🐔 Chicken Invaders 1 Remastered #12

Wrapping up (for real this time)

Some final thoughts which I wanted to make part of the official series (instead of being buried in comments):

  • Introduction: Following a poll, the Space Burger in the introduction has been replaced with a failthful re-rendering of the original 1999 model.

  • Saving progress: I don’t think saving is appropriate for this kind of game. It’s a repeating game where you’re just meant to collect points, not to go through a plot or reach any kind of end goal. It would also introduce a “save scumming” problem. Although this can be mitigated (as subsequent episodes do), I felt it would be too much effort for something that was a poor fit to begin with.

  • 2002 mode: Specify the -2002mode command-line parameter to enable this mode. Because why not. As a refresher, this mode simulates an (approximately) authentic 2002 experience: graphics are reduced in color and resolution, there is no translucency, and certain special effects are disabled. So it’s effectively un-remastering (‘demastering’?) the game.

  • Mouse pointer bug: I noticed the mouse cursor jittering as resources are being loaded, which I fixed (and forward-ported the same fix to CIU, which is also affected).

  • RNG incompatibility: Certain inconsistent behaviour with respect to the original (see 🐔 Chicken Invaders 1 Remastered #11 - #14 by EmeraldBirb ) was traced back to an RNG issue. Borland’s RNG will always return positive numbers when passed negative ranges. Some more digging revealed that the % operator discards signs in Borland, but preserves them in Microsoft’s compiler. This is odd. I was under the impression that the behaviour of % was codified in the C standard. Maybe the BCB compiler is too old, or non-compliant.

  • Use keyboard to enter name: Selecting letters individually is cleanly a hold-over from a bygone era. I briefly looked into using the keyboard to speed up name entry, however it has two problems: (i) There could be two players trying to enter their name simultaneously, in which case use of the keyboard is ambiguous and (ii) using the keyboard it’s possible to enter more characters (or emoji!) than the original a-z 0-9, and it’s not clear whether this should be allowed. Altogether, changing this was more trouble that it was worth, so I left it alone.

  • [v.2.1+] In-mission options: The options menu can now be invoked from the pause screen.

  • [v.2.1+] Mouse predictor: Added option to control shape of “mouse predictor” in the game:
    image (*)

  • [v.2.1+] Entering high score name using keyboard: This would be a nice feature, but it wouldn’t work when both players are trying to enter their names, and it also creates questions whether characters apart from a-z should be accepted. Still, I implemented a small quality-of-life change that hides the blinking cursor if you’ve reached the maximum number of characters in your name.

  • [v.2.1+] Missile shake bug: There is a bug in the original game, where the exhausts and spawn shield will ignore screen shakes (e.g. during missile explosions), causing them to be detached from the spaceship. This has been fixed in the remaster.
    image

  • [v.2.1+] Easter Egg: Fireworks are displayed on the anniversary of CI1’s first release (24 July 1999).

* And yes, the last one is translucent, so it technically breaks that rule.

Installer

I’ve put the remastered version in a proper installer. The installer will install both the original and the remaster (I thought it would be make for a nice side-by-side comparison, since the original hardly kind of works still).

Download the installer from here: :arrow_down: Chicken Invaders 1 | InterAction studios


Start at the beginning

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back to the future

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I am ahead of you by almost 3 years and you said that it’s “known” :face_with_raised_eyebrow:.

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originalCI1icon
:slightly_smiling_face:Just like when we’re playing this as we’re all young

I’m not sure if it’s my impression, but when I put the max fps to 120 like the refresh rate of my monitor the flashing when you die and have to insert your name seems faster and it’s kind of painful for the eyes (for me at least). I tried limiting the framerate to 30 and it seemed go back to the normal speed. Can anyone confirm this?

Another thing, is it supposed to not have the “Remastered” label in the control panel?

Screenshot (664)

image

Wonderful! I just have one more suggestion before adding this to the website…

an option to enable/disable this crosshair :slight_smile:

Any plans on putting this on steam when you’re done?


I got this error while opening the original CI1, the remastered version works fine.

This doesn’t sound like something I would leave unfixed. I probably misunderstood what your bug was. Here you go :medal: Bug.

What about if you leave it at 100? What happens then?

Nah.

Disabling entirely is a huge problem, because you can’t see where you’ll stop. But I’ve added an option to customize it (see original topic above)

Maybe your graphics card doesn’t support 16-bit color? Did the non-remastered game ever work for you?

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I’ve added some more changes to the original topic, because of course I have.

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Ok, the connection with the framerate was just my imagination, but it’s definitely faster than in the original game.

I found a difference in the original game, this is what happens to the Interaction Logo in the version included with the remaster:

Spoiler

immagine

While this is how it’s supposed to be shown (screenshot taken from the website version):

Spoiler

immagine

Both versions have been installed from scratch.

after all the extra life will be awarded or not?..
and since is a remasterel version with the cheats it will be nice that the poweup cheat to be like CI2 make the gifts appear :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

can we perhaps have this for ciu :DDDD
(translucent spacecraft predictor can use the flagship for its shape)

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You need to use dgVoodoo2 to run the original CI1 (for newer Windows OS such as Windows 10) properly.
Download link: http://dege.freeweb.hu/dgVoodoo2/dgVoodoo2/

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If you take a closer look at ship exhaust, you’ll notice that it’s out of sync with the ship and absolute shake

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Not enough space for my entire username. Sad me.

Speaking of that, it would be time-saving if IA made it so that I could use my keyboard to type my username instead of using my mouse to click the letters.

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Huh, good catch. This is also present in the original. Fixed.

I tried increasing the limit, but 10 is the maximum without fear of overflowing (at the entry screen).

This would not work when two players are trying to enter their name at the same time.

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It would be neat if 2002 mode changed the music (just like in CIU during 2002 party event) at the month the original CI1 was released

v2.1 has been released, which is the first official release. The installer file has been moved to Chicken Invaders 1 | InterAction studios

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