- Isometric view + 2 maps (Update) - 22 January 2020
By pressing M while in game you can switch the camera mode to a top-down isometric perspective. This mode is meant to add precision to navigation in lush environments with lots of trees and other obstacles. It might be useful in general, as it allows seeing zooming out to seeing all of the map at once. To enhance the experience, we recommend going to the settings while in game, and turning on icons for both chess pieces and buildings. This way you will see a neat display of the piece's icon over its tile. We are currently thinking of enhancing this overview mode, adding some sort of switch for it in the UI, in addition to the M key that toggles it. Perhaps it would also be helpful to show icons instead of trees and other obstacles, but we're thinking about it. Let us know what you think. As part of this update, we also added two new maps: Ancient Maze and Swamplands. Ancient Maze Swampl…
- Out of Early Access - 9 November 2019
And we are launched! As of right now Chessboard Kingdoms is fully released and is no longer in Early Access. With this release we are also increasing the price by 1 USD (and by a corresponding amount in other currencies). Pricing changes are currently in processing and might be reconsidered later. Let us know if you consider the pricing fair. We would have liked the game to contain many more cool features by now, but there is no end to improvement, and so we feel like after a year in Early Access and many fixes and updates, the game is in a close-enough state to the original intent. Anyhow, we sincerely hope that you enjoy the game. If you like chess and don't mind checking out an alternative approach to the millennia old game,- come check us out!
- Final fixes - 9 November 2019
This is the final planned updated before we transition from Early Access to full release. In this update we tried to fix a few more (mildly) annoying bugs in the game, as well as improved some features. Here's what we did this time. Friendly units are no longer highlighted in mage's area of effect cells. This is to prevent the confusion, as there is currently no effect on friendly units, only on enemies; Better synchronization between knight's jumping animation and his actual movement; Fog of war fixes; Fixed an issue where preview piece (when selected in the build menu) wouldn't show correct info; Better fit for numbers in the build menu; Settlers now perform a little animation when "settling" into a town center; Corrected settler portraits, which were displayed for the wrong faction; Fixed candle material glitches in the menu; Fixed ambient occlusion glitches; Shot trajectory for cata…
- Bug fixes - 20 September 2019
Another batch of fixes make their way into the game. Slowly but surely we are moving towards a stable release. Among the latest fixes: - Corrected wrong base highlight when building guard towers; - Guard tower ballista wrong direction when shooting fixed; - Regular units not being able to attack siege towers; - Wall snapping to wrong direction when built; And in the Map Editor: - Fixed player start position assignment and loading; - Corrected player indices between board pieces and starting positions.
- Saves hotfix - 14 August 2019
Turns out there existed a problem with the save system in the game. Due to increased functionality to map building via the Map Editor, the saves haven't been working properly. However, this issue is now resolved and it is again possible to save/load in singleplayer and hotseat modes. In addition to that, a few other updates made it into the game and editor: - all maps have been updated and are included with the game (they will no longer show as outdated); - Map Editor has been updated to included our 3 latest piece: Tavern, Siege Tower, and Trebuchet; - minor UI fixes.
- Small update with relevant changes - 18 July 2019
There aren't a ton of fixes in this one, but the ones that are here are meant to have a discernible effect on the gameplay and aftertaste. Smoother animation transitions for all humanoid units Knight can no longer jump over walls, unless enchanted by wizard Fixed guard tower's alerted animation, which plays when an enemy is in its range Adjusted AO settings for high quality
- Latest fixes - 30 June 2019
Two last updates concentrate on a bunch of various fixes and a few new features. Listing the features first, we have: 1. Leaderboard screen available from the main menu. As soon as you are logged in with your Steam account, you should be able to access the leaderboard via a button under your account name in the upper right corner. 2. UI scaler in the settings. While playing the game, you are free to go the graphics settings -- advanced section and scale the UI to 1x, 1.5x, or 2x using a dedicated control. Fixes made are as follows: Grass and other environment objects now properly shrink on elevated tiles Connected walls no longer appear rotated in the wrong direction on some maps Siege tower troops unloading elevation limit fix Eastern knight's model is no longer stretched when previewed for building Trebuchets and catapults now rotate towards their target without tilting in the wrong a…
- Small update: maps and water - 24 May 2019
In this latest updated we included two new maps, Plaza and Cliffside Cross. Plaza offers a new layout idea, with flag drop areas being available behind enemy lines, forcing the player to play aggressively. All that only concerns the Flag game modes. Otherwise the map can be played as usual. Cliffside Cross is just a medium-sized map for up to 4 players and some cool terrain. We also upgraded our water with refraction, better normals, and underwater fog color. Perhaps a few tweaks will be needed, but it is a major step up from how it looked before.
- Update -- Final animations and more - 17 March 2019
List of changes all character animations finished; "Random" map button in game creation screen lets you choose a random map; after loosing a game to AI, you can still continue to watch the remaining AIs resume their battle. Today's update marks a new era for Chessboard Kingdoms. One where all the characters finally are brought to life with a range of animations. Every single character is now moving, fighting or building, -- whatever their cause. In addition to that, we included a couple of new features. There's now a "Random" button in the game creation screen. It simply gives the option of picking a random map, instead of having to choose one from the list. We also fixed the inability to spectate a match against AI after losing. Choosing "Spectate" after your final score screen should now let you see the AIs battling each other, if any of them are still left in the game. For the next u…
- Some more animations - 23 February 2019
New update includes animations to the following characters: Eastern wizard Western vizier Eastern vizier Western bishop Moreover, we added new icons and portraits for taverns and siege towers. What's next Only a few animations for our characters are left (also the eastern tavern), so we will try to finish those off. We will also be looking at the new ideas and suggestions provided by our players and will be integrating those into the game alongside bug-fixes. We hope to see you in game. Your feedback and support mean a lot.
- Animations update - 10 February 2019
- added animations for the eastern rook; - fixed the western siege tower's drawbridge; - replaced the broken version of the siege tower with correct model and textures.
- Big Update -- Lunar New Year - 5 February 2019
Lunar New Year is the perfect occasion to add a couple new localizations. Chessboard Kingdoms is now available in Simplified and Traditional Chinese. Latest update also brings many new fixes and rather big suprises. New pieces Three new pieces were added to the game, expanding our unique features, mainly the building and siege aspects. You can now build Trebuchets and Siege Towers via the Workshop and Engineer. Trebuchet is much like the catapult, but has a bigger range. This is balanced by the requirement of having to be in the siege mode in order to shoot. Siege Tower is our most unique and interesting siege unit yet. Other units can be stationed inside and once the siege tower docks to a wall (or other obstacle), units can exit on the other side. Settler unit is now available from our newest building piece, Tavern. Tavern also adds 2 new housing slots. Animations Lots of work is bein…
- Localizations and more achievements - 7 January 2019
Our first localization is in. We chose to do a Russian language text localization first. Why Russian? It is simply the language that is shared between our team members the most. More importantly, with this update it is possible to add new localizations with ease. All pieces of text can be found within a few .json files. Translating the English strings of charaters into localized equivalents and adding the translated files to a new folder will allow us adding more and more localizations. Achievements Continuing where we left it off with achievements in the previous update, today we release a few more. These new achievements cover flag mode, sieges, range weapons and even hint at a few new updates that we are preparing. Night mode As a pleasant bonus, we added beatiful new torch lights to all our buildings in night mode. To enjoy those, simply swith to night in the game settings while pla…
- Achievements! - 24 December 2018
First of all, we'd like to wish everyone to have joyful and exciting holidays! Achievements We're happy to introduce achievements into Chessboard Kingdoms. Only a few days ago we had them added for testing and today's update makes them available for unlocking in the game. As of right now we have 8 achievements present with more being designed. Other updates Among other things, we updated both the game and the map editor with new terrain types and materials, which allows for more vibrant and beautiful maps to be created and played. First new localizations for the game will be coming out in the next updates. New ongoing fixes are happening with every update as well. This time we tweaked some of the UI in both the menu and in-game.
- Early Access Update and Hotfix 2 - 17 December 2018
- fixed movement issues from the previous update; - added new blur on camera in the menu and score screen; - added two unlockable achievements (more on the way); - catapult is now built at the workshop instead of barracks; - additionally, engineer can also make a catapult.
- Hotseat Mode -- New game mode update - 10 December 2018
First major update is here. We are happy to introduce a new game mode -- Hotseat multiplayer. https://cdn.steampulse.org/steam/asset?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsteamcdn-a.akamaihd.net%2Fsteamcommunity%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fclans%2F33597035%2F77eed2aee538ca71726038aab980a1b536ef368c.png Now you can play a match from the same computer. Share a game with your friends, or practice on your own. Hotseat matches can be played on any map with or without fog of war, and unlike singleplayer, you can play capture the flag modes! What's next Stay tuned for the next updates, which are to deliver Steam achivements and localizations. We are working on a few more exciting things right now, but more on that soon. New content is coming.
- What we're working on... - 26 November 2018
It's been slightly over a week since we entered Early Access. So much more remains to be done and we are super excited to add new features to the game. From among the feedback, we selected a few major things that would complement the game rather well at this stage. Here's what were working on right now. Hotseat The genre and chess mechanics call for a hotseat mode, wherein players will be able to assume the roles of there opponents from the same computer. Practice on your own, or invite friends and swap seats, hotseat multiplayer can be a lot more fun than artificial computer-controlled opponents. At the moment we are testing a hotseat implementation. If everything goes well, it will be ready very soon. Achievements Games on Steam should have achievements (and with cool icons at that). We have many ideas for very intriguing and creative achievements, but we're going to start by implemen…
- Early Access Hotfix 1 - 19 November 2018
Our first small patch for the Early Access release. List of changes Changing board piece tag type (icon, name, name+icon) in the settings should now work correctly after it being switched off and on; Map Editor now allows undo/redo with Ctrl+Z/Ctrl+Y, respectively.
- Chessboard Kingdoms Released (Early Access) - 16 November 2018
https://cdn.steampulse.org/steam/asset?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsteamcdn-a.akamaihd.net%2Fsteamcommunity%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fclans%2F33597035%2F8bcd5723549e48b55962efa07959bb80bdbafba5.png Release decisions We are happy to present you the full version of the game finally available to all. Many options of how to proceed with releasing Chessboard Kingdoms have crossed our minds, and we opted to go with an Early Access version. Although the game is fully playable, there is yet much to be done if we want to keep it close to the grandeur of the original design. Early Access is here to help us determine how far we can take it and how players will respond to what the game offers right now. Our second big decision is the pricing. Even though we would like to have the game free-to-play with paid downloadable content and user-created items, after nearly two years in development we realize that we simply don't yet have the resources to rely on a free-to-play model…
- End of Beta - 11 October 2018
The beta test is now over. Many thanks to everyone for participating and providing us with feedback. We will work on the game some more, chisel on some problematic parts and will get back to you with news about how and when the release will be. Old beta keys will be reworked in the upcoming hours and days. If you got your key later, you can expect it to last longer. Thanks and see you soon! https://cdn.steampulse.org/steam/asset?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsteamcdn-a.akamaihd.net%2Fsteamcommunity%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fclans%2F33597035%2F3f20cb60b2745bcc3467b5d5c554a4dec5de2cc6.jpg
