The latest patch for Shinogi Chess Club 2 has arrived, and it includes a few crucial bugfixes as well as some exciting new settings! Let's take a look:

Update Details

Patch Notes: Version 1.1.0

• Fixed NaN pixel flickering across all scenes
• Changed Antialiasing setting default to 2X
• Renamed Antialiasing setting to Multisample AA
• Added Subpixel Morphological AA setting
• Added Render Scale setting
• Added FSR 1.0 support via Upscaling setting
• Tweaked Tomiko's hair physics

The big fix for this update is addressing the problem of flickering light errors which mainly occurred in the Shinogi Chess Club Room. I'm not exactly sure which shader is the culprit but this seemed to stem from NaN (Not a Number) errors that became visible on screen. NaN pixel values work incorrectly with the Bloom effect that is used extensively in the Shinogi Chess Club post processing stack, causing the intensity to cascade out and create an ugly blob on the screen. This is mitigated in Unity by enabling an option to replace NaN pixels with a clamped color, stopping these errors from effecting bloom. The downside is a minor hit to performance but I believe the impact should be minimal. And, with the new options added in this update, you'll be able to balance it out by squeezing out better performance for the same level of quality. Speaking of which... Previously, Shinogi Chess Club 2 relied on both Multisample Antialiasing (MSAA) and Subpixel Morphological Antialiasing (SMAA) for cleaning up jagged edges. MSAA provides a really clean result but can cost a lot of performance due to how it gathers the necessary pixel information. Due to me mixing up the two methods in my head (they've got really similar acronyms, oops), I gave the user control over MSAA thinking it would be the only AA applied to the screen. I naively set the default to 4x sample and believed it was actually affecting SMAA. That was a bit of a mistake.
Now, the option is labeled correctly in-game (in the settings file it is still called "Antialiasing") and the default has been lowered to 2x in order to preserve the original look of the game a bit. In its place though, I have now added the option to customize the SMAA quality, which was previously hardcoded to be "medium". SMAA is a much cheaper AA option that provides really nice results, so I encourage you to turn it up if you'd like a more performant AA method! Finally, there is now a "render scale" option which allows you to lower the 3D rendering resolution while keeping the requested screen resolution from the video category. This is becoming a common option in modern games as it allows you to keep a clean UI presentation while sacrificing some 3D quality. It's essential for running games on low-end hardware and can even boost your FPS when combined with... FidelityFX Super Resolution! This smart upscaling method is now available in the options under "Upscaling Method", and when combined with the render scale setting will sharpen up the image back to your desired resolution! This FSR implementation is somewhat basic and doesn't utilize temporal information, but it still provides great results at 90% or even 80% render scale, which should let you boost your FPS if you don't need a perfectly clean image. Regardless of whether you use these options, it is great to offer more ways of running Shinogi Chess Club 2 on low-end devices. As a final bonus, you can increase the render scale up to 150% if you have plenty of FPS to spare in order to get a very high quality view of the game. All of these new settings should help in future-proofing the game!

News Update

I now have an official Discord Server which will serve as a place of discussion and questions about all of the games I release! I'll be updating it with announcements and chatting with the community for as long as I can :)
All are invited to join through this link! The server is still in its very early days so I don't expect much activity for a bit, but please feel free to help grow the community and ask any questions you may have about my development process over there! In other news: You can now get both Shinogi Chess Club games and their soundtracks in this new Complete Collection bundle on Steam! Pick it up here if you'd like a 10% discount on the additional content!
We're now (hopefully, if everything goes to schedule) less than a few months away from the announcement of my next big game! I hope you'll all stay tuned on Twitter and the Discord Server when the time comes. Until then, thank you to everyone who's been supporting me and trying out the Shinogi Chess Club series! Happy gaming! -Matt