- Overall improvements - 22 August 2026
Heya, this branch has been on dev/debug for months. Hopefully it will improve the experience for some of you! Bug Fixes & Stability Resolved a major game-saving bug, improved logic around game-breaking issues, and corrected calendar view current day tracking. Fixed rare concurrency bugs, including a startup race condition during game initialization. Added error handling for NPC stopping issues, fixed achievements failing to trigger, and resolved missing opening lines estimation displays. Fixed tournament generation issues for underage players and improved PGN export functionality. Features & Enhancements Added support for creating younger/underage players. Godot Upgrades: Upgraded project engine version
- Beta update - 1.0.6b - 26 May 2026
Heya!I've made a small update to the beta branch that aims to fix the annoying and often reported "game is hanging" issue.It's a tricky problem and I'm afraid the 'fix' might introduce some issues with other parts of the game - that's why I've decided to wait until making it available on all branches. The reason I've put the word fix between quotes is that I'm not sure I've fixed all instances where it can happen. Async code is hard.If you’d like to help, switch over to the beta branch and report any possible issues somewhere on Steam, or even better, on Discord.What's nextI've started this year by releasing a detective game with my friend Lorenzo, Confidential Killings: I'm on holiday at my day job so I'm having more time for gamedev again. There's finally time to support the games I've released and to announce the new game I've been working on for some time. So stay tuned!
- New year update - 4 January 2026
Heya!It's holiday season. Happy holidays to all of you!I've had bunch of changes just hanging around on a dev branch for a long while. I'm hoping players on that branch have tested it and there's no major issues. If you find any, please report!I tried my best to fix reported bugs (that I could reproduce and actually fix):FixesFixed a bug where opening line estimations were not displayed.Fixed an issue with tournament generation for underage players.Fixed a rare concurrency-related bug.Fixed an incorrect current day display in the calendar view.ImprovementsImproved PGN export functionality.Improved the suggestions/tips given by a lower rated characterTechnical UpdatesUpgraded engine to Godot 4.5.1.What's next?It’s probably been the longest gap between updates this game has ever had. I’ve been working on it for over three years, almost daily, so taking a step back turned out to be a welco…
- Fixes & Brazil - 26 September 2025
This update brings a mix of fixes and a new language option. Big thanks to yuuki for joining the discord and offering his help to get the game translated in Brazilian Portuguese. Databases from the Steam Workshop now load correctly. Starting age rules have been adjusted for better balance. Beards can now be properly adjusted on existing players. Invitation tournaments now evaluate on the correct date. Elo win calculations are now more accurate. Brazilian Portuguese has been added as a supported language. Tournament dates in Brazil have been fixed.
- Post Launch Cleanup #1 - 10 September 2025
Patch Notes Fixed an issue where time did not reset properly between games. Fixed a bug where pausing the game blocked button interactions. Fixed a bug where the first move in the main menu game could be incorrect in some situations. Fixed an issue with haircut progress not saving correctly. Fixed a bug where the review screen engine detached after running a deep analysis.
- Master of Chess is released out of Early Access! - 9 September 2025
It all started in the summer of 2022. Things were getting back to normal as the pandemic was dying down. I was becoming disillusioned with my job as a software developer. There must be something out there for me that feels right, right? I've dabbled in gamedev for about 10 years at this point but I never truly committed. It's hard to make a game. Making a good one? Almost impossible.But an idea came: how about I combine one of my favourite games - Football Manager, with one of my favourite sports - Chess. In theory, I'd just transfer mechanics from FM to the domain of chess and it would work. In practice, it wasn't going to work in a million years. First prototypeIn my 10 previous years of making games I only scratched the surface of what that craft is so I made no plans - I took the task head-on and started developing. Ignorance is bliss, as they say. It was truly a blessing that I did…
- Master of Chess releases on September 9th! - 7 September 2025
It's a bittersweet moment. More than 3 years of hard work coming to closure.Making this game was one of the hardest and most fulfilling things I've ever done. It was a great trip. The finish line is near and I feel a mix of happiness and sadness.I'm happy because I made a game a lot of people like. I'm sad because I know how much better it could've been if I knew better. I hope all the lessons I've learned developing Master of Chess will allow me to one day create a chess game all the chess lovers deserve. What does this mean✅ I'll release my latest version and mark the game as fully released in two days, on September 9th.This doesn't mean I won't touch the game any more. I'll be happy to fix game-breaking bugs. If time permits, I'll add couple more features as well. But this is the core of it and I plan to focus most of my time on other projects. It's time to apply what I've learned to…
- Mods & Chinese - 2 August 2025
Heya!I've again waited too long between releases. I hope this one will be worth the wait. Release Notes✅ Added Steam Workshop integration (yes, you should be able to share and download DBs and board configurations)🌐 Added Chinese translations (I really wanted to add these as it's tricky with different fonts and I had to get a freelancer's help. Other translations are done by the community)🔍 Added player search to World Rankings page (I've redesigned the page altogether)🧑💼 Redesigned Player History page!🐞 Fixed promotion bug in Analysis window📧 Polished campaign start email🗂️ Enabled loading of game start time from DB (this isn't that important right now but I thought it would be cool to one day have a mod that gets you to play in 1970s or something...)What's next?Did I tell you I plan to transition to full release in September? That's incredible! It's now well over 3 years I've…
- 0.8.1: Board configuration! - 19 June 2025
Build 0.8.11Added board configuration optionsFixed promotion bugFixed UI issue in the database editing toolFixed file access issue for board configurationA big accessibility option just arrived to Master of Chess: board configuration. Adjust the pieces and colors as you wish. It was quite an exciting task and I hope it will bring value to many players.If you want to add a custom piece_set of yours you can just look at the structure in:C:\\Users\\{username}\\AppData\\Roaming\\Godot\\app_userdata\\Master of Chess\\piecesand add your SVGs there!Cheers!
- Rerelase 0.8.10 with Debug turned on - 12 June 2025
Due to high amount of reports of crashes I've reintroduced the debug build. It changes no functionality of the game but it has debug symbols used by the engine of the game.
- Birthday release: Mac build is out! - 12 June 2025
It's been exactly a year since Master of Chess went into Early Access! 🥳🎉🎂It's incredible to see how far it went since then. 6k+ players. 200 reviews. Not bad for a first commercial game and a one-man team. I often think how much it could have been better if I could redo it, but I'm still extremely happy with how well it improved over time. By my count, I've released 32 new builds in the last year. Lets introduce the last build of the game before it turns 1 year old:New BuildMost importantly, I've started to support Macs. It did require some work but since I've switched my primary workstation to a mac laptop it made sense to support it now. I can test and build there.Other than that, it's same-all, same-all: bug fixes and small improvements all around:Fix issue with openings not being saved after Quit to Menu.Fix annoying issue with screens switch when game is loaded.Allow saving of…
- 🛠️ Patch 3: 0.8.9 - 26 April 2025
🛠️ Build Report: 0.8.9 🔧 Fixes Fixed a bug with PGN export during deep analysis. Fixed PGN generation issues when pawn promotions occur. Resolved an issue with the opening tree for 1.e4 on older save files. Fixed a critical bug where the game became unplayable at over 3000 Elo rating.
- 0.8.8 Patch 2 - 25 April 2025
🛠️ Build Report: 0.8.8 🔧 Fixes Resolved issue causing unlimited expansion of the opening line. Fixed 0-indexed player rating display in the played game modal. Corrected player title rendering in the player's profile modal. Stopped the game from opening the user's own player modal unnecessarily. Fixed a bug where energy system broke after quitting to menu. ✨ Improvements Added a “Go to First Move” button in the Game Analysis modal for easier navigation.
- 0.8 Patch 1 - 23 April 2025
🛠️ Patch Notes – 0.8.7 🔧 Bug Fixes: Fixed an issue where Proficiency details wouldn't expand properly. Resolved a bug where pressing ESC brought up the wrong modal. Move validation now visibly deducts 0.1 energy points
- The Huge Update - 22 April 2025
The most exciting batch of changes for Master of Chess is done! Yes, there's still a lot more work to be done, but I'm getting there and I have a feeling that the hardest things are behind me now. Due to amount of changes, there's a high possibility of bugs. Please report them on Discord or in community 🙏. I plan to release the game out from Early Access in couple of months. What's the biggest problem you have with the game? What's missing? Let me know so I can get it in before the 1.0.0 release! Changes I've covered all the bigger changes in previous blogs so I'll just go out and list out all the changes I've remembered to record. 🛠️ Fixes & Improvements Fix AI logic on recaptures Fix negamax crash Fix bug with puzzles and progress points Fix issue with female title tooltips Fix issue with puzzle coach explanations Fix message icon for tournaments starting Fix bug with turning sound…
- MoC is on sale in the Sport-acular event! - 9 April 2025
Heya! Master of Chess is on sale in the Sport-acular event. Exciting stuff! It's always cool when the game gets into a Steam festival as it increases the amount of traffic the Steam page gets. And hey, it's 20% off! In other news: I'm couple weeks off from releasing the new version, 0.8.x. Latest development I worked a lot on the openings. I'm quite happy with the direction it is going in. The most often requested features are already there: separated black and white repertoires, priority lines that are played through in the Key Moments simulation and more believable NPC opening play. Opening proficiency Modelling realistic opening knowledge isn't straightforward. One of the problems I hope I'll solve better in the future. For now, I've added proficiency levels for different lines. I've called it Line Knowledge as proficiency sounds too smart-ass. You use your book points to improve the…
- Coaches incoming! - 6 March 2025
What's a chess player without a coach, eh? I'm wrapping up this feature. I wanted to share the news. It ended up a lot bigger and better than I imagined. It was considerably harder to implement as well so it's only fair that I'm quite happy with how it turned out. It's going to come to beta branch soon. Join the Discord if you have any question or just want to chat with us: https://discord.gg/HYV8Zz8V2Q What makes me happiest is that Jonathan Schrantz allowed me to use his name and likeness as one of the coaches. His videos on the Saint Louis Chess Youtube channel that I watched 10ish years ago provided me with chess knowledge to achieve the greatest feat I could imagine: beating my dad at chess. What's so cool about it? ...I hear you ask. Say no more! There's 2 new training modes: Positional Analysis (5k of them) Studies (472 of them) Both bring a new dynamic to the game. While positio…
- 🎄New kid on the block - 13 January 2025
We have ourselves a new world chess champion. A new year has arrived. Master of Chess is in its final year of active development. Exciting stuff! Did I mention that I've already added a DB editor in the game? It can be accessed on the beta branch! (and you can try mid-game adjournment save as well!) What's the plan? There's two big parts of MoC I'm working on adding next: 🧑🏫 Coaches 📘Openings integration It will probably take me month or two more to deliver these. This will be a big content update and propel the price of the game to $19.99. After that I plan to spend couple more months optimizing, adding QOL features and small improvements all around. This means that I should be done with active development of the game in Q3! Seems surreal that this game I started as a small project on the side would become this huge game that I work on for 3 years. Time well spent! Coaches Inside P…
- 🚀 Stabilize (Part 4) 0.7.7 - 8 December 2024
🚀 0.7.7 is released! 🇵🇱 Fix crash when playing the Polish opening. 🎯 Improve UX of scrolling moves in the game review screen. 👑 Fix stalemate incorrectly counting as checkmate. 🤔 Fix issue with checkmate moves being marked as blunders in reviews. 💾 Improve UX for saving games. 📜 Fix player history not updating in real time. 🔑 Make the checkmate move in Key Moment simulations a key moment.
- Latest fixes - 2 December 2024
📝 Reintroduce move information in the game review screen. 👑 Fix issue with promotion in puzzles. 🧩 Fix bug causing no puzzles to appear on high puzzle Elo. 📜 Fix issue with loading titles. Keep your feedback coming! 🎉
