Thanks to the awesome CHKNeers on Discord and the forums testing and reporting issues to us, we’ve 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:

• 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 there’s 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

Please check out this build and let us know how things are working for you. We’re still optimizing and fixing bugs and your reports really do help us get these updates out more quickly. Keep ‘em coming!



We’re always on Discord so that’s the best place to find us quickly and let us know of any issues or feedback. You can also post on our forums and we’ll have a look.

Thanks, everyone.

- Team CHKN

https://store.steampowered.com/app/420930/CHKN/

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 couldn’t make CHKN without you. We look forward to a great 2019!




Don’t forget you have until Jan 3rd to hunt down your free holiday hats in Adventure mode! Find a wild creature roaming the island, observe it’s magnificent festive hat, then take that hat for yourself! That’s the holiday spirit.

We’re also sharing our festive-hat-wearing creature screenshots over on Discord during the hunt. We’d love to see yours!

Speaking of Discord, we’ve got a few polls up over there right now. We want to know what content you’d like to see next, your favorite CHKN mode, and which creature should be next up for a revamp. Join up to vote, then stick around for events, shenanigans, exclusive roles for CHKNeers, and more polls in the future.



Have an awesome weekend and we’ll see you in 2019!

- Team CHKN

https://store.steampowered.com/app/420930/CHKN/

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


Reindeer, Santa, and Elf hats await.

What could be more festive than a Santa-hat-wearing chicatdog? Nothing, of course! So, this holiday we invite you to hunt down or tame some wild creatures that have randomly spawned wearing one of 3 special hats on their beautiful heads. (Or you could cheat and switch to Creative mode but where’s the fun in that?)

The hats are only available for a limited time—until Jan 3rd—so get hunting soon.

And be sure to share screenshots with us on Discord! We’d want to see your lovely (and not so lovely) creatures in their festive new gear.

Good luck!



If you haven’t tried it out yet, make sure you’re on the latest update and give the brand new CHKN a go. Build creatures with the new blocks, survive the new wilderness, send your creatures into battle in Arena mode… there's lots to explore. (See the full recap in this 0.7 update post.) Let us know what you think!

We’ve also got a poll going over on our Discord to see what everyone’s favourite mode is. Are you an Adventurer, an Arena battler, or a Creative builder? Head over there and vote!

We’ve just pushed an update with many fixes and tech improvements to optimize performance. With these, you’ll notice:

1. Stuttering/hitching as you move through the world has been dramatically reduced.
   
2. Improved loading

There’s 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 hasn’t! Summon the patience of a saint and it will load after some waiting (how long depends on your computer specs). We’re 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)

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! It’s time to get our revenge on those Lightcats.“

• 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! We’ll be there, too. (It’s lonely in our developer basements. But fair warning, watch out for Greg’s creatures. They’re terrifying.) Let's join up and play the new CHKN!

📅 Saturday, Dec 15th
⏰ 8-9 PM EST (Time zone converter)

It’s really easy to join:

1. Launch CHKN!
   
2. Host your own game for others to join or just find an existing game and hop right in. (If you need help, check out these instructions.)
   
3. (Optional) Join our Discord & head over to the Multiplayer channel to find friends and group up (and get your special role!)

See you there!

Player Armor
5 new armors are available for you to craft on your adventures: chicken, cat, cow, and crab are live now, with dog coming next week. Craft them at the Outfit station. Collect them all!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=La3Oq4pdUOY
Arena Mode
Check out the new Arena to pit your creatures against each other. You can go head to head in 1v1 fights or see how teams of creatures fare against each other. Who will win?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nT_JgHn1ooE
We’ve updated the live build to hot fix a few issues players were reporting. If you were having any of these issues, please update to the most recent version and try again.

Multiplayer: Fixed Issues with players getting stuck or unable to join multiplayer games
NEW: You no longer need to start a new Adventure mode game before joining a multiplayer session

Loading: Fixed issues getting stuck on the initial game loading screen for eternity. NOTE: It may still take a while to load (we’re working on it!) but it should progress.

Lost item drops: Fixed issues with items dropping through temple floors and boulders.

HUGE thanks to everyone who’s been sending us information on these issues! It really helps us get fixes out to everyone quickly.

We’re currently investigating reports of performance slowly dropping when playing for extended periods of time. If you’re experiencing this issue, please send us your log! This info really helps us out. Here’s how:

1. Exit CHKN and go to this directory on your computer. (Replace YOURUSERNAME with your computer username.)
   
2. C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\LocalLow\Katapult\CHKN\
   
3. Find output_log.txt
   
4. Send us the log on Discord or to heychkn@katapultstudio.com

We hope you’ll join us for the multiplayer event! CHKN is really fun with friends.

- Team CHKN

https://store.steampowered.com/app/420930/CHKN/

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 you’re 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 we’d love to know what you’d 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.

You asked for better building so we’ve revamped the Creature Builder! The improvements make it easier to use and design the creature you want to build. We hope you agree. Try it out and let us know. You can drag & drop or click to place blocks, sort blocks by animal type, move whole chains of blocks, undo/redo block placement, and see all the stat and ability information at a glance.



Every block matters! All Life Blocks add to your creatures’ stats. What’s important is how you combine and place Life Blocks when designing creatures in order to grant abilities and traits to your companions.

Abilities are special skills you can assign to creatures (like a stun ability to slow down quick opponents or a healing ability for team fights). To unlock an ability, you’ll first need to defeat or tame a wild creature and collect its “ability recipe” (a scroll will drop). The recipe is then added to your Journal so you can see what combinations of Life Blocks are needed to grant that ability to your creature. There are a limited number of ability slots available for each creature, though, so you’ll have to choose wisely! Here are just a few of the 28 abilities currently in the game:

• 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)

Traits, on the other hand, are attributes and personality inherent to creatures. Some are passive like vision, diet type, and aggressiveness, but there are also more advanced traits with helpful benefits. A creature with the right traits could provide dung fertilizer for farming. Or add the Glide trait so your creature can cross larger gaps in the world.


Wings are pretty darn useful.

Ten animal types have a whole new look: Chicken, Cat, Crab, Dog, Snake, Pig, Spider, Elephant, Cow, and the poachers’ Mech Dino. Each animal type now has more Life Block size variety too, with an average of 10-12 Life Blocks per animal, so there are more ways to design and be creative. (We started with your most-used animal types and the others will be getting their upgrades soon. Tell us which ones you want to see next in our creature thread on the forums!)



The arena is a brand new mode where you can experiment and test your creature designs in battle. Try 1v1 in an Exhibition Match, pit groups against each other in Team Elimination, or fight your way to victory through increasingly difficult challengers in the Tournament mode.




The arena crowd will cheer you on… or boo you if they feel like it. They’re very fickle.

Discover the new improved world of CHKN where you must survive on an island populated by mysterious creatures. With this update, we’ve added progression for players. Power up your Lifeshaper and experiment with blocks to make better creatures and take on tougher challenges.


Oh, sorry. Is this your temple? I’ll just... *flees*

A new intro experience with a few starter quests teaches the ins and outs of surviving the wilds. Progression has been updated, new wild creatures spawn throughout the world, improved the UI (including new discovery notifications), and lots more to make survival more challenging and rewarding. Jump in and see if you can become a master survivalist!


Crafting at a creature-powered workbench.

Crafting is now easier and clearer. The new interface and organization is a major improvement. We’ve also added new recipes and items that help you harness the power of the creatures you discover. You’re gonna want to start collecting creature parts for some of these tools...


Not sure this chicken should be excited about something called the Chicken Claw Rake.

You’ll need the new updated Journal to survive and master the wilds of CHKN. Use the journal to make your own goals, whether it's to build a homestead, fight the poachers, hunt for the elusive RepigDog, or just collect and discover all the creatures. The journal has all the information you’ll need: Life Block stats and abilities, item recipes, where to find items and resources, and a list of creatures to discover.


Get all the info you need on a creature you’ve found in the world, or check out items you’ve discovered using the categories on the left.

The all new island has 2 km2 of wilderness to explore, complete with new art for the Tropical Biome. Trees, bushes, rocks, resources, and temples have all been revamped and are looking quite spiffy if we do say so ourselves.



Feel more like an adventurer with the updated player avatar. And check out the new look for our favorite arch nemesis, the Poachers.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUAev3SQxSI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbSLmQU-gtQ
Did we mention armors yet? Yeah, there are new armors you can craft based on creature parts. Each provides a different armor rating and usefulness, plus they make you look rad.


Cow, Chicken, and Cat armors. (Plus Crab, too!) We want these as action figures on our office shelves.



FPS & World-Streaming Stutter:
We’ve optimized almost all the systems and increased FPS on recommended spec machines as well as reduced duration and intensity of world-streaming stutter. If auto-detect doesn’t pop up to determine your optimal settings (it only runs after a fresh install), you can adjust them manually in the Options menu. Check out this post with suggestions for which options to change to help find the best performance for you.

However, note that there are still some hitches in framerate because world-streaming is not yet fully optimized. We will remove all world-streaming stutter for recommended spec computers in our next update.

Workshop Creatures
Your saved Workshop creatures will not be able to be imported. You won’t see those creatures or be able to spawn them in game. We’re starting with a clean slate in the Workshop with this update. But, all old saved creatures are still there in the Workshop if you want to play in the Legacy branch (see below).

Legacy Branch
The old version of the game (v0.4.5) is now on a separate branch for you to play.

• 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.
• You’ll 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, it’s no longer supported.

• If you have a lower-end computer, you might not see any grass. We’ve 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. We’re 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.

There have been a lot more changes to the game during Pre-Release development so the patch notes are too long to list here. If you want to check out all the patch notes from the Pre-Release updates, visit the News page and scroll back through the entries.



There’s more to come! Here’s our roadmap for the rest of the year.

Coming soon:

1. Improved world-streaming / reduced stuttering
   
2. Arms! Punches, kicks, cat-scratch for creatures (Legs will be able to act like arms!)
   
3. Dog armor
   
4. Bug fixing (of course)
   
5. You tell us! (Post on the forums or Discord and let us know what you’d like to see.) And check out our Roadmap...

We really want to know what you’d 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?!) We’re working as fast as we can to make CHKN everything we know it can be and we couldn’t do it without you.

We’re really excited about this release and we’ve been having so much fun in our Multiplayer Adventure tests so let’s 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!



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 haven’t forgotten you, winners! Since not all the revamped blocks are in yet, it’ll be a bit before we can add your amazing creatures to the world but don’t worry. We’ll 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! We’ve already started getting ready for our CHKN Team feast...


Step 1: Finding the right turkey… or is it TRKY?

Before we’re full of way too much food, we’ve 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 won’t 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 you’re not familiar with Pre-Release, it’s the unstable developer branch we use for testing new stuff. More info here.

If you’re 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
We’ll 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!

• 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.)

• Chicken Armor added!
  
• New Items: crab axe, pig slingshot, spider bow
  
• Logs from felled trees now appear as a single log bundle so they’re 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

• 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

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

• 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

• 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

• 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 client’s 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 shouldn’t 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

• We’re aware of decreased performance on computers with integrated graphics cards (which are common on some laptops and lower-end computers) and Macs. We’re working on fixes for this now.
  
• World streaming issues can cause an incremental drop in framerate regardless of your computer’s specs. We have a fix ready to implement in December.
  
• The radial UI for Observing is glitchy and doesn’t always register what you’re 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.
  
• We’ve been unable to replicate a bug where the game gets stuck loading while syncing creatures so we believe it’s been fixed through other changes. But if you’re still experiencing this bug, please let us know!

• 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!)
  
• Check out our Trello board development roadmap to see what’s coming

Thanks for helping us test all the new updates! Keep those bug reports coming and let us know what you think of the new features.

- Team CHKN

https://store.steampowered.com/app/420930/CHKN/

There’s 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 you’re not familiar with Pre-Release, it’s the unstable developer branch we use for testing new stuff. More info here.

New Features/Improvements:

• 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. (That’s 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 creature’s detail screen in the creature collection for a chance for it to spawn in the world.

Explore the island to discover all the strange new creatures.

• 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 don’t 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 Lifeshaper’s 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

Grand and mysterious but also kinda cozy, no?

• 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 they’re added automatically
  
• Added an edit icon to all editable text fields throughout the UI to make it more obvious that you can edit them

Bug Fixes:

• 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

Known Issues:

• 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. 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)
    
  • 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

• If you want to see what’s new on Pre-Release, here are the instructions
  
• Please post your bugs and feedback on our forums
  
• You can also join us on our CHKN discord to post bugs, feedback, or questions (or just hang out!)

Thanks for helping us test all the new updates! Keep those bug reports coming and let us know what you think of the new features.

- Team CHKN

https://store.steampowered.com/app/420930/CHKN/

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.

New Features/Improvements:

• 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.)

Get all the info you need on a creature you’ve found in the world, or check out any other item you’ve discovered using the categories on the left.

• 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!

Handy Chicken Rake info in the Journal. (Handy. Get it?)

• 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

Bug Fixes:

• 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

Known Issues:

• 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

• If you want to see what’s new on Pre-Release, here are the instructions
  
• Please post your bugs and feedback on our forums
  
• You can also join us on our CHKN discord to post bugs, feedback, or questions (or just hang out!)

Thanks a bunch for helping us test! We hope you like the Journal and Adventure changes. We’ll have another Pre-Release update for you next week.

- Team CHKN

https://store.steampowered.com/app/420930/CHKN/

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.


New Features/Improvements

• The player avatar has a new look! Let us know what you think!
  
  • We wanted the player character to fit in with the direction of our updated art style and proportions. The old avatar stood out as cartoonish and a bit childish so we felt it was important to update it to match the fidelity and realism of the new environment and creatures. We also wanted to make sure it felt like a proper adventurer as you and your creatures explore the world of CHKN.

Old vs New. Off to adventure!

• So, we aged it up and raised the camera higher off the ground, reworked the proportions to fit within the game and look better next to the new creatures and environments, made it gender neutral so you can tell your own story, increased the detail while still keeping it optimized, and gave it proper newbie adventuring garb.

Come, Dochickat! We have trees to chop and death to thwart!

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

https://youtu.be/nUAev3SQxSI

• NOTE: Using old armor sets will turn your character back into the old avatar for now. We’re working on new armor sets soon.
  
• The baddies of CHKN will need an update as well, so expect a revamped Poacher soon.

How It’s Made: Avatar Edition. Much digital sewing is required to get the new adventuring gear just right.

• Arena battles now have an audience!
  
  • We’ve added creature/avatar spectators and crowd sounds to cheer your creatures on.
    
  • Arena ring art has been polished up and new team member support banners added.

Pay no attention to crazy zombie chicken spectators. They’re just here to enjoy the show.

• Improved progress saves:
  
  • Take your Adventure Mode progress with you into Multiplayer games, so you don’t have to start over with new creatures and inventory.
    
  • Whatever items/creatures you have when you exit that Multiplayer game comes back with you to your Adventure.
• New Creature Builder improvements based on community feedback:
  
  • Light tutorial added to help first-time builders

Prompts at the top and highlighted guides help you build your first creature: an adorable baby chicken.

• “Creature Front” arrow graphic changed to be less intrusive when building
  
• See a preview of stat changes while placing additional Life Blocks on a creature

Green shows stat increases. Red shows decreases. Placement also matters! Try different positions to see how the creature’s stats are affected.

• Life Blocks:
  
  • New half-sized chicken blocks added for more variety and creative opportunities in your creature designs
    
  • Life Block naming made consistent (which also makes ordering of the Life Blocks in the Creature Builder more consistent and easier to find)
    
  • Missing Life Block icons added
• Stats are better balanced for more challenging survival:
  
  • Creature stat formulas changed to have diminishing returns
    
  • Life Block stats, item stats, and ability values have been tuned for balance
    
  • Creature defense now shows average defense amongst damage types (rather than total) to give you a better overall comparison
• Improved UI:
  
  • You can now access inventory and other tabs while using the Creature Builder
    
  • You can now add/edit descriptions for your Bonded creatures on the Party screen
    
  • New achievements are in progress (You’ll see some achievement tracking notices pop up in the UI. We’ll hook these up to Steam once we’re tracking)
• Tech:
  
  • Upgraded to latest version of Unity engine (for bug fixes, new development features, and better performance)

Bug Fixes

• Multiplayer fixes:
  
  • Active scene synced on multiplayer games
    
  • World data syncing issues solved on first connect
    
  • Static objects display correctly in multiplayer
    
  • Trees now animate when being struck in multiplayer games
    
  • Trees now fall over for clients when broken in multiplayer games
• Creature thumbnail image generation fixed
  
• Infinite loop caused by creature flinch animations fixed
  
• Bad polygons fixed for the snake mouth
  
• Creature builder root assignment bug fixes
  
• Creature leg offsetting corrected

• If you want to see what’s new on Pre-Release, here are the instructions
  
• Please post your bugs and feedback on our forums
  
• You can also join us on our CHKN discord to post bugs, feedback, or questions (or just hang out!)

Thanks for all your testing help, everyone! We hope you like these latest updates. Our next Pre-Release update is coming in about 2 weeks and will be all about Adventure Mode survival.

- Team CHKN

https://store.steampowered.com/app/420930/CHKN/

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.


New Features:

• 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)\Steam\steamapps\common\CHKN\ on Windows.)

Improvements:

• 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

New fullscreen character/inventory tab.

• 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

New fullscreen, animated Arena creature selection! Some creatures are angrier than others.

Bug Fixes:

• 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.

• 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!)

Thank you for helping us test these updates! We hope you like them.

- Team CHKN

https://store.steampowered.com/app/420930/CHKN/