tl;dr; New Turn Based Mode, Gambit Level Expansion, Game Polish, and Balance Changes Hi all, I want to extend a heartfelt thank you to all the Chess Survivors players who have been with me since the 1.0 release, which was nearly a month ago. As a solo developer, I've been hard at work over the past few weeks, moving beyond the initial hotfixes and focusing on incorporating your feedback into my next update. With the 1.1 patch, I'm excited to introduce two major changes that directly stem from your input. Firstly, I've added a new setting that allows you to disable the turn timer, transforming the game into a purely turn-based experience. Additionally, I've expanded and reworked the gambit challenge system, now featuring a total of 20 challenging levels to progress through. It's truly amazing to see how far our little game has come. I sincerely hope that your enjoyment of playing Chess Survivors matches the immense joy I've experienced in creating it. Cheers, Aarimous P.S. Please consider subscribing to My YouTube Channel where I share my game development as an solo indie dev.

1.1 Patch Notes

New Content

Added a new Run Setting to Enable/Disable the Turn Timer

• This will hide the turn timer and allow the player to take as long as they want during their turn
• Disabling the turn timer will always turn off Steam achievements. I decided to do this because I designed the game around having a turn timer and while Im all for player playing the way they want to play, the achievements might lose their feeling of accomplishment since the game will be significantly easier without the turn timer. I would be interested in refining the turn based gameplay if this is something you players want.
• Disabling the turn timer will also disable any real-time game elements as these were balance around a turn timer and would be over powered without a timer.
  • Yo-Yo Ability
  • Wandering Bot Relic
  • Firewall Map Hazard
• Game speed will still adjust how fast the other game elements move, but will no lower apply to the player's turn.. because well there is no timer with this setting.

Gambit Challenge System Expansion/Rework

• Added new level 15 and level 20 gambit achievements, these will be activated once the 1.1 build is live.
• Reworked the gambit levels gambit levels since there are now 20, generally I made certain mods more difficult. Im open to feedback if certain levels feel to easy/hard.
• Run Setting screen can now handle Gambit levels with multiple mods, this was added to accommodate the Gambit level rework
• Gambit Level Progression will now always be enabled regardless of the game speed, previous you could only progress the Gambit level if achievements were enabled. This is another change made to align with the new turn timer setting.

Other New Things

• Added 6 new maps layouts for Act 2 and Act 3 maps that will randomly be randomly selected (Act 1 will always be a randomly procedural map)
• Added a new system to track wins, losses, and highest gambit levels per character.
  • This will be displayed on the the character select screen.
  • Resetting the records will reset this as well.
• Added a tooltip to show the current ability stats when hovering over the the ability UI element
• Added a display to the pause screen to show all the current Gambit levels and the flavor text
• Added a build summary to the game over screen which will show some basic player stats as well as the relics and abilities you had. I had to move the jokers art to accommodate this.

Balance Changes

• Reduced the spawn chance for rare relics from 10% to 5%.
• Pawn base health increased from 90 to 95
• Rook base health increased from 135 to 140
• Changed the Jak characters starting ability to use the Jak Trap instead of the Yo-Yo. This help makes the new turn timer setting work, and feels a bit more thematic
• Yoyo ability
  • This is a nerf to the Yo-Yo. My goal is for this to be bad early, but good later if you upgraded it a lot and had good relics. As such most of the nerfs are to early stats.
  • Lowered damage values from [40, 65, 100, 150] [30, 55, 90, 130]
  • Lowered duration from [3, 4, 5] [2, 3, 4, 5]
  • Lowered cooldown from [7,6, 5, 4] [8,7,6,4]
• Boomerang ability
  • Damage increased from [55, 80, 110, 175] to [75, 100, 140, 190]
  • Max Number increased from [2,3,4] [2,3,4,5]
  • Cooldown decreased form [8,6,4] [7,6,4]
• Scarecrow minion ability
  • Turn duration fixed to be [10, 15, 20] previously this had 0 and 0 as the last two upgrades.
• Martin Character
  • Lowered melee damage from 70 to 45
  • Martins Relic: Lowered lvl up heal amount for 20 to 15. Added a -25% to AOE multiplier, removed bonus ability power
  • Steadfast Protector: now reduced 25% of incoming damage, previously this was a flat 30 damage, which made the relic really good early, and less good later. This will make the relic have the same power during the whole game.

User Interface

• A new zoom out animation will play when completing the act
• A new zoom out animation will play when winning the game
• Added floating text which will warn the player when there are 25, 20, 15, 10, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 turns left in the act. The goal here is to add anticipation for the act endings.
• Adjusted UI text to read as Act # Turns Left instead of just Act Turns Left
• Lowered the sound effect when you hover over characters on the character select screen.
• Adjusted the font to be a bit sharper at all font sizes
• Changed the button colors to make the green/red a bit less saturated and easier on the eyes

Bug Fixes and Mics Changes

• Fixed a bug where blocked damage would not show correctly
• Lowered the I am the Loot Hoarder achievement from 100 chest to 50 chests
• The Real Knights relic: fixed melee healing base to be 20 not 2. This is was a bug.
• Fixed a bug where the certain run records were not working correctly.
• Fixed a rare game crash where sometimes in act 2 the laser map hazard spawning system would sometimes bug out if a specific spawn outcome was chosen.
• Fixed a situation where the game could get stuck if you leveled up and died/won in the same turn.
• Game speed is now saved as a local setting and will be remembered between sessions. Previously this was always defaulted to normal speed when launching the game.
• Fixed many of the abilities so the animation speed would scale properly with game speed
• Fixed game elements like Movement Coins and XP gems so their animation would scale properly with game speed
• Fixed character animations (in game) so their animations would scale with game speed
• Fixed a bug where the act intro text could sometimes flash on the screen. Not sure if this is actually fixed, but we will see.
• Fixed some bugs with the animations when the player dies
• Fixed some bugs where navigating from the game over screen to the main menu would flash the game screen