The latest version is now available to download! Finally you can cast illusions and disbelieve.. 
The AI may still need some tweaking as to how often it casts illusions and disbelieve, but it seems to work alright at the moment.
This new demo also fixes a bug with creatures ‘raised from the dead’ sometimes not being able to move in the following movement phase. It also adds a World Balance text to show how chaotic or lawful the world is (although there is not really anywhere ideal to display it). The game also now tries to give cpu time back to the OS which makes it friendlier with other programs running as well as when running on laptops..
Oh, and I fixed a few extra spaces in some of the wizard names and tweaked a few things.
I’m going to work on the sound system next.
July 16, 2007 at 1:27 pm
Great job with each release! I just want to report one thing, however. I’m still getting the bug where flying creatures can’t move sometimes.
July 16, 2007 at 1:31 pm
To be more specific, I cast a harpy (but it’s happened with many different flying creatures), and the very same turn, in the move/attack phase, when I put the mouse over it, there are grey squares surrounding it and when you click on it, you can’t move it anywhere.
Please look at this before adding sound, as it really breaks flying creatures in the game. Thanks!
July 16, 2007 at 5:37 pm
Damn.. I haven’t seen this in testing, and if I had I’d try to fix it first.
Does it happen often for you? Can you take a screenshot when it happens and post the contents of the logfile as well as a decription of what you did here in a comment? That would help a lot..
In the meantime, I’ll see if I can track it down..
July 16, 2007 at 6:00 pm
It happens every game for me. Here’s the logfile.
Chaos Groove
—————————————————-
Version : 0.1, Started : 10.04.07
Author : Richard Phipps
—————————————————-
Opening Screen…
Loading in display data from display.ini file
Display information found :
Width : 800, Height : 600, DirectX : 0, Windowed : 1
Attempting to open a screen with these settings.. Successful.
Started timer.
Random Seed: 1184608051
Loading Sprites : Done.
Done.
Loading Truetype Fonts..
Setting up board..
Reading in all available Spell ID’s..
Found 62 spells.
Setting up network code..
Setup completed!
Starting Ingame Loop
Setting up board..
Exiting Game..
Destroying 43 gfx..
Freeing config files..
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v258/TigerWiccan/chaos_screens/?action=view¤t=screenshot1.jpg
July 16, 2007 at 6:04 pm
Oh, and all I did that game was summon the eagle on the forst turn, and that was taken right at the beginning of the move/attack phase right after I clicked on the eagle. The same squares showed up around it before I clicked, as well.
July 16, 2007 at 6:18 pm
Mike,
Using the same random seed I was able to replicate the same game you started. And here’s what I see:
chaosgroove23.png
Mike:
Can you please open and copy out this new test exe into your chaos groove demo folder (replacing the old one) and run this version? It’s fixed to run the same game as before with some debugging info at the bottom. Cast an Eagle, move over it and tell me if it says “Engaged”, or “Not Engaged” at the bottom of the screen.
Test zip
Thanks!
July 16, 2007 at 7:06 pm
It says “engaged” if I have the maneuver check turned on, and “not engaged” (and I can move it) if I have it off.
July 16, 2007 at 7:07 pm
Aha! That’s excellent.. Now I can test and fix.
July 16, 2007 at 7:18 pm
Ok. Can you redownload that test version and try again. It now works for me (There was a bug in the engaged code, and hopefully I’ve fixed it but haven’t tested to see if it breaks somewhere else!)
July 16, 2007 at 7:35 pm
Worked for me too!
July 16, 2007 at 7:40 pm
Good.
I’ve uploaded a fixed version of the Chaos Groove Demo 6 (Same link as before)..
July 16, 2007 at 7:47 pm
Thank you very much!!
July 17, 2007 at 8:56 pm
Hello! Just popping by to whisper some sweet, gentle words of enouragement – love the new demo, the game is really starting to come together!
One wee niggle though (isn’t there always!) can we have the facility to provide our own wacky names for the wizards? There’s nothing better than setting up a grudge-match against all your own personal enemies!
July 17, 2007 at 9:53 pm
I was thinking the same thing!
I remember doing that in one of the old Chaos versions – the ZX Spectrum one, I think, though I’m not absolutely certain. I was a kid, and I thought that picking a good, wizardy name – like Merlin or Gandalf – would mean I got better spells…
July 17, 2007 at 10:12 pm
I will be implementing the name changing option in the future.. of course!
However, you can edit the names now in a roundabout way. First set the ‘RANDOMISE EACH PLAY’ option to NO, then exit. Now with a text editor open up the wizard_options.ini file in the text_files directory. Here you will see the wizard names next to the OPTION = xxx line under the headings for WIZARDS_1 to WIZARDS_8. You can edit these names directly here, save and then reload the game.
July 18, 2007 at 12:39 am
One more bug…
I’ve just been playing, and the game got locked up – not the graphics, which kept moving, but the sequence. I had my turn, the wizard had his, and after he finished the game stopped progressing. Even the escape key wouldn’t respond for me.
I’m running the game in windowed 800*600.
The last creature to move was a Gryphon who he’d raised from the dead, and at the end of his move he was adjacent to my own giant and the wizard who controlled him.
July 18, 2007 at 12:43 am
One other thing – every now and then, while the game was frozen, the message “Engaged to enemy!” would flash up at the bottom.
July 18, 2007 at 8:07 am
I had game lock up as well. I took a screenshot – will upload at some point.
July 18, 2007 at 5:17 pm
Arse! It sounds like the changes to the engaged code caused a problem with the AI. I’ve had things like this before, it’s suprising how interconnected the code becomes.
I’ll look at this as soon as I have some free time!
July 18, 2007 at 9:25 pm
See my new blog entry.
July 26, 2007 at 8:41 pm
I have experienced a problem where my commander was unable to move after teleporting….
July 26, 2007 at 8:43 pm
That’s part of the spell, as it was in the Atari ST version.