Yes, even if it is dark, it's still magenta and makes it look like a sprite bitmap resource. How about a wooden board wall, like the inside of a barn or something. Then for each level, if it is possible, make a shadow of the pipes, blurr it and blend it with the wall, say 50 pixels to the right and 20 down compared to the original. This would add the nice 3D feeling in the outlook, even if the gameplay is 2D.

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One picture tells more than a thousand nerds:

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The left and upper edge of the shadow doesn't look good, but you could place a darker wall and a ceiling there, to improve the room feeling.

I loved it. Fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. Is there a 'fast-forward' button? That's one thing I missed.

Apologies for the delay in my response, but I've recently had to re-install Windows.

While I was originally thinking of using outdoor backdrops (pictures of farms and the surrounding scenery/sky/etc.), I like how the images have turned out with the wooden and circuit-board backdrops, and am considering changing my mind on this. If anyone has any other ideas for backdrops, then please post them here or mail me. I personally think that the shadow could be a darkened version of the background and not black, as otherwise, the contrast between the level and the background would be too great.

The only thing I'm worried about is that because I am using an 8-bit paletted mode, the effect might not turn out too well in 8-bits. Fortunately, I have about 32 spare entries in my palette, that could be changed according to which backdrop is being used. As well as the backdrop, I would have to account for the shadow when allocating my palette, but at least I can use the fixed entries as well as the 32 free entries.

It would be nice to have a variety of different backdrops. Various types of wood for the different types of barn, a metalic looking 'barn' for an 'outer-space farm' and of course, the circuit-board.

As Nils suggested, the shadow should be extended to the left and top by adding an extra pipe before the taps. I prefer this to the darker wall/ceiling.

One thing I'm wondering about is what should happen when the screen is scrolled? Should the background scroll, remain fixed, or scroll at a different rate than the level? Unless the background scrolls at the same speed as the foreground, I would have to re-draw the translucent shadow every time scrolling occurs. However, a pre-drawn background with shadow can take up huge ammounts of RAM for the larger levels, but I could of course use dirty rectangles if the background scrolled at the same speed as the level. Also, blurring the tiles seems like an expensive operation in terms of speed, but I could have a pre-drawn set of blurred tiles. Of course, I could make a configuration setting that lets the player chose how the backgroud should scroll with the foreground.

It's unlikely I'll ever implement accellerator tiles, although there's a small chance I might implement a set of 'turbo-pipes' where anything that goes through moves at twice (or more) the regular speed.

An alternative is to use spacewarps for long boring stretches of track. However with spacewarp tiles, it will be harder to see which pipes lead where, although they could be useful for supplying a 'supply voltage' to those hard to reach areas. One thing I might end up doing is to increase the spacewarp-limit from 4 to an unlimited amount. To do this, I would have to add to each spacewarp tile the ability for it to remember a user-specified set of tile-coordinates. I could also use this to create non-reflective spacewarps (ie. instead of all A->B spacewarps doing B->A when entered from the other end, they could do B->C etc.), and even to implement things such as interchange-controlled interchanges that change state according to the state of another object in the level (such as another interchange). Internally, spacewarps work this way already - when the game starts, each spacearp is scanned for it's twin (determined by tile-type - hence the limit of four), and they remember the co-ordinates of their twin. However, I would have to implement a means of selecting an associated tile in the level-editor (and modify the PMG file-format to remember associated tiles), and think of what to do if a block of suqares containing several linked-to tiles and linked-from tiles is cut, pasted and pasted again.

I might implement some of the easier to implement suggestions (such as the counter), but at the moment, I'm a bit concerned about feature-bloat. I need to dicipline myself to get what I have polished up and out of the way, rather than adding a never ending cascade of features - otherwise, it will never get finished. This has already happened to the level-editor. However, if you do have any ideas for the game or level-editor, please post them here. It might just be easy enough to implement quickly - you never know.

However, I plan on making an update to the PMG file so I can get ythe user to chose and select different backgrounds and music on a per-level basis, so I might just add a few more block-types.

Just out of interest, have you tried to see if you can get the DOS build to work in DosEmu/DosBox/Bochs/etc?

This is mentioned in both the manual, the FAQ and is mentioned three times in the hints to the easy-level. Looks like I'll have to implement an in-game GUI afterall.

Wow. I look forward to playing it.

If you need some inspiration for some levels based on digital logic, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Digital_circuits

This should be easy to implement, but I may have to modify the storyline to allow for chickens that are already in the level. At the moment, it is however possible to have more than one chicken-tap in the level.

For that, I would have to make some additions to the gameplay dynamics - especially in the 'N# chickens within a certain area' part.

This is actually easy to implement and I might just do it. I would just create a second-type of NOCI-tile (it looks like the regular NOCI but the pipe underneath is a different colour). Incidentally, it is currently possible to get a similar effect by creating a flip-flop (see the first logic-level for an example), but the catch is that you need to supply it with a stream of objects to get it in a fixed state, whereas your NOCI idea can do that with a single object. One thing you could build with this new type of NOCI is a pulse-generator. You could connect one of the outputs of a splitter-circuit to one of these NOCIS to create one.

Please post them here - be they ideas for the game or the level editor. However, I should really do a feature-freeze and save new features for the sequel, but I'm addicted to adding more features.

AE.

Dennis, that looks amazing! If your new idea should look even better ... what can I say then?

Am clad you have done what you set out to do all the them years ago while we was working with you at Runecraft in Dewsbury.

We all thought you was crazy, We might have been right!

All the best John Wells, Andy Noble.

Nice to hear from you matey.

Dennis: Andrei had some thoughts of different kinds of music for the game. I haven't done all of them yet, probably I won't do all of them. But some of them would indeed go well with your title screen. So keep on the good work!

Andrei, may I kindly remind you that it is just a sketch? The final version will of course be colored and a lot more detailed and less sloppy and and and...
A sketch isn't meant to be at production quality, it's just meant to present ideas and to work out a goal and then that sketch is taken and turned into something good. But as long as it is a sketch, it's sloppy, contains loads of perspective errors, maybe wrong proportions and other evil things, just like this latest one here(I threw away the idea with the half open tube and instead sketched out the scene as you described it):
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Not in the sketch yet are the running away chickens and the duck bombers and the party, but I marked where they are going to be with arrows and text. The signpost in the middle is where the menu can go. There will be rolling hills in the back, maybe more fences, small forest patches, the sky will have some clouds which enclose the top middle portion of the screen in a circleish pattern. There will probably also be more tubes. I took tomorrow off of work, so I have a whole three day weekend to start cooking.

The overall aggressiveness in the picture might be because I'm listening to Iron Maiden and Edguy while I'm sketching.

Dennis: Nice pic. I luv it! The suggestions for improving it as well are also good. Here are some of my own suggestions.

• As you said, there should be more tubes. In order not to clutter up the picture, the complicated tube-junctions (complete with interchanges) could be in the distance, and only a few simple pipe-layouts near the screen-plane (such as the one you've already drawn). Also, one of the pipes could lead inside the barn.

• As well as the tubes, a console for controling the junction should be shown. This will contain some large levers (which are used to control the PCIs). The console can be drawn in the distance, so there is no need to draw it too detailed.

• A larger barn. Possily one that looks like this but with an open door.

• The bomber ducks should be swooping at a lower altitude.

Also, now that it looks like the Chickens logo is going to be letters on a wooden background, do you think I should ditch the distortion-effect and rainbow effect and just use your letters? If I do that, it will mean that you can use whatever palette you like on the titlescreen (even the in-game palette if you want). I could instead use the distortion effect and the rainbow effect for a "Group complete" screen to give the player a more interersting reward for completing a group.

Pedro: Nice one! Any help is appreciated. As well as background gfx and additional music, you could also use the game's built in level-editor to create your own levels. Just mail me your levels (or post them here) when you've finished them.

I prefer pipes, as it's easier to see the paths the chickens will take, and these can get pretty complicated. An interactive background at this stage would take too much re-coding, but what I could do is have a separate set of tiles for drawing background images. These could be 32x32 pixel (or 64x64 or even 128 x 128) tiles that can be arranged to produce images of barns and the farm outside. The graphics will be a 2D side-on view (a 3D perspective image cannot so easily be composed from tiles). The level-editor will have an option for drawing a background image from these tiles. As well as tiles for the background, I could also add foreground tiles so that things like support-poles could be drawn in front of the pipes. I could also use these foreground tiles to hide certain sections of pipe to truly give them that black-box feeling.

There could be several sets of tiles. Each tileset would have a different theme. They would be "English countryside farm" (a bit like Dennis's drawing), "American desert-ranch farm" (anabandoned farm in the desert, complete with a cattle-head skull), "Underwater farm" (seaweed and fish), "Space farm" (a farm on another planet), and possibly more. Currently, there are about 24 free entries in the palette (there may be more if the 1st 16 colours are recycled). The backgrounds may use colours from anywhere in the palette, but each tileset can set the 24 or so remaining colours (including the background) to whatever it wants.

It's actually possible to reverse the mouse-wheel direction. In the CHICKENS.INI file, the setting invertmousewheelspeedchangedir reverses the direction the mousewheel/arrows must be moved/pressed. Set this to 1 to reverse this. Also, holding down SHIFT as you move the mousewheel quadruples the rate of speed-change.

One of the things I need to do is to improve the path the sprites take on curved pipes. At the moment, the curve is automaticcally calculated, but I need to tweak it a bit more. Hopefully, they should all fit into the pipe.

Believe it or not, I actually have plans for a multiplayer Chickens. However, that's one of the features being left until after version 1.0 has come out, and to be honest, I don't think I'll have the time to implement. I've mentioned it in the design document (which is currently undergoing a major revision). Like you said, the ducks' eggs will come in four colours, and I'll be using extra species (such as geese, moorhens, ostritches, cuckoos, etc.) - each with their own shape of eggs (square eggs, triangular eggs, and even star-shaped eggs - ouch!). Each species will have their own starting-tap, and their own exit (they can also win by killing off all other players). The interchanges can only be controlled by a single player (the background (or foreground) of the interchange will contain an icon shaped like the egg of the species that owns the interchange). If I use shared interchanges, it will degenerate into who can click the fastest, so there won't be any shared interchanges. The same goes for the delay-egg blocks.

Cool! I'm especially in need of some background gfx. See above for my ideas on the background tilesets.

Additional music would also be welcome. Is your peferred format of composition MIDI or MOD? I'm thinking of having all the in-game tunes as MIDI, but the titlescreen / level-start and group-complete tunes as MODs (MODs have the advantage that I can use sampled sounds such as clucking chickens).

Attatched is a MOD file of how I immagined the titlescreen music to sound like. The melody will be replaced by clucking.

Good to have you on board. Look forward to your contributions.

AE.

Anyone read the Carl Barks story (Donald Duck)? Just great, as all Barks stories.

I skimmed through a lot of this thread but when is a Linux build coming? I tried the game in wine but the mouse wouldnt respond, although the title screen came up.

Also the zip should have a top level directory that the rest of the game is underneath.

I probably get the best laughs from the fact that hens are female but that hen in Dennis' picture is as macho as can be. That's a male hen!

Like the updated image - especially the dueling chicken and duck. I'm pretty sure the duck will end up looking more duck-like once it's colored in.

I'm just wondering how I'm going to fit seven buttons on the four wooden boards. Perhaps I could have two buttons per board, with the exception of the "Play" button which takes up an entire board.

Also, the only screens I have in mind that would use the boards attatched to the poles are the main menu and the level-group selection screen (the settings screen will bring up a dialog). I'm wondering how the board will transition form one menu to the other. Here are some ideas.

• The boards would detatch and fall to the bottom, to be replaced by another set of boards that rise to where the old boards were and attatch themselves.

• The entire pole would do the same as above, while the boards would remain attatched.

• The pole would rotate 180 degrees round the Y axis and show the other side of the board. This would be good if there were only 2 menu screens, but if I ever chose to do more than 2 menu screens, it would imply that the contents of the far side of the board get changed (although there's really nothing wrong with that).

• The pole would rotaste around the Z axis (or X azis) just enough for the boards to be completely buried, and then, a replacement board would appear from the ground being rotated round the Z axis (or X azis).

Personally, I prefer solutions that do not involve introducing 3D graphics code, as this would add size to the execuatbale.

Nethertheless, the board and pole are going to have to be a separate layer, and the chicken and duck at the bottom are going to be in another layer on top of the board-layer and background layer.

OK. Also, do you think the letters should be securely attatched, or should they be attatched by just one nail so they can move a bit relative to the board?

Keep at it. Who knows, you might even finish it before the rest of the game is finished.

The chickens in Chickes are sex-less. Any non-radioactive chicken can lay an egg if it goes past an empty nest. Any egg can hatch if left in an incubator long enough. I'd say the male-ness/macho-ness of the chicken and duck in Dennis's pic are just about perfect.

AE.

My thoughts to Andrei's ideas of the menu screen transitions:
Well the ideas are nice but that would also mean more artwork to do. I first want to finish the static titlescreen and after that I'll see if I can make separate layers from the boards, pole and the fighters. I think the falling down boards and reattaching of new ones would be requiring the least amount of additional artwork(the individual boards would be sprites, also the nails).
Letters would be painted on the boards, so they wouldn't be attached at all.

As for the seven buttons to fit onto the boards:
Maybe some other elements of the final screen could also serve as a link to additional screens, e.g. that control console that you suggested could lead to the construction set or the settings.

And yay, I kept at it, worked on it almost every evening during the week(no freetime for me:)). Progress:
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I'll redo the tube, because it turned to be completely out of perspective. I know this doesn't look like a lot of progress and maybe it isn't but it's taking a freaking huge amount of time to get proper handpixelled(placing one pixel at the time) lineart from that sketch. I dare not to even think about how long it will take to color, texture, shade, light and antialias this, but well Pixelart for the win. We'll see. With constant feedback and comments I think I can do it.

Faito! Thanks Chi, uhm Pedro .
A mailing list? Nah, what we need is an IRC channel where we can logon every evening after work to slack and to do idle chattering... uhm to discuss our progress.