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Kingdom Chess

 
November UpdateNov 11, 2022 - Community AnnouncementsAfter some testing, I noticed players were spending too much time managing their inventory. And I wanted to fix it with a simple idea - team based inventory. It was a lot more complicated than expected, but few more things have been improved. Features added last month: - Team based inventory allows you to move items without switching between your characters. - Inventory is now more flexible by allowing characters to have different inventory sizes. - Battle loot appears once you win an encounter. - Interaction with objects can be done through your team. - Increased range of interaction for pick up objects. - "Take Everything" button allows you to pick up everything from the ground with a single click. - Switching characters in inventory doesn't select them any more. - Inventory UI received few minor polishing touches. - A number of inventory related bugs have been fixed. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38846769/2e73b59465a19a38181b387a53596322b965ab5d.jpgOctober UpdateOct 6, 2022 - Community AnnouncementsFinally a new trailer has been created. It's better then previous one, but I'm not too happy about it. This month I'll be polishing experience based on recent feedback. Also I'll keep promoting the game by showing the game more often with smaller and more casual videos. Features added last month: - A lot of testing and bug fixing took place. 3 game breakers has been patched with some minor ones. - It's not a game feature, but Kingdom Chess appeared on Indie DB: Indie DB and YouTube {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38846769/ca75aaf7f8a62166537cc6b86fbf7e1d3bacbe47.jpgSeptember UpdateSep 14, 2022 - Community AnnouncementsA lot of effort has been dedicated to improved online features. Hopefully there will be some players available to play against. Now It's time to promote the demo. Features added last month: - Demo has been released with a new load up screen. - Beta keys have been banned. Unfortunately, it was required for the demo to be accessible. Also, all playtest users should switch to the demo otherwise they won't be able to connect with the demo players in online games. - Online connectivity has been redesigned. Instead of hosting or searching now both actions are taking place at the same time. - Friends lobby has been recreated. Only someone from friends list can join the game. It allows more flexibility, especially with time options and it won't affect their ranking. Friend invites are not available yet, so all the players are required to create a lobby. - Ping system stops the game when a player gets disconnected and determines the winner. - Player online ranking system. Just a basic one and not even showed in the game, but heavily used in testing online connections. - 5 achievements added to the campaign. - 5 leaderboards have been created: 3x puzzle and 2x campaign. Currently it can be accessed only through the steam community page. - Fog of war has been improved. Hopefully it won't cause any more glitches or crashes. - Hints have been used in the campaign to provide more information about mechanics not covered in the tutorial. - Another improvements and bug fixes for the quest system. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38846769/37e8774e33e06fc9254ea884da2a6254dbd67bc9.jpgAugust UpdateAug 13, 2022 - Community AnnouncementsUnexpectedly a holiday break has sneaked in and all the work suddenly came to pause. Unfortunately, not much has been added last month. It will be easier to include it in the next update, so let's get back to work. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38846769/50f5fadaba620cc138dc35a7ef54179110ec8f89.jpgJuly UpdateJul 13, 2022 - Community AnnouncementsMinimap being the biggest feature of the last month? It sound's like a joke... A lot of effort has gone into testing and fixing which are very important, but not exciting at all. Unfortunately, there is a lot more work to be done before pushing out the new trailer, so keep your fingers crossed for this month. Features added last month: - Quest system has been upgraded to work with the minimap. It might not work properly with a quests loaded from a saved game. Resetting the quest or starting a new game might be required. - Minimap has been added and tutorial has received minor improvements. - Mouse sensitivity now can be adjusted in the settings menu. - Low level fatal error, quest bug and free camera have been fixed. - Promotional materials have been updated. Screen shots retaken, information rewritten and initial roadmap laid out. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38846769/083c0623140d4a331c7eca5e9d0cb104bfee002d.jpgJune UpdateJun 4, 2022 - Community AnnouncementsFirst boss in Kingdom Chess! It's a small addition as there are plans for much more spectacular boss fights. A lot of polishing took place on both mechanical and visual levels. This month will be focused on promoting the game, so expect a new trailer to come out. Hopefully it will bring some newcomers along with valuable feedback. Features added last month: - Boss battle! Oh yes, the first boss has been added to the campaign as quest 4. New enemy type has been introduced - ghost. - Cinematic depth of field, automatic screen aspect ratio adjustment and benchmark settings recommendation. - Camera management improvements. Mostly under the hood staff but it was required for the depth of field to work properly. - Automatic interactions and improved checkpoints - another polishing touches to smooth out experience in single player campaign. - Inventory double click has been added. I just got tired of dragging everything around. - Material improvements. Metallic surfaces got their values set up. Also non-metallic materials have been touched with specular properties. - Minor improvements and fixes have been applied to tutorials and setting screens. - Outline (post-process effect) have been improved to work better with translucent materials. It also allows inclusion of volumetric light effects, but I wasn't satisfied with the results as it required to blow up the sun or make everything foggy. - Graphical assets have been updated on the steam store page. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38846769/e926920234118700b713793368ca58f8909593e1.jpgMay UpdateMay 7, 2022 - Community AnnouncementsSingle player campaign has been expanded with new features. It's the same content but the hopefully now it feels more purposeful. There is a lot to add, fix and improve so focus will stay with campaign for the next month. Features added last month: - Quest system has been redesigned. UI is the same and quests are accessible through new NPC type - quest giver. At this stage 3 quest are available: collect quest (for player to generate income), kill quest and rescue quest. It's just an initial state where players can have only 1 active simple quest, but it can be swapped, reset, completed and replayed. Complete quest system will take form of a journal, where player's decisions will affect the world around them. - Campaign now can be saved. It covers all the aspects currently available in the campaign. - Defensive behaviour has been added to enemies, so they don't follow you back to the village. Also first set of enemies has been added to the outside world. - Fog of war has been expanded to the outside world. Day / night cycle has been adapted to turn based gameplay and NPCs received simple daily routines. - Dead host bug has been fixed for 3 and 4 player online games. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38846769/e45704e53bd85f5ddeda89ca38fc87ba006b4835.jpgApril UpdateApr 11, 2022 - Community AnnouncementsOnline multiplayer has been improved. Only minor things and bug fixes, but it was needed. Not all the bugs could be replicated, please help by reporting it. This month new features should be added to the single player campaign. Features added last month: - Profile customisation has been restored and updated. Also environment has been included. - Hiding Menu button on client side has been fixed. And camera lock after rematch has also been fixed. - Tutorial is fixed. It requires an update, but not now. - Illegal Premoves and client side premoves are fixed. - Lobby details screen has been improved and character context information is fixed for the client side. - Lobby waiting points has been polished and now character information is displayed on client side. - Scenario details has been added to Battle / Host screen. Also promotion bugs has been fixed for online multiplayer. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38846769/975702fe59e9dc70bc73df7185ce214e70e617fa.jpgMarch UpdateMar 8, 2022 - Community AnnouncementsWork on characters has been finished and all the related systems should work properly. More characters will be created as more content gets added. However this month "battle" will get few touches. There is a list of bugs that has been neglected for a long time. Also it will be a great opportunity for some minor improvements. Features added last month: - 5 new characters have been added. These are simple villagers only, just to diverse characters in campaign. - Hair models and monuments have been restored. - Inventory items have been polished (icons, drop models, prices). - Inventory system received minor improvements (some icons relocated, inventory size increased, character view quality increased, "drag items into middle section to drop" added). - Few bugs has been fixed (related to new character system). {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38846769/d99b2b5e750d1a95a774c52a0035f1bd6aac1597.jpgFebruary UpdateFeb 12, 2022 - Community AnnouncementsFinally an update. After about 3 months of work, new character models are brought to Kingdom Chess. It couldn't be updated earlier because changes affected some core mechanics, so all old models needed to be replaced. This month some minor improvements should be made (hair models, inventory icons, item values, item drop models, monuments) along with creation of new models (bandits, villagers). Here is summary of the improvements: - More detail has been added. Base model has been rebuilt several times. Now it has about 3-4 times more triangles. Shoulders and hips are now properly connected with torso. All the body parts has been shaped look more like human but it's still very blocky as intended. - All the previous models have been replaced (pawn, rook, knight, bishop, queen king and jester). 3 new models have been made (cannon, phoenix and elephant). Thanks the feedback received before, now it should easier to distinguish different pieces on the board. - Skeleton adjustments have been made for the models to deform better. Also corrective bones have been added in few places and animations has been reloaded. - Models are now properly divided for customization purposes. Before I could only add extra models on top of existing ones which was very limiting. Now body parts can be replaced in 4 areas: chest, legs, head and hands. - Characters have been optimized in few areas. Materials have been put together into atlases to reduce draw calls. Separate body parts are merged into single models. Animations are optimised to reflect visibility and distance from camera. All that together allowed to increase performance by about 30 fps on my computer (standard setup with 32 characters). - All the weapons have been corrected, to match new character models. - It's now fully implemented into the game so everything works properly with all systems updated. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38846769/249f0287df5d23b08a4f335b8ba040a133d924f4.jpgNovember UpdateNov 13, 2021 - Community AnnouncementsPrepare to mate - I hope you can see where the inspiration for this new character came from. Just a quick update. Bugs have been fixed for single player campaign. There is still a lot of room for improvements, but It's time to dive into characters. Nothing new has been added to the game yet but it's time to improve, optimize and expand characters for the game. At this stage base model has been redesigned to look better and skinned for animations. Also body parts has been separated for customization purposes. Now it's time to update and optimize all the relevant character functions. Once all characters / gear is upgraded, new content will be added. It will be nice to populate current areas with diverse NPC's and enemies before moving to a new one. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38846769/762a77895d93ec989b0378b55974102742b3eec9.pngOctober UpdateOct 3, 2021 - Community AnnouncementsA lot of work has gone into the single player campaign. The dungeon should be finished this week. Also there is a lot of bug squishing and minor improvements to be done (in both single player and multiplayer), so that will be the focus for this month. Hopefully there will be a new trailer and a bit of promotion before developing new area for single player. Here is a summary of features added last month: - Dungeon update. Most of the rooms has been finished and filled up with enemies. Fog of war now covers the dungeon. It requires further visual improvements, but it functions correctly. Also the village has been filled up with merchants and pieces to recruit. - Recruitment. Your wealth is based on the equipment you have (on your king), so you won't be recruit everyone right away. Of course you still need enough gold to pay them, but that's a secondary condition. For now team size is capped at 6, but this system will be expanded later to balance out dual wielding and include new features (deployable pawns). - Interactive objects. Most of the objects existed already, but now it's all updated with sounds and new functionality that requires you to walk up prior to interaction (in campaign). Objects: doors, windows lights, chests, sarcophaguses, crypt, lever, portcullis gate, pick up items and loot drops. - Inventory UI improvements. Now you can drag and drop with left mouse button. Now you can find items in chests and trade with NPCs. Tooltip has been added to show moveset associated with each weapon and value of each item. - Enemy Leaders. Basically one of enemies is a King, but can have any moveset. Once you kill a leader, you kill everyone he controls, so it comes under "check". Leader tooltips have orange backgrounds, but that will be improved later with character tooltip upgrade. - 2 new weapons (broken sword and arrow). Very simple ones just to weaken the initial enemies. - Campaign movement improvements. New collision system has been developed to prevent characters from stepping into unavailable areas. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38846769/857123c8937138e2a18a9bbc42771b226614d5b7.pngSeptember UpdateSep 1, 2021 - Community AnnouncementsFinally a new update! Sorry for the lack of information on progress. There was a month break and then focus on development without investing any time in promotion. Features added over last 2 months: - Visual improvements. A lot of experiments took place to see how to make the game a bit more attractive visually. Texture variations and model improvements along with new assets has been included to add more detail to the world. - New map has been created. It's a bigger village with access to underground dungeon through the crypt (back of the church). The map isn't finished yet (it requires few touches), but you can explore it while in the main menu. It's important step in development of new single player campaign, which is now getting all the focus. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38846769/a0a08e4b46eab0a0ea4716aba353a5754a40cd53.pngJune UpdateJun 4, 2021 - Community AnnouncementsIt was quiet and productive month. Puzzles meant to be an easy addition, but it consumed much more time then expected. Features added last month: - Puzzles! Brand new section of the game located in "Battle". Over 1.5 million classic chess puzzles have been imported and 4 modes introduced. "Bolt", "Fever" and "Survival" encourage players compete against their own score. And "Explorer" allows to customize the experience by tweaking with "time" and "lives" options. Few finishing touches like difficulty, themes and custom puzzles will be added soon. - Campaign tutorial now covers all the core mechanics. Few finishing touches will be made just to improve experience. - Piece icons improvements. Edge is more visible and classic icons are available (Settings/User). Also you can hide characters by holding "Tab" on your keyboard. It's not really how the game should be played and "modern" icons are more visible under characters. These features are designed to share chess puzzles outside the game and now it's available to everyone. - New welcome screen as been added to improve communication. It's hard to miss it. - Promotion improvements. UI has been polished and now it appears before making the move. - Mismove & Miskill improvements. Few tweaks took place and notifications now will appear only in developer's mode. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38846769/d958bca974ba0b4372cf17e15976203b0e10c375.pngMay UpdateMay 11, 2021 - Community AnnouncementsThe game hasn't got a lot of new content, but it was very productive month. A lot of work has gone into promotion and over 800 players joined Kingdom Chess last month. Big welcome to all newcomers and bigger thanks to their friends for inviting them. Features added last month: - Playtest has been launched. It allows everyone to try Kingdom Chess for free without need to use any beta keys. That is very convenient for everyone, but it creates technical issue. Beta testers and playtesters can't connect with each other. Beta version will be no longer supported for everyone to join Playtest. - Discord server has been created - https://discord.gg/M7TYPRDWGK. It's something new, so please join us and help improving by providing some feedback and suggestions. - Markers has been added. Just hold down left control on your keyboard to start drawing arrows. Use left alt or middle mouse button to clear all the markers. This feature has been added to guide players through campaign tutorial and will be improved soon. - Dialogue and quest interface has been created. At the moment it's only being used in the campaign tutorial. - Campaign tutorial has finally arrived. Unfortunately it's not finished yet, but it's already available and new parts will be added very soon. Please check it out and provide some feedback. - There were not many bugs reported. Most of it was related to new features and it was quite easy to fix. Thank you all for your fantastic help. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38846769/9114f7e5d9675cde5361fe167c697b375b9529c5.pngApril UpdateApr 10, 2021 - Community AnnouncementsOver 250 keys given away last month and again lots of feedbacks received. Many players noticed potential in the campaign regardless of it's very early stage. It's very encouraging, so that area will be prioritized for the upcoming months. Massive thanks to everyone involved. Features added last month: - Further improvements to AI Level 4 and 5. It can defend better and now includes both capture the flag and domination modes. It still requires few adjustments, however those are minor issues relating to quality of AI decisions. - Premoves are now available. It's automatically on, but players can switch it off in the settings if they wish so. Only one move can be premade, but that should speed up the game. - Also character animations can be accelerated. It's accessible in the settings and affects only battle. - Chat has been added, so players can communicate. "Chat" button now appears when in online mode, but you can just press "enter" to type your messages. Please behave! - Most of the HUD elements have been visually improved. Only little touches, because it's not very important area at this stage of development. It came out more as side effect when adding new elements. - Tooltip and context menu has been added. You can notice it in few places, however it's true potential will be used in campaign and tutorials. - Campaign HUD has been redesigned. Priority was to locate it at bottom of the screen and free the space for chat messages. But it looks so much better now. - Of course minor tweaks and bug fixes have been made, but there is no need to detail it here. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38846769/31d09e5ce67a76c6e87d302af7b54b8da13bf4f4.pngMarch UpdateMar 8, 2021 - Community AnnouncementsIt's been a tough month. Working on AI brought a lot more obstacles then expected, but it's almost over. Features added this month: - New AI Level 5 has been brought in to challenge experienced players. Level 4 also has received massive improvements. However the AI isn't finished yet. It requires few finishing touches along with support for custom modes (CTF, domination & escape) and abilities (Queen of Ice & Jester). Of course it works in all the scenarios but it doesn't include the above things in the move evaluation yet. AI should be fully inclusive and properly tested this month. - Outline shader brings a cartoony look to the game. It's been a refreshing break from heavy work on the AI. Seems it doesn't cost much GPU power, so it's expected to stay. Hopefully players like it as well. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38846769/e27c0e5a7edb03564df0fada1dc47baf021d8553.pngFebruary UpdateFeb 3, 2021 - Community AnnouncementsOver 150 access keys given away last month. Lot's of feedback and constructive opinions has been taken in. Massive thanks to everyone involved! Features added this month: - Inventory system for campaign (it's just initial setup and will be redesign for visual improvement). Each weapon has a chess moveset assigned to it (Bow - bishop, sword - rook, greatsword - knight). Each character has 2 weapons slots and you can mix it as you want. For example if you place a greatsword into bishop's second slot, he'll move not only as bishop, bus as knight as well. Assassinating a NPC adds victim's items to your inventory. Changing shields and all armour doesn't affect gameplay yet. - AI has been rebuild from scratch. It's only a tiny bit better then previous one, but still very simple (only 1 depth), It has been optimized and now works properly in all scenarios (including 3 and 4 player variants). Further improvements are expected this month. - Variant description has been added. Each scenario in battle now has an information screen with the rules explained. It'll pop up as hint each time the scenario is loaded for first time. It's also accessible from menu / information. It's a first step to a proper hint system. - Piece description has been added. Just right click on a piece to find out what it does. It uses inventory system and will be improved further with hint system. - A lot of bugs has been fixed. I was ashamed to find out some core mechanics like castling or promotion didn't work properly in some situations. All major problems has been fixes with small improvements added in many places. - "Play with dev" event will be taking place. More details will be provided on facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Kingdom-Chess-100371858527268 {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38846769/2115726465400b0a85819c2a5fe1ee7e7b1a0fc1.pngJanuary UpdateJan 5, 2021 - Community AnnouncementsHappy New Year! Happy New Mode! Start the campaign to check out basic mechanics of open world structure: - Formation movement for your team (formation change, joining or separating form the group). - NPC movement (patrolling, detection, chase, attack, check and retreat). - Dynamic chessboard (size to match position of pieces and situation). - Off board movement (pieces can step in or leave board to continue movement in the world). - Assassination (killing NPC without getting spotted). - View obstruction (hiding behind constructions or in fields). There is lack of tutorial / information along with registered bugs. Small patches are uploaded often few times a week. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38846769/4700d3cd70e0dc3553bf959cda11db5939ac6934.pngFirst Update!Oct 23, 2020 - Community AnnouncementsNew scenario Gatehouse Flag features: - Massive board (16 x 25) with a nice view from top of the gatehouse. - Double CTF - 2 flags to defend only 1 capture to win the game. - Custom promotion at rank 13 (middle of chessboard). - 18 v 18 battle with new and unique pieces: - Queen of Ice - Moves like queen, but can't capture. Freezes enemy pieces around her. - Jester - Copies moveset of last turn's enemy piece. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/38846769/2c4636ef42c0d5c0a16dbd775ee2b2bc7469c11a.png

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