Comments on: Xou Dou Qi

By: James Mackey

James Mackey — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 20:50:43 +0000

Thanks to whiterabbit for his reply, however my internet connection was working fine (could ping sites). No problems with firewall (maintained by server), T1 connection (no modem, no router), had just cleaned all cookies/temp stuff which I do very frequently, so no obvious solution. Its academic at this point since it has expired, but this has happened more than once at seemingly random cases, and there is never enough time to solve whatever problems arise (I only have time occasionally to check GOTD site for interesting programs). Would be nice if there were someone to communicate the problem to, but then they would probably have to start charging for programs.
James Mackey

By: Terry

Terry — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 15:00:54 +0000

Nice game, installed fine under XP SP2. It is a bit tough to distinuish between the animals on screen, but clicking on them tells you which animal you have selected – along with who beats whom. My 5 year old looked at it and said it looks like chess. He understood the basics after a couple of games and has “insisted” on helping me play.

I want to thank GAOTD for the last couple of games. I had put in my comments last time about looking for multi-player games that the whole family could play.

By: Whiterabbit-uk

Whiterabbit-uk — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 13:18:58 +0000

Hi chessy,

You have to instal any giveaway within a specific time frame. If you hadn’t installed it before the change over to the next giveaway the activation module is no longer active, so you get the message you received. Unfortunately there’s no way of activating the game now.

By: chessy

chessy — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 12:45:03 +0000

i downloaded the file but later on when i go to install it says need to chek with gaotd site for license and says offer is over. Anyone pls tell me how to now activate it?

By: Whiterabbit-uk

Whiterabbit-uk — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 11:13:48 +0000

Thanks Transcendance

By: transcendance

transcendance — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 09:41:21 +0000

the pronunciation should be 斗 “doe” (fighting), 兽 “show” (beast), 棋 “chee” (cheese without the “sssss”)(means chess). So literally it means “fighting beast chess”, simply known as animal chess. They made a mistake when translating into “Xou Dou Qi”, it should be “Dou Xou Qi”.

By: William

William — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 02:53:41 +0000

Last time, there was an error message which I couldn’t get addressed – no access to forums. Now, of course, I’m away from home on dialup, hoping it will come in without error.

By: watcher13

watcher13 — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 02:09:12 +0000

I’m running the game just fine on Vista Home Premium, which has DirectX 10, so I doubt folks will need to load Direct X 9. Peoples problems are likely something else.
Appears to be a true standalone, which is a big selling point for me, since there’s little likelihood that a true standalone can damage your computer. Graphics are attractive. 3D pieces are nice, though, if you don’t look close, the lion kinda looks like a warthog. The bottom line is, though, you need another player. As others have said, the AI is – to put it simply – STUPID. Sorry, this is a nice game and I salute the developer and GOTD for offering it. With another player, this could be a real treat. So it’s a keeper. But, I’m a terrible game player with a poor geometric sense and I was able to beat the AI always playing white on any difficulty setting. That’s after playing the tutorial on easy. It’s an informative tutorial. The AI is tougher on black, though even on the difficult setting I was able to spot almost immediately the fundamental mistake it was making and beat it most of the time. It seems to often move pieces at random.
As to the Stratego discussion, the good help file has a short, general discussion of classic Chinese games. It says that Stratego was based on another, more complex game that also spawned this one. You can see the similarities: two water hazards on the sides, the trap spots are a little like mines, the elephant is the Marshall, the rat is the spy, for example.
Good stuff; glad I came today. Hope the developer will consider toughening up the AI.

By: Whiterabbit aka Stephen

Whiterabbit aka Stephen — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 02:01:47 +0000

Hi James comment #31,

There could be a couple of reasons why you’re getting the message, but it implies that there isn’t a connection between your computer and the internet. It may be that your firewall needs to be set up to accept connections between your computer and the giveaway servers. Initially try turning off your firewall (only to test to see if that is the problem, then turn it back on immediately). If you still can’t get a connection try the following:

Turn off your modem and/or router, leave them off for a minute or so then reboot the system.

Clean out your internet cache – right click on your internet icon and choose internet properties. From the window that opens you can clear the internets cache and get rid of cookies etc.

I hope this helps.

Regards

Whiterabbit

By: Julio

Julio — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 01:45:54 +0000

In Brazil, there was a comercial game named Blitz. It’s the same game. The difference is that the animals were changed by weapons.