, CHKN made it to the top 100 Indie Games of 2016 out of nearly 30,000 games! That’s amazing and we couldn’t have gotten this far without you. This means we’re now in the running for the big prize: IndieDB's Indie Game of the Year! So we need your help once again. To vote for us, just visit the nominees page on IndieDB and click the big “VOTE” button next to CHKN.
Easy as that! Please pass this along and if you voted last round, please vote again! This is a new round so every vote counts. Thank you so much for supporting us. As for CHKN itself, we’ve just pushed another build to pre-release with some major updates to the tutorial and creature building so check it out if you’re interested! - Team CHKN

Heya! It’s been two weeks since our last progress report so it’s time to check in and give you a few quick updates.

Build/Release Status

Pre-Release Testing

Vote for Us

Until Next Time

The 2016 Indie of the Year awards are here and we’d love your help getting nominated! All you need to do is head over to CHKN on IndieDB and hit the “Vote Now” button.
It’s that simple. If we get enough votes, we’ll be officially nominated and move into the next round! Vote Now! This would really help us out so if you have a spare moment to vote and can pass this along to your friends, we’d really appreciate it. Thank you! - Team CHKN

Greetings, friends! We’re drinking a lot of caffeine and working hard on the next release. (Who needs sleep, right?!) Here’s another batch of sneak peeks for you, as well as an update on the release schedule since the build isn’t quite ready yet. More info on that down below!

Sneak Peeks

New Release Date

Pre-Release Test Build

Hey, everyone. We’re only a couple of weeks away from releasing a big update to CHKN and we’d love to update you on what we’ve been working on, plus get your help in testing new and improved features before release!

What’s New?

• Completely revamped creature animation system: a core part of CHKN! It affects how creatures move, creature building, overall performance, etc.
• Completely new environment: this is the new map that all the buzz has been about! Roman’s still adding things to the map but it’s in for everyone to check out and explore.
• UI/UX changes: things like the all new UI with updated menus and HUD, new creature command system, interacting with creatures while holding items, improved left-hand items, etc.

• First-person arms!
• Weather!
• Lots of additional optimizations and performance improvements
• And two more pages of stuff that was just too long to list here!

What’s Pre-Release?

Getting Access to Pre-Release Builds

Thank you!

Halloween is almost here, so we're holding a frightful contest to celebrate! To enter, first create the scariest abomination you can imagine using any combination of lifeblocks you want. (We recommend Creative Mode for instant access to all blocks!) Roman and Ashley gave it a go on our livestream earlier today:
Creepy creatures everywhere. Once you're happy with your horrifying monsterthing, take a screenshot or video and submit it using the contest page. If you don't own CHKN yet, you can draw your abomination instead. Just make sure to reference lifeblocks from the game! You have until Halloween (2016-10-31) so get those mad scientist juices flowing and show us your terrifying creations! Three winners will get a USD $20 Steam wallet code, a (spooky) limited edition digital poster, and a CHKN Steam key for a friend! Plus bragging rights. That's always important. Enter the Contest!

Happy Thursday, everyone! We’re now halfway through development on the next update (YAY!), so we wanted to share another progress report and give you a few sneak peeks of what we’re up to. Off we go…

Expanding the Environment

Creature Features

UI Revamp

Upgrades & Optimization

More to Come...

Hi, CHKN Army! How are you? Hungry, eh? Yeah, us too. But we’re also pretty busy here at CHKN HQ! The team has been hard at work since our last post so we wanted to give you a quick progress report. Here are some updates on a few of the things we’ve been working on.

Building an Island

Arms, Tools, and the New Command System

Optimization & Performance

Until next time...

Hey, everyone! It's been a busy couple of weeks here at CHKN HQ. The team has been deep in planning mode, deciding what to add to the game next with the help of your feedback, and we've come up with some exciting stuff we hope you'll like. There's quite a bit to share with you today so let's get to it.

Release Schedule Changes

New Map, New Features, and a Bit of Mystery

• Basic survival progression: get stronger and build more powerful creatures as you explore more of the island and accomplish various tasks
• Creature-powered structures: put your creatures to work and turn raw materials into better resources
• Tiered crafting system: the better your resources, the better items you can craft
• Updated whistle and more creature commands
• Updated farming, now with watering buckets
• Improved creature building system
• New abilities, more recipes, high energy foods… more content!
• Mysterious beams shooting into the sky! Find them and unlock their secret….

Release Date & Future Updates

Share Your Ideas!

• Crafters! What items do you want to make in CHKN?
• Creature training! What activities would you like to train your creatures to do?
• Calling all adventurers! What would you like to see while exploring the island with your creatures?

Thanks for Reading!

Hey CHKN Army,

• Termites work 24 hours per day and never sleep. We have no right to complain about being tired anymore.
• Scientists say termites may release over 150 million tons of air-pollution-causing methane gas into the atmosphere every year. (And you thought your farts were bad).
• In the Amazon, some cultures rely on a hot, sugar-sweetened soup of boiled termites to get rid of whooping cough. I’ll stick to DayQuil, thanks.

Hey CHKN Army!

BUILD A FUNCTIONING FARM!

Hey CHKN Army!

• In June we introduced your arch enemies, the Poachers! They have continued to terrorize our creatures to no end ever since.
• July was a busy month! We started off with a big performance and bug fix patch, all thanks to your bug reports and suggestions. The Mech Dino was introduced mid-July with even more bug fixes! Big props to the development team AND the community for working hand in hand to solve issues.
• Creature abilities are very important to us and we put a lot of love and attention into them. This past month we introduced 6 new abilities, and then two weeks later, wolf life blocks and a minor optimization patch!

John has been working hard on multiplayer all summer with the help of Unity. This week we are ready to test it out! This Thursday we will be streaming our in-house test during our weekly stream so you could pop in and watch. Keep in mind that this could go really well or not so good! We may only play multiplayer for a portion of the stream, but that's the fun of it. We are super excited to give it a whirl and see all our progress in action while also looking for things we still have to fix. Also keep in mind that we still do not have an ETA on multiplayer. This is just our first test run of a very early version of our improved multiplayer. However this is a big step forward!

WHEN:

WHERE?

Hey CHKN Army!

Some things that we have planned are:

• A new map!
• Breeding
• Avatar Customization
• Flying!
• Much more.

Hello all you creature creators,

"Beautiful..."

WHEN:

WHERE?

Hey CHKN Army!

NEW FEATURES:

• New Creature: The Wolf!

IMPROVEMENTS/CHANGES:

• Upgraded to latest version of Unity Engine which should yield better performance.
• Tamed creatures will now stand still and kneel when a player is placing a saddle.
• Whistle commands can be given while riding a creature. You will still direct movement but creatures will attack if near a target.
• Optimizations to game saving speed while moving through world.
• Minor optimizations in creature sensing AI.
• Creature stat UI is no longer hidden by things like the whistle tutorial text.
• Tutorial indicators now trigger when looking at something with the crosshair instead of always visible.
• Fixes to using items while riding a creature.

BUG FIXES:

• Creature following now correctly takes in account the creature’s size.
• Fixed bug that would cause creatures to starve when not near a player.
• Fixed issues which would cause game to save a chunk without its entities.
• Fix to creatures unable to eat fruits.
• Tamed creatures no longer attack player if a player attacks another member of their species.

AAHHHOOOOOOOOOOO!

Have you taken our survey?

Watch our latest Twitch Stream!

COMMUNITY FOCUS

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND EVERYONE!

Hey everyone! Tomorrow for our Twitch stream we are going to hold some competitions between each other! Battles, races and more.

HAVE AN IDEA FOR A CHKN OLYMPIC EVENT?

WHEN:

WHERE?

Jack made an arena for our battles! How cool.

Hello CHKN Army!

GOT ANY QUESTIONS ABOUT THE SURVEY?

We just launched abilities and now we are going to play through the latest build on Twitch tomorrow! Ask us questions, listen to us talk about the future of CHKN, and see what kind of crazy abominations we come up with. Watch our last stream in the meantime: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93zTc9J0V_4

WHEN

WHERE

Hey CHKN Army!

NEW FEATURES:

• Octopus mouth shoots ink which obstructs vision.
• Snake mouths have venom which deals damage over time when they bite.
• Spider mouths have a paralyzing poison when they bite.
• Damage-over-time and paralyzing darts can be crafted using snake and spider mouths plus a dart.
• Charge ability added for creatures with horns.
• Offhand slot added. This is an additional slot in the hot bar. Whatever is equipped in this slot will be placed in the left hand. The F key quickly switches the main and off-hand items. If an item in the main hand doesn’t have a secondary action, right clicking will activate the off hand item. Torches and lanterns will provide light when equipped in the off hand slot.
• New creature type: Cow! Cow udders will provide milk when activated with the bucket. Milk will remove all poison statuses.

IMPROVEMENTS/CHANGES:

• Crafting recipes tweaked.
• All items now properly fit in player’s hands when equipped.
• Damage indicator added to screen.
• Status indicators added to screen.
• Water reflections disabled to improve graphic performance

BUG FIXES:

• Fixed bug that prevented screen to shake slightly when hit
• Fixed issue where couldn’t place blocks near edge of edit sphere

ABILITY VIDEOS

Hey everyone!

Now...the moment you've all been waiting for; the winners! Here they are:

Congratulations from Team CHKN!

Hey CHKN Army!

• OCTOPUS INK: Don't get shot! You will be temporarily blinded.
• ELEPHANT WATER: Elephants can now shoot water which can push you back AND put out fires!
• SNAKE VENOM: Snake and spider bites now poison you! Snake venom can hurt you and spider bites paralyze you, which slow you down. Luckily, we added this newest creature to the lineup...
• COW (+ COW MILK): Cow udders can now give milk, which can cure you from poison!
• CHARGING: Any animals with horns can now charge other creatures and even you! So watch out for this quick and powerful attack.

In honor of our upcoming abilities release, we wanted to hold a contest for you guys! Enter to win an exclusive digital wallpaper (made especially for this contest by our artists) AND a Steam Key. Already own CHKN? Enter to win the wallpaper and give the Steam Key to a friend to gear up for when we launch multiplayer in the future. The contest starts now (Fri. July 29th) and runs until Sunday July 31st at 11:59PM EST! Enter to win HERE, and good luck to everyone!

Hey CHKN Army!

FAN ART

SCREENSHOTS

VIDEOS

We had so much fun streaming last week that we are going to grace you with our presence once again! We might even coordinate our outfits like Saarim and Jack did (you'll have to stop in and see if any of us are matching.)

If you missed our last stream, you can watch it here. Don't forget to subscribe too so you can see when we go live!

WHEN:

WHERE?

Hello again, CHKN Army friends!

MULTIPLAYER

• Switch to Steam Peer-to-Peer Networking & Matchmaking: This is our first step in upgrading multiplayer. When the game tries to load big chunks of data from the server for both players, the current library can't handle the load and freaks out, making everything disappear or lag. We're going to replace that library outright with Steam's, which can handle that load much better. As a bonus, this also happens to be the first step toward real matchmaking! You'll be able to find games to join and friends to play with through the user interface, instead of having to host a server/open a port/muck about with IP addresses manually. (This week we tested out a first pass of matchmaking and it looks promising).
• Optimize: Once the switch is done, we can start tackling general bugs with things like networking and null exceptions and anything else that causes poor performance in multiplayer. Your bug reports will be really helpful here!

LAG/FRAMERATE

• World loading: moving from one "chunk" of the world to another, making data load and unload as you travel around. You might see a temporary drop in framerate when this happens or trees popping in from seemingly out of nowhere, for example. We'll continue to optimize and improve this system so the loading occurs seamlessly (without you noticing).
• Shader loading: when you encounter an object with a shader that hasn't loaded yet (like when you move underwater or see a dragon breathe fire for the first time that session). The framerate may drop temporarily or objects may appear wonky while this loading is happening. We're going to move this to the beginning, when the game first loads, so that it doesn't cause issues while you're playing.
• Creature overload: when there are tons of creatures loaded into one area. It's possible in this case that framerates may consistently drop and not recover (to the point where you have to restart the game). This is more common on older machines with slower processors, but we want to rewrite and optimize creature animation so that it's much lighter and will run faster on all machines.
• Distant graphics loading: where things far away in the world load, even if you can't see them. You might see drops in framerate while looking at dense clumps of objects (like a bunch of trees and creatures) as a result. We're still looking at the best way to tackle this, like a distance loading "drop off point" or detail settings in the options, but we're on it! In the meantime, we know that graphics cards can effect this (older cards worsen the drops in framerate), so playing on lower graphics settings can reduce those framerate drops for you for now.

BUG FIXES

• Fixes to structures (Doors and gates are working properly now and fixed issue where lantern could not attach to floor).
• The Octocrabs had no chill, so now they attack much later in the game
• Mouths bite every second instead of every frame, so they are less overpowered when attaching structures.
• Can connect to Multiplayer (still in alpha test state!)
• Creature hunger bar now moves when fed
• Fixed an issue where you suddenly couldn't look left and right (caused by a saddle glitch of all things)
• Structure data no longer corrupts saves
• Creatures no longer freeze when starving
• Creature necks no longer helicopter when tracking a target
• Fixes to fruits not being able to be picked
• Created a new save format so players no longer lose their saves and have to start over.

CONTROLLER SUPPORT

MORE THANKS

This Thursday tune into the CHKN Twitch channel to watch the team play CHKN and answer your questions! We will also be chatting about our plans for the future, and addressing some suggestions that we have been getting in the forum.

WHEN

WHERE

Hey CHKN Army!

NEW FEATURES:

• Dino-Mech added! (In Adventure Mode, these spawn with poachers over time.)
• Added stairs to structure blocks.

IMPROVEMENTS/CHANGES:

• reduce to poacher and creature conflict spawn rate.
• increase poacher camp spawn distance.
• added one-legged chickens to structure conflict night attacks.
• adjusted structure conflict timings.
• scenarios are now saved and resumed on load (poacher hunts, structure conflicts).
• tamed creatures now happily co-exist together.
• wild creatures take longer to starve.
• new particles added for impacts.
• palm trees now have coconuts.
• sap removed from apple trees and move to maple trees.
• maple seeds added to creative (still needs to be added to adventure)
• apples spawned on apple trees reduced.
• creatures deal more damage to trees.
• creature chasing can now be aggressive and passive due to situation.
• inside cave volume reduced.
• rebalanced structure block hit points.
• structure blocks are easily removable by the player.
• right clicking strikes with a structure block.
• increased chance for life blocks to spawn from eggs.
• fruit spawn times adjusted.

BUG FIXES:

• fixes to infinite loop bug caused by unloading a chunk while a creature is being built from an egg.
• fixed infinite loop bug caused when bad data attempted to be saved.
• game now cleans up properly if loading a game fails.
• added check to abort a game when connecting lifeblocks.
• fix to creature taking damage while being built.
• eye oriented correctly on voxelized creatures.
• fixes to fruit that could not be picked.
• fixed to fruit spawning.
• fixes to structure foundation positions on doors and gates.
• fixes to stucco glass pane.
• fixed issues where lantern could no attach to floor.
• fixed rapid fire creature mouth bites on structure blocks.
• necks no longer helicopter when tracking a target.
• fixed creatures freezing when starving.
• fix to attributes not updates for creatures.
• fixes to fire.

Hey CHKN Army, Unfortunately we will be delaying the Mech Dino patch again. Many of you have been reporting that too many Poachers are spawning at once, and if we add the Dinos (which spawn with the Poachers in Adventure Mode), you will have too many Poachers, and too many Dinos; they would be very overpowered.

We are very sorry for the continued delays with this patch, but as always, we don’t want to release bad builds to you. We want to have enough time to fix and address the issues that players are bringing to our attention.

Hey CHKN Army!

If everything goes well we will release this patch and the dino tomorrow. We apologize for this and thanks for your patience! Tiny armed, pointed toothed, dino fun will have to wait another day.

Well, hello everyone! It's been awhile since we had a chat. Today we wanted to share with you some behind-the-scenes of our creature animating process, and also share some articles we wrote on the art and backstory of CHKN!

ART UPDATE

MADE WITH UNITY DEVELOPER STORIES

WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!

Powered by consuming lifeblocks, these mechanical beasts are used by the Poachers to hunt you and your creatures down. All the cheeseburgers in the world can't tame this dino while under the control of the Poachers. Instead, build a creature up to the task of taking it down, and then you can use Poacher technology for your own!

Introducing THE MECH DINO, coming July 13th!

Patch Notes v0.1.12

• fixed structure interactions
• fix to saddle riding breaking turning when dismounted
• fix to connecting to a networked game
• null object related bug fixes

Hey guys, Here is a quick patch to fix most of the major issues that popped up over the last couple days. It fixes the auto save bug, the problem with doors not opening, and the bug where terrain would disappear upon loading games. Here are the full patch notes on everything we fixed and improved:

IMPROVEMENTS/CHANGES

• reduced creature raids aggressiveness
• added scaling to difficulty on creature raids based on play time
• balanced poacher tent spawning to increase in difficulty over time
• doubled time in between creature bite attack
• reduced potency of tranquilizer darts
• reduced damage of tranquilizer darts to creatures
• adjusted tree block and stone hit points to break easier
• branches can now be found inland
• adjusted structure block hit points
• added developer command /teleport x y z
• added developer command /timescale to change day speed
• added developer command /scenario # to test scenarios

BUG FIXES

• autosave now saves active chunks
• fixed error with stucco wall
• fixed problem with doors not working
• fixed bug where torches did not light when placed
• improved fruit spawning
• fixed bug where player would respawn still on fire
• fixed bug that caused swings and other events to not fire
• saving while dead sets the player to their last spawn point
• fixed up pathfinding on breakable objects
• added missing nutritional values to life blocks for when a creature eats
• players no longer pick up items on death
• fix to creatures ignoring food thrown at them when chasing when trying to eat the player
• fix to throwable objects colliding with the player
• fix to cave lighting not being reset on death
• fixed issue where restarting a new game would cause the terrain to disappear
• fix to creatures being scared of bombs
• spawn a sack with contents of a chest if it is removed

The Poacher update is here! After intense QA'ing the past couple days, we are happy to introduce you to your latest nemesis. We also have a few notes at the bottom about the update that you should definitely read. Poachers will appear only in Adventure Mode. Look out for them on your first night! We recommend building and taming a creature, then using the whistle to attack poachers when they appear. Download the update to see the poachers in action! We have also made many improvements and bug fixes.

NEW FEATURES:

• Poachers added.
• Poacher tents added.
• Poacher pipe item added.
• Poacher mindcontrol hat added.
• Poacher dart gun added.
• Bandage item added (creative mode only until recipe is added).

IMPROVEMENTS/CHANGES:

• Structure system completely overhauled.
• Network library replaced (untested and still alpha, stability coming soon.)

  Play MP at your own risk.

  
  
• World streaming system overhauled (chunk loading improved, more optimization to come.)
• Save game format changed due to structure rewrite. Old games not compatible.
• Error checking added to load/save.
• All breakable object values adjusted (use a tool or creatures to break trees, rocks, and high level eggs).
• Player item swing speed increased.
• Tilling now uses new hoe item (other items no longer till ground).
• Creatures hunt together, analyze threats in groups.
• Creatures sprint and target properly.
• Scared creatures now defend themselves.
• Creature following no longer tramples the player.
• Whistle changed to no longer require the summon command to be used before commanding a creature.
• Darts can not be thrown.
• Sling shot rocks can now be thrown.
• Double jump to toggle hover mode in creative.
• Movement changed to be more responsive.
• Movement slows down on damage.
• Floating in orb made more precise.
• Sound effects added to blow pipe.
• Underwater sound added.
• Lava sounds added.
• Sling shot damaged adjusted.
• Player name option removed, Steam name used instead.

BUG FIXES:

• Sacks and chests now networked.
• Fixes to the leash when attached to multiple creatures.
• Name tag display turned off when not in view.
• Item removed from hand immediately if gone.
• Fix to saddle riding.
• Fix to equipped item on game load.
• Creature pathfinding now avoid ruins and rocks.
• Fix to creature hunger status bar.
• Fix to pick up radius.
• Durability fixed for dropped items.
• Fix to creature collision AI.
• Fix to ruin collider.

STRUCTURE RE-WRITE NOTES:

SOME WARNINGS:

Play multiplayer at your own risk. Fixes are not tested.

We hope you all enjoy playing this update! Let us know what you think and if you have any questions. Happy Creating, and Happy Poacher hunting! MWAHAHHAAAAAAAA.

For this weekend's challenge:

BUILD AND TAME A CREATURE. USE A BALL TO PLAY FETCH WITH IT! BONUS POINTS IF YOU GET TWO CREATURES IN ONE SHOT PLAYING!

Buy CHKN from now until July 4th for $11.99! Get it while the gettin's good. If you are new to CHKN, WELCOME! We are happy to have you on the CHKN Army! We are releasing an update next week with Poachers, so now is a good time to become part of this crazy family of abomination tamers.

Hey CHKN Army!

• Advanced creature abilities, like heat resistant shells and flying.
• Advanced AI, such as hearing, scent and night vision.
• Improvements to creature and structure building.
• Stability and performance optimizations.
• An all new map!
• Dedicated server hosting for multiplayer.
• Additional biomes!

You better watch out! CHKN is about to get a lot more crazy! You didn't think that was possible, did you? Well, think again. Poachers are the newest threat in the land of CHKN, and now it is even more important for you to build the best creatures possible! The sole purpose of their sorry, corrupted lives are to steal your creatures! Equipped with dart guns and mind control devices, Poachers will storm your homestead in search of your creatures, put them to sleep with their dart guns, and take control of any creature they can get their grubby little hands on! Now the fun begins. Create your best creature and go after those Poachers to get your blocks back. Once you kill the Poachers, they will drop their weapons AND the blocks they stole. VICTORY! Poachers will be arriving June 29th! This will be the first pass, as there are many features that come along with Poachers. The saddle, Poacher structures and other top secret features will be added a little later.

Hey guys!

We just released a patch to fix some of the minor problems some of you have been having. Here are the notes:

• fix to crashes when exiting the build sphere.
• fix to infiinite burning and save corruption.
• reduced cave texture size (was causing graphical crashes on some hardware.)

We released a small patch today because we saw some issues pop up over the past week that needed to be addressed right away! We made the starting point a bit more forgiving. We also thinned out the population to improve some of the continual lag we've been seeing.

Patch Notes:

• Reduced creature density (which may improve continual lag).
• Horse replaced with cat-bird at starting point, since horses kill players too easily.
• Taming now takes in account food nutrition (burgers now tame faster).
• Player starts with 5 burgers.

For this weekend's challenge:

BUILD A HOUSE/STRUCTURE. BUILD A CREATURE THAT WILL GUARD IT! USE THE VENUS FLY TRAP ROOT BLOCK SO IT STAYS STILL.

Last Friday we challenged you crazy creators to build creatures that would live in caves, and show us what you made! Here are some awesome ones for this weeks community focus, as well as a few great videos that were made this past week.

SCREENSHOTS:

NEW VIDEOS

FAN ART

Thank you all for your great contributions! Stay tuned Friday for the next screenshot challenge. If you make fan art, make sure to upload it on Steam also! Keep up the awesome work!

Poachers come from an old civilization, but they are hardly civilized. Nothing is too sacred for them. Mind-control? Check. Stealing creatures? Check. Polluting the environment? YOU BETCHA! Only your creatures can help defend against this wretched hive of villainy!

Poachers are invading June 29th!

We love seeing your screenshots, and lately you guys have been going gangbusters, posting screenshots every day. Every Friday we want to start giving you a theme or prompt, and then choosing the weirdest, craziest, coolest combos for the next weeks newsletter. For this weekend...

BUILD A CREATURE THAT WOULD LIVE IN THE CAVE. TAKE THE SCREENSHOT IN THE CAVE!

HAPPY CREATING!

Howdy Crazy Creators!!

DEVELOPMENT

ANNOUNCEMENT

REVIEWS

-Team CHKN

They live in campsites. They’ll capture your creatures.

Get ready. They are coming, June 29th!

Hello CHKN Army! We see a lot of great things in this forum, including suggestons and feedback, which we 10000% want you to continue doing. We do, however, want to ask you guys more specific questions. If you want to participate, email Saarim at saarim@katapultstudio.com so he can ask you some questions about your experience with the game. We always want to make CHKN better, and it starts with you! Your feedback matters the most, so shoot Saarim an email saying you'd like to answer some questions for him, and he will get back to you by next week. Thanks guys! -Team CHKN

Our May 25th update brought a new feature to CHKN; conflict. At night, there is a chance that your homestead could be attacked by herds of creatures! The night is scary enough, now you have to be on the look out. Luckily, there is a new creature block that has your back. When we created the venus fly trap, it became the first creature in CHKN that stands still. We made a root block that literally roots whatever else is attached to it, to the ground. Pretty cool, right? Except it can't follow you, play fetch or be ridden. So what to do with it then? THEY CAN GUARD YOUR HOMESTEAD!
Create any abominations you want with a root block over the heart, and place them around your homestead. Feed it, pet it and make it happy so when creatures wander by...NOM NOM NOM.

Helloooooo CHKN Army!

• This creatures poop was once the largest export of Texas!
• The smallest of this creature is smaller than a thumbnail and weighs less than a penny.
• They can eat up to 1,000 insects in an hour! *burp*

• The Everything-Is-On-Fire Bug: Greg is finishing up debugging this bug that caused items to not take fire damage (and perpetually burn themselves and everything around them) and also caused random trees to spawn already on fire. So, basically hell.
• The Floating-Fences Bug: We know this one sucks. You build a fence to contain your creature, and when you load your game, your creatures are gone and your fence is stuck in the sky! Among other fence-related bugs, this will be fixed entirely when we do the structure rewrite in June. Thank you for your patience with this one!
• The Orb-Exit-Crash Bug: John is currently working on this as well. It was a tough bug to track down but he's working on it.
• The Crashing-On-Loading Bug: Some of you are experiencing freezing or crashing immediately on starting a new game. We have looked at many error logs and we don't see the reason in them, which means we have to do some digging. Bare with us while we figure this one out.

Since launch yesterday we have already seen a bunch of awesome screenshots using the new creature parts, like this dinosaur below! We love seeing what the community creates, from funny comments, to beautiful art, to insane videos. Show us what you make and maybe you will get featured as well!

SCREENSHOTS:

FAN ART:

NEW VIDEOS:

Hey CHKN Army!

• 7 new creatures! (goat, llama, sheep, pig, elephant, venus fly trap, and the long awaited, fire breathing dragon!
• Conflict: there is a chance that creatures will attack your homestead at night. There are also more events happening throughout the map.
• New point of interest: find the cave and discover what waits inside!
• Creature stats: you are now able to see how hungry, happy and tame your creatures are!
• New items: craft exploding fruit and transmute cacti and trees into living, breathing creatures!

Have fun making abominations! - Team CHKN.

PLEASE BE AWARE: The multiplayer that exists in the game currently is still the same one that has existed since April 1st. It's rough and not fixed. That was what we were planning on improving, but yesterday decided to delay. If you attempt to play multiplayer, please be aware you will have problems. We are also aware of this.

Hello CHKN Army!

After QA testing this weekend, we have decided to delay the multiplayer improvements and the general performance improvements part of the update. Here is why:

• 7 new creatures, including dragons that breathe fire.
• conflict: creatures can attack your homestead at night.
• new points of interest: discover where the dragon dwells.
• creature stats: see how hungry or tame your creatures are.
• new items: transmute plants and craft exploding fruit.

Sincerely, Team CHKN.

We are doing a large update on May 25th and we asked the awesome people at The Trailer Farm to make us a new trailer to show off the game you know and love, plus the new features! Check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vP7NGJxo6Kc

There has been an ammendement to the update. Please read about it here.

We are adding new points of interest on May 25th! Get ready for caves! Here is a sneak peak of our fire cave. There will be other themed caves as well, of varying levels. Maybe...you'll even find a dragon in one of them.
No, this isn't the dragon. This is a very wimpy dragoataturtle.
Now you can build cave fortresses and guard them with....wimpy....dragoaturtles...oh maybe I didn't think this through. Anyways...CAVES. SOON. MAY 25th. BE THERE.

Last week we asked you all to guess what our newest creatures is going to be, giving you these three clues!

• It lives in bogs. EW.
• Don't fall in! It's speedy maw opens and closes in only a few milliseconds, trapping mostly bugs but sometimes the occasional frog.
• Although it looks like they have teeth, they actually have trigger hairs, which snap shut when stimulated! Today we reveal what that creature is! (Drum roll please..........)
  

  VENUS FLY TRAP!!

  
  What's cool and different about this creature is that it actually isn't a creature, it's a plant! The root block keeps the plant stationary and will act as a guard to your homestead, eating any creatures that might wander into your territory. The Venus Fly Trap will be available on May 25th!
  Our elephant is done! Above is Kevin's fancy, shmancy rendering and below is the elephant in game, being led around by Kate.
  All the new creatures for May 25th are done, so Ashley has started working on two new ones for June; a bee and a cow! (Yes, those udders should be that big. You'll thank us when you start using those as hats for your creatures.)
  
  
  
  

We had a banner week with the community! You guys are so creative, funny, weird and awesome! Check out some of the things that were created:

FAN ART:

COMMENTS:

SCREENSHOTS

VIDEOS

We have a new creature in the works and this time, we wanted you to guess what it is! We want to do this from now on, and give you a few helpful, interesting hints and a silhouette to guess from. (Remember before every commercial break on Pokemon when you had to guess which one it was? Kinds like that...but creepier.) [olist]

Sometimes you just need a good nap. More than once. At random times. In the middle of battle. PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05xF5UzDhrE