Hey there, Simply Chess Fans! We at BlueLine Game Studios are happy to announce that we have just launched a Kickstarter for our newest game: Lost Cities! It uses the same great engine that we used for Simply Chess and have been growing over the years for our other games. The game will be available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, as usual, and we hope to use the Kickstarter to fund a bunch of translations and a few other new bells and whistles. We hope you'll take a few minutes to check out the Kickstarter: http://bluelinegamestudios.com/kickstarter/lost-cities We also have already put out a demo for the game that you can check out on the Lost Cities Steam page: http://store.steampowered.com/app/520680/Lost_Cities/ Thanks for your continued support of BlueLine Games! Enjoy!

[ 2017-05-09 01:15:59 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey there, Simply Chess Fans! We at BlueLine Game Studios are happy to announce that we have just launched a Kickstarter for our newest game: Lost Cities! It uses the same great engine that we used for Simply Chess and have been growing over the years for our other games. The game will be available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, as usual, and we hope to use the Kickstarter to fund a bunch of translations and a few other new bells and whistles. We hope you'll take a few minutes to check out the Kickstarter: http://bluelinegamestudios.com/kickstarter/lost-cities We also have already put out a demo for the game that you can check out on the Lost Cities Steam page: http://store.steampowered.com/app/520680/Lost_Cities/ Thanks for your continued support of BlueLine Games! Enjoy!

[ 2017-05-09 01:14:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

If you see any remaining issues, please report them to me. Thanks for playing!! :D

[ 2017-03-24 20:13:57 CET ] [ Original post ]

If you see any remaining issues, please report them to me. Thanks for playing!! :D

[ 2017-03-24 20:13:57 CET ] [ Original post ]

Upgrading some stuff & ran into some issues... fixing it now!! Online play will probably be down for half an hour or so. Sorry! ^_^;

[ 2017-03-24 19:35:29 CET ] [ Original post ]

Upgrading some stuff & ran into some issues... fixing it now!! Online play will probably be down for half an hour or so. Sorry! ^_^;

[ 2017-03-24 19:35:29 CET ] [ Original post ]

In the most fantabulous coincidence ever, we have just finished releasing the Russian translation of Simply Chess... the translation was done by Steam user " ⇜ǤȐƠƲƝƉHƠƓ⇝" and it is February 2nd in Russia right now!! :D (pro-wiki-tips for the unacquainted: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundhog_Day) OH, THIS IS BEST! Ok, I'm better now. So it's a pretty straightforward update:

• Russian translation by Steam user ⇜ǤȐƠƲƝƉHƠƓ⇝
• GamePad fixes (especially relating to Online Play & associated menus) with huge kudos to Steam user Comp9 for helping us debug this, and to user Junkyard for reporting that we had issues. GamePad support is really important for both Steam OS and for people with alternative input devices (that usually communicate as game pads).

Get some Chess!!!

[ 2017-02-01 21:42:05 CET ] [ Original post ]

In the most fantabulous coincidence ever, we have just finished releasing the Russian translation of Simply Chess... the translation was finished up by Steam user " H" and it is February 2nd in Russia right now!! :D (pro-wiki-tips for the unacquainted: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundhog_Day) OH, THIS IS BEST! Ok, I'm better now. So it's a pretty straightforward update:

• Russian translation by Steam user H and Steam user Novoleg
• GamePad fixes (especially relating to Online Play & associated menus) with huge kudos to Steam user Comp9 for helping us debug this, and to user Junkyard for reporting that we had issues. GamePad support is really important for both Steam OS and for people with alternative input devices (that usually communicate as game pads).

Get some Chess!!!

[ 2017-02-01 21:42:05 CET ] [ Original post ]

Pushed an update to Windows yesterday (same fixes will go out to Mac & Linux on the next rebuild). The main newness is that there is now a Finnish (Suomi) translation!! Big thanks to vsi65 for the translation!! Updates since the last announcement:

• Fixed the directions of the gamePad and keyboard when playing with white not on the bottom in Chess.
• Fixed a bug where clicking "Rejoin" very quickly after entering the Online Game Menu Screen could cause it to crash.
• Removed the King from the Piece Counter part of the HUD. This was always 0, but it bugged some people that it was there.
• Fixed the "Ready" button in the Online Multiplayer some more... potentially fixed other button clickability issues. Basically, MouseUp was refreshing the Input events even if the events weren't being handled. So if it refreshed and the button was already up... maybe that was the issue? Regardless, this fixes our test case for the Ready button but might not affect the other button issues.
• Quieted the Log File a little bit by removing the "Loading item" lines since we haven't had a problem with asset-loading in a LONG time.
• Finnish translation thanks to vsi65!

Also, Premium is 35% off for a couple of days... please get it and support our continued development of Simply Chess... thank you!! :D http://store.steampowered.com/app/451690/

[ 2017-01-27 16:18:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

Pushed an update to Windows yesterday (same fixes will go out to Mac & Linux on the next rebuild). The main newness is that there is now a Finnish (Suomi) translation!! Big thanks to vsi65 for the translation!! Updates since the last announcement:

• Fixed the directions of the gamePad and keyboard when playing with white not on the bottom in Chess.
• Fixed a bug where clicking "Rejoin" very quickly after entering the Online Game Menu Screen could cause it to crash.
• Removed the King from the Piece Counter part of the HUD. This was always 0, but it bugged some people that it was there.
• Fixed the "Ready" button in the Online Multiplayer some more... potentially fixed other button clickability issues. Basically, MouseUp was refreshing the Input events even if the events weren't being handled. So if it refreshed and the button was already up... maybe that was the issue? Regardless, this fixes our test case for the Ready button but might not affect the other button issues.
• Quieted the Log File a little bit by removing the "Loading item" lines since we haven't had a problem with asset-loading in a LONG time.
• Finnish translation thanks to vsi65!

Also, Premium is 35% off for a couple of days... please get it and support our continued development of Simply Chess... thank you!! :D http://store.steampowered.com/app/451690/

[ 2017-01-27 16:18:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

Some people have been rep-ing chess for (thousands of) years! ...Let's show the world that we've known Chess was cool, long before any of this newfangled stuff!

[ 2016-11-29 14:59:16 CET ] [ Original post ]

Some people have been rep-ing chess for (thousands of) years! ...Let's show the world that we've known Chess was cool, long before any of this newfangled stuff!

[ 2016-11-29 14:59:16 CET ] [ Original post ]

This is a big announcement with a lot to cover!

Updates!

Since the last announcement, here are updates we've made to Simply Chess:

• Mac: fixed crashing that would happen in various versions of OS X on various machines. It was due to several versions of Mono crashing in different ways on different versions. We found an old version that works consistently.
• The "Online Multiplayer" lobby said "Local Multiplayer" at the top, previously.
• Old "Steam Notifications" have been deleted and any games that end will now get their notification deleted once both players have seen the end of the game.
• GamePad support for BlueLineCloudSignupDialog is no longer broken... can fill it out correctly, or skip it and play without an account just like with keyboard/mouse.
• Made resizing the window conform to the ratio instead of using leterboxing.
• The Online Game Menu Screen doesn't flicker when the list reloads now.
• Fixed the ugly layout of the Pawn Promotion dialog (the icons had shifted to be overlapping the "Ok" button).
• Made Alert dialogs center in the screen correctly (they were slightly off-center before).
• Added "Limitless" AI for Premium players (Limitless will also unlock for free if players can beat all 100 levels of AI!) This lets the AI play without mercy or concern for your pathetic human brain.
• Fixed the layout of the BLC Signup dialog to fit better.
• Fixed the "Chat" button to use the internationalized string and not display off-screen when the opponent is on the bottom (which is rare, but some people choose to put themselves on top).
• Made it so that asynchronously created games also have the opponent's name added to the serverName when the 2nd player joins.

Translations!

If you'd like to help us with translations, please head over to Roksten and offer to translate our projects into your native language! Our volunteer translators have helped bring these new translations to Simply Chess with this update:

• Added Spanish translation (thanks dani_as0!)
• Added Polish translation (thanks Ti_Ichigo from LiveCoding!)

Sales!

All of our games happen to be on sale right now (only the two-pack of Othello, not the single... for technical reasons). Check them out to make sure you have at least 3 and you can get Premium for free (see below): http://store.steampowered.com/search/?developer=BlueLine%20Games This includes 25% off of Simply Chess Premium... you can support our continued development of this game for ~$3.74 http://store.steampowered.com/app/451690/

Get "Simply Chess: Premium" for free!

Do you own some of our other games already? If you buy 3 or more of our games and you don't have Premium yet, when you play Simply Chess, you will be presented with a Steam Code for Simply Chess Premium as a way for us to say Thank You for being our loyal customer! So check out which games you already own, and maybe grab a couple more at STEEP discounts and maybe even get Premium for free! http://store.steampowered.com/search/?developer=BlueLine%20Games

[ 2016-11-12 20:14:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

This is a big announcement with a lot to cover!

Updates!

Since the last announcement, here are updates we've made to Simply Chess:

• Mac: fixed crashing that would happen in various versions of OS X on various machines. It was due to several versions of Mono crashing in different ways on different versions. We found an old version that works consistently.
• The "Online Multiplayer" lobby said "Local Multiplayer" at the top, previously.
• Old "Steam Notifications" have been deleted and any games that end will now get their notification deleted once both players have seen the end of the game.
• GamePad support for BlueLineCloudSignupDialog is no longer broken... can fill it out correctly, or skip it and play without an account just like with keyboard/mouse.
• Made resizing the window conform to the ratio instead of using leterboxing.
• The Online Game Menu Screen doesn't flicker when the list reloads now.
• Fixed the ugly layout of the Pawn Promotion dialog (the icons had shifted to be overlapping the "Ok" button).
• Made Alert dialogs center in the screen correctly (they were slightly off-center before).
• Added "Limitless" AI for Premium players (Limitless will also unlock for free if players can beat all 100 levels of AI!) This lets the AI play without mercy or concern for your pathetic human brain.
• Fixed the layout of the BLC Signup dialog to fit better.
• Fixed the "Chat" button to use the internationalized string and not display off-screen when the opponent is on the bottom (which is rare, but some people choose to put themselves on top).
• Made it so that asynchronously created games also have the opponent's name added to the serverName when the 2nd player joins.

Translations!

If you'd like to help us with translations, please head over to Roksten and offer to translate our projects into your native language! Our volunteer translators have helped bring these new translations to Simply Chess with this update:

• Added Spanish translation (thanks dani_as0!)
• Added Polish translation (thanks Ti_Ichigo from LiveCoding!)

Sales!

All of our games happen to be on sale right now (only the two-pack of Othello, not the single... for technical reasons). Check them out to make sure you have at least 3 and you can get Premium for free (see below): http://store.steampowered.com/search/?developer=BlueLine%20Games This includes 25% off of Simply Chess Premium... you can support our continued development of this game for ~$3.74 http://store.steampowered.com/app/451690/

Get "Simply Chess: Premium" for free!

Do you own some of our other games already? If you buy 3 or more of our games and you don't have Premium yet, when you play Simply Chess, you will be presented with a Steam Code for Simply Chess Premium as a way for us to say Thank You for being our loyal customer! UPDATE: The Steam Key appears when the game would otherwise show you a Cross Promotion, so it's not immedaite. Basically: finish 4 matches, then from the Main Menu, go to start another game and it should show up. So check out which games you already own, and maybe grab a couple more at STEEP discounts and maybe even get Premium for free! http://store.steampowered.com/search/?developer=BlueLine%20Games

[ 2016-11-12 20:14:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

Howdy! I haven't announced the updates in a while, I've just been pushing them quietly. Time to fix that so that you have a better idea of what to expect :)

• Bugfix: The buttons for the second-player in a Lobby had regressed to not be mouse-clickable anymore (hotkeys still worked). Thanks dani_as0 and bentley_maniac for the reports.
• Fixed regression that was causing log-spam of loading SDF fonts.
• Fixed it so the local player is always on bottom if there is only 1 local player (this was messed up in online games, previously... because we had assumed the local player was always Player 1).
• Pressing "F" in Pass-n-play mode now works. This allows (for example) to play against yourself and swap the board each move so you always play from the bottom perspective, etc..
• Fixed the occasional crash on Mac/Linux that occurred especially when entering the Online Game Menu screen very quickly after starting the program.
• Fixed a recently-developed crash when opening the Steam Overlay (eg: for Leaderboard or Achievements) in OSX.
• Fixed the case where you Leave a game during LoadingFromServer, then started another game (eg: local, or just a NEW online game) and the game thought it was still loading from server... forever.
• Fixed game-reconnections (if it says "Loading from game server..." at any point during a game, now it should succeed again. That was broken for a while... we just didn't notice because that only happens in weird cases anyway).
• Fixed the use-case where a host starts a game asynchronously with the opponent moving first, then a guest joins and makes a play, then the host would previously freeze in "Loading game from server...". Creating async games and having the opponent move should be fine now.
• Rewrote IAP to use DLC instead, which will eventually let people get card-drops, allows the game to show up in Steam Libraries, etc. This is a really complicated issue, but we think we're very close & we just need Valve to change one config setting for our app and we'll be all set.
• Added Condal Chess Set 2D skin to Premium version.
• Game warned "this game is rated" when forfeiting, even if it was not rated.
• Fixed a collection of crashes on OS X. Found the magical version of Mono that we needed (it turns out that a rather old version of Mono seems to work the most consistently across all common versions of OS X). This was fairly urgent for Mac users so we just pushed it out the moment we found out it was working for all testers. That's one of the reasons that I didn't make a single clean "release" with an announcement. Sorry for the delayed announcement! ^_^;

We have several other things in the works including translation, one unreleased fix (it says "Local Multiplayer" on the top of the "Online Multiplayer" lobby), etc.. Stay tuned :) Oh yeah, here's where you can get the Premium version (which isn't as useful until we get those card-drops working, but we appreciate the support if you want to grab it now, anyway!): http://store.steampowered.com/app/451690/

[ 2016-07-05 20:28:23 CET ] [ Original post ]

Howdy! I haven't announced the updates in a while, I've just been pushing them quietly. Time to fix that so that you have a better idea of what to expect :)

• Bugfix: The buttons for the second-player in a Lobby had regressed to not be mouse-clickable anymore (hotkeys still worked). Thanks dani_as0 and bentley_maniac for the reports.
• Fixed regression that was causing log-spam of loading SDF fonts.
• Fixed it so the local player is always on bottom if there is only 1 local player (this was messed up in online games, previously... because we had assumed the local player was always Player 1).
• Pressing "F" in Pass-n-play mode now works. This allows (for example) to play against yourself and swap the board each move so you always play from the bottom perspective, etc..
• Fixed the occasional crash on Mac/Linux that occurred especially when entering the Online Game Menu screen very quickly after starting the program.
• Fixed a recently-developed crash when opening the Steam Overlay (eg: for Leaderboard or Achievements) in OSX.
• Fixed the case where you Leave a game during LoadingFromServer, then started another game (eg: local, or just a NEW online game) and the game thought it was still loading from server... forever.
• Fixed game-reconnections (if it says "Loading from game server..." at any point during a game, now it should succeed again. That was broken for a while... we just didn't notice because that only happens in weird cases anyway).
• Fixed the use-case where a host starts a game asynchronously with the opponent moving first, then a guest joins and makes a play, then the host would previously freeze in "Loading game from server...". Creating async games and having the opponent move should be fine now.
• Rewrote IAP to use DLC instead, which will eventually let people get card-drops, allows the game to show up in Steam Libraries, etc. This is a really complicated issue, but we think we're very close & we just need Valve to change one config setting for our app and we'll be all set.
• Added Condal Chess Set 2D skin to Premium version.
• Game warned "this game is rated" when forfeiting, even if it was not rated.
• Fixed a collection of crashes on OS X. Found the magical version of Mono that we needed (it turns out that a rather old version of Mono seems to work the most consistently across all common versions of OS X). This was fairly urgent for Mac users so we just pushed it out the moment we found out it was working for all testers. That's one of the reasons that I didn't make a single clean "release" with an announcement. Sorry for the delayed announcement! ^_^;

We have several other things in the works including translation, one unreleased fix (it says "Local Multiplayer" on the top of the "Online Multiplayer" lobby), etc.. Stay tuned :) Oh yeah, here's where you can get the Premium version (which isn't as useful until we get those card-drops working, but we appreciate the support if you want to grab it now, anyway!): http://store.steampowered.com/app/451690/

[ 2016-07-05 20:21:55 CET ] [ Original post ]

We've given a round of polish to the game, and pushed that update to Windows, Mac, and Linux. Some fixes:

• Fixed some really bad edge-cases that were caused by playing an online async game, then leaving it, then finishing a local game in the same run of the program. Yikes. This affected level-unlocking in Simply Chess and in all games had the potential to result in some games being ended prematurely.
• Removed old HUD images. This just makes the size of the game on your computer smaller.
• Fixed the game's icon to show up on the window (was already fixed in Windows, but I'm not sure when). This release fixes it on Mac & Linux also.

Since the last release of Simply Chess, we finished our re-write of our entire font rendering system to use a more scalable system. On users with huge high-resolution monitors, they should now be able to see the fonts as clearly as someone with a standard monitor. The new system is "Signed Distance Fields". For the curious, here is a youtube video that shows the general way in which they work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGZRHJvJYIg This change also allowed us to completely re-write how string-measurement works. After a ton of obsessing over the details, you'll notice that now, text is centered better in several spots in the app, and the Chat box looks less wonky. This is all due to being able to measure text much more accurately.

[ 2015-12-15 18:58:10 CET ] [ Original post ]

We've given a round of polish to the game, and pushed that update to Windows, Mac, and Linux. Some fixes:

• Fixed some really bad edge-cases that were caused by playing an online async game, then leaving it, then finishing a local game in the same run of the program. Yikes. This affected level-unlocking in Simply Chess and in all games had the potential to result in some games being ended prematurely.
• Removed old HUD images. This just makes the size of the game on your computer smaller.
• Fixed the game's icon to show up on the window (was already fixed in Windows, but I'm not sure when). This release fixes it on Mac & Linux also.

Since the last release of Simply Chess, we finished our re-write of our entire font rendering system to use a more scalable system. On users with huge high-resolution monitors, they should now be able to see the fonts as clearly as someone with a standard monitor. The new system is "Signed Distance Fields". For the curious, here is a youtube video that shows the general way in which they work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGZRHJvJYIg This change also allowed us to completely re-write how string-measurement works. After a ton of obsessing over the details, you'll notice that now, text is centered better in several spots in the app, and the Chat box looks less wonky. This is all due to being able to measure text much more accurately.

[ 2015-12-15 18:58:10 CET ] [ Original post ]

It's been a month since our last big release, so we've done a batch of bug-fixes and other improvements! We're also knocking down the cost of Premium to $3.99 for a short time (I haven't decided how long). Grab it now! :) UPDATE 20151027: These changes are now on Windows, Mac, and Linux instead of just Windows like they were last night. Here are a bunch of fixes we've done!

• New HUD! We noticed that the old HUD would occasionally cause people to think that they were the opposite color than what they really were. This was partially because the OPPONENT's captured pieces were on your own HUD. The new HUD makes that much less ambiguous and it also encapsulates the turn-timer which was previously just kind of thrown onto the screen.
• Elo Ratings changes can't be "re-played" by clicking on a Steam Notification from a finished game and re-loading the endgame anymore.
• Fixed the layout of the belated BLC-signup dialog.
• Cross-promotion tool that shows other BlueLine games can now detect Steam sales and show the discount percentage.
• Additional fixes for Intel HD Graphics cards.
• Smaller log-file
• Better displaying of names with apostrophes in them, in the Online Game Menu String.
• Fixed a rare potential crash from leaving the Online Game Menu Screen running.
• Added a visible menu button to the game. This improves mouse-only accessibility. See below...

Accessibility

To make it so that a game can be played by as many people as possible, it's important to make games accept a wide variety of input. You can currently play Simply Chess with Keyboard, Mouse, or GamePad... and any mixture of those. Prior to this release, we had a shortcoming that there was no way to pull up the in-game menu using just the mouse. This meant that mouse-only users (such as those that you Speech Recognition) would have to close the entire app each time they finished a game. That's got to be really annoying, so we fixed it. Since accessibility is a fairly easy thing, that BlueLine is trying to get more game developers to put some time into... we Streamed the processes of adding this menu button (and talked about accessibility while doing it). The stream was on http://twitch.tv/bluelinegames and now that it's over, the video is up on youtube, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjYFJkvg9-s&t=28s Here is a bonus-pretzel since you're a BlueLine player... inside info is that Hive is 75%-77% off of various packages for a few more days! http://store.steampowered.com/app/251210/

[ 2015-10-27 00:50:57 CET ] [ Original post ]

It's been a month since our last big release, so we've done a batch of bug-fixes and other improvements! We're also knocking down the cost of Premium to $3.99 for a short time (I haven't decided how long). Grab it now! :) UPDATE 20151027: These changes are now on Windows, Mac, and Linux instead of just Windows like they were last night. Here are a bunch of fixes we've done!

• New HUD! We noticed that the old HUD would occasionally cause people to think that they were the opposite color than what they really were. This was partially because the OPPONENT's captured pieces were on your own HUD. The new HUD makes that much less ambiguous and it also encapsulates the turn-timer which was previously just kind of thrown onto the screen.
• Elo Ratings changes can't be "re-played" by clicking on a Steam Notification from a finished game and re-loading the endgame anymore.
• Fixed the layout of the belated BLC-signup dialog.
• Cross-promotion tool that shows other BlueLine games can now detect Steam sales and show the discount percentage.
• Additional fixes for Intel HD Graphics cards.
• Smaller log-file
• Better displaying of names with apostrophes in them, in the Online Game Menu String.
• Fixed a rare potential crash from leaving the Online Game Menu Screen running.
• Added a visible menu button to the game. This improves mouse-only accessibility. See below...

Accessibility

To make it so that a game can be played by as many people as possible, it's important to make games accept a wide variety of input. You can currently play Simply Chess with Keyboard, Mouse, or GamePad... and any mixture of those. Prior to this release, we had a shortcoming that there was no way to pull up the in-game menu using just the mouse. This meant that mouse-only users (such as those that you Speech Recognition) would have to close the entire app each time they finished a game. That's got to be really annoying, so we fixed it. Since accessibility is a fairly easy thing, that BlueLine is trying to get more game developers to put some time into... we Streamed the processes of adding this menu button (and talked about accessibility while doing it). The stream was on http://twitch.tv/bluelinegames and now that it's over, the video is up on youtube, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjYFJkvg9-s&t=28s Here is a bonus-pretzel since you're a BlueLine player... inside info is that Hive is 75%-77% off of various packages for a few more days! http://store.steampowered.com/app/251210/

[ 2015-10-27 00:50:57 CET ] [ Original post ]

We've been pushing more updates and there were some good ones in this batch. These are on Windows for now, but will go to Linux/Mac on the next push there.

• If someone owns all 3 of our other games, they will get a Thank You message and they will be upgraded to Premium for free and won't see the cross-promotions.
• Made a limit so that you can never see more than 1 cross-promo in 10 minutes. This way, if someone likes to play against the AI and test out openings, quit, and try them again... they won't be hammered with cross-promos before each time they go back.
• Bugfix: There were some board-flipping issues if users pressed "F" in one game, then in subsequent games during the same session, some things could be messed up (they could not click correctly sometimes).
• Quieted down a BlueLine Cloud error message that would show up on flaky connections but which didn't really matter (only some requests were getting dropped). Now that error (dropped connection) has to happen 4 times in a row, without a successful request, before the error starts being shown.
• Bugfix: Audio track was glitching out. Fixxxed.

The audio thing was kind of interesting, we kept looking for a way to trigger an error in our audio system by playing lots of sounds at once, etc... but it turns out that it was just an audio program had converted that specific song incorrectly and the actual .wav was bugged out 4:45 into the song. With a lot of songs, it just took us a while to run into the same song 4:45 in. We run the game hundreds of times per day, but we often open it, check something, and close it... so it wasn't until I was just playing a normal game with the music on that I noticed what was wrong. Anywho.. just a fun/random game-dev note. We've been looking into the Stats issues and trying to shore up Elo Ratings, but it's being a bit tricky. We also still have to figure out how to get Trading Cards hopping. Hopefully more to come soon on both of those fronts.

[ 2015-09-28 15:48:14 CET ] [ Original post ]

It's only been a few days since our last announcement, but we've been gettin' down to bizniss. Linux & OSX were just updated to match Windows, so all three platforms should have everything mentioned in this list (and everything in earlier announcements):

• Accessibility: ran through the whole game and made sure Controller Support would work everywhere (we streamed a lot of this, then put it on youtube).
• Accessibility: ran through the whole game and made sure Keyboard-only Support would work everywhere (we streamed a lot of this, then put it on youtube).
• The Pawn Promotion dialog was hard to see in the 2D Monochrome skin if you were promoting a Black pawn. Now the pieces have an opposite-colored background behind them.
• Made the App Settings dialog less ugly (it had like 3 different background colors, and 2 font colors that were left over from other games).
• The Audio wasn't going through it's playlist properly before, so a song would just repeat until you pause/unpause. It's supposed to cycle through them all, and now it does.
• Audio was glitching out after a while. We think this is fixed, but it's hard to prove that something that occasionally happened isn't happening... so if you see it (hear it?) again after this update, please let us know!
• Bugfix: there were cases where the Turn Timer would show up in offline games if you had played an online game just before that (without closing the game).
• When people try to upgrade without Steam open, or with the Overlay disabled, it wouldn't work, but it also wouldn't give very helpful explanations. Now there are good explanation dialogs (you need Steam open and the Overlay enabled to use Steam's Microtransactions, btw).
• Fixed the HUDs so that when black is on the bottom, the gamer pictures (avatars) still line up properly.
• Bugfix: The text on the HUD that says whose turn it is would disappear when you clicked on a piece, and would often not be there on the first turn of the game. Fixxxed.
• Fixed some infinite-loop-support in Audio library.
• Made the turn-indicator text more descriptive (less confusing). So instead of just saying "It's your turn" on the correct player's HUD. It'll say something like "waiting for opponent..." for an online game, "waiting for computer..." against the AI, and if there are 2 people playing on the same computer it'll say "White's Turn" or "Black's Turn"... all of these messages still appear in the same spot on the active player's HUD.
• Added options for 3 Minute turn timeout and 5 minute turn timeout since we had a lot of people thinking that 1 minute or 10 minutes was way too big of a gap.

We've been pushing really hard to take care of a ton of issues and are finally getting to a really stable spot that we're proud of. We have a handful of fixes left (mainly around getting Elo ratings and stats to be more dependable) and then the updates will hopefully slow down a bit. Thanks to everyone for all of the suggestions & bug reports! Tell your friends to play Simply Chess! :D - Sean

[ 2015-09-25 18:39:58 CET ] [ Original post ]

Mostly Polish though. I wouldn't spit on your Chess, that's gross. You can actually watch several of these fixes in-progress in the past-broadcasts section of our Twitch channel or on our YouTube channel: Streaming playlist. Here's what's new in Windows since the last release:

• We now show the turn timer in the game. Thanks to every player and also their mothers, cousins, and some random people on the street for reporting this... twice.
• Geoff solved a ton of graphics card issues. If the game was not working for you at all before, and now it's working... that was probably his fault.
• We added a "Forfeit" option because winners never quit... but sometimes losers want to lose faster. ːsteammockingː I kid... this one was as overdue as the timer being shown on-screen.
• Fixed the contrast on the default 3D chess set. You should be able to see the pieces better now & they probably look more like actual wood.
• The levelUp.wav sound (like super-loud windchimes) has been decreased 15db so it doesn't freak people out anymore ;) thanks to user Toadofsky for pointing it out
• Some people were getting confused with why their game ended in a "Draw" so we've changed the game to understand what caused the game to end & we'll show "Stalemate", "Draw by Insufficient Material", etc.. That should at least give people a good idea what to look at in the Rules if they're confused.
• Found that the 50 Move Rule was implemented more like the 25 Move Rule. Most likely nobody hit this (because that's still 50 half-moves which is a lot) but we noticed it in the code & fixed it to match the official rules. We also corrected our Rules page to reflect the change.
• Fixed some issues where castling was allowed twice in the same game in certain situations. Thanks to user "Bears" for reporting this.
• When reconnecting to an online async game, if there had been a Check at any point in the game, it would say "Check" when it reloaded the game. Now it only says that if the last move is ACTUALLY putting someone in Check. Thanks to user n0v0leg for reporting this.
• Some games would crash when reloading from Steam Notifications... and we would crash a decent amount on our test-environment because it's different.... all related to a race-condition. Fixed this.
• The window was opening up off-center, especially too far to the left or the top which made it annoyingly hard to move the window. It was also in a weird spot when returning from fullscreen. It should be centered again.
• The TurnTimeout value is now "sticky" like several other options. That means if you set it to 1 Minute turns, the next time you try to create a game, that will be the default so that you don't have to constantly click around to get to your favorite mode.
• Fixed some memory leaks in our Animation engine and our Online Game Menu Screen (OGMS). This has been around for a while but never mattered until someone hung out in our Online Game Menu Screen (which is actually quite busy in Simply Chess) and their memory just ballooned until they crashed. This helped us find it, so now the game will not be just randomly wasting memory & shouldn't crash if you hang out in the OGMS. Thanks to user ProCommando for reporting this.
• Some accessibility stuff.. but we're not done with it, so I'm not going to announce it yet :P if you watched the stream, you probably know what I'm talking about. Almost done!

Man, I feel like dropping the mic after that list. ...but I should actually just get back to work :P Mac & Linux are up to date with the PREVIOUS announcement (since later that day), but this batch of fixes we've just pushed to Windows so far... we've been pushing updates after every couple of fixes (meaning: this didn't ALL just get pushed out tonight). We'll be releasing all of these things on Mac/Linux shortly (and we have a Linux-specific bug w/the AI on some computers, that we still have to try to solve). Oh, one more thing: if you gave a negative review to the game because of any of the things that we've now fixed, we'd appreciate it if you update the review to be current (even if you still think we suck). Thanks! Thanks to everyone who is playing Simply Chess!! Even though it hasn't made enough $ to pay for its own trailer yet (close though, lol), it's still by faaaaaaaaaaaar our most-played game with OVER 100,000 DOWNLOADS! We really appreciate your support! ːsteamhappyː

[ 2015-09-23 00:54:03 CET ] [ Original post ]

Geoff was able to do serious surgery to figure out what was going wrong on Intel HD Graphics cards & rewrote our engine to work around it. The fix went out about an hour ago (for Windows). The Runtime Error bug on startup should be solved for all players now... same goes for seeing just a black/white/blue screen! :) if you had the issue, let us know if the update solved it for you. We also had a few other small fixes go out since yesterday's updates:

• The default Turn Timeout will be 10 Minutes instead of 7 Days. This is just a default though, so you can still choose any of the options.
• Made the ratings show up on the hud (they were the same color as the background before)
• Re-positioned the Chat buttons to not overlap the HUD backgrounds & be centered better
• Verified that the "Dark Horse" achievement is granting, then updated the wording on the achievement to be clearer. Both players must be fully (non-provisionally) ranked.

These changes are windows-only since they all happened after the multiplatform release yesterday afternoon... we'll try to keep Linux/Mac builds following closely behind though, so we probably won't even announce when we push these for Linux/Mac, but you'll see the little fixes show up. Thanks for playing Simply Chess & for all of the continued support! ːsteamhappyː this has been an exciting ride!

[ 2015-09-17 15:47:11 CET ] [ Original post ]

We just got Mac & Linux back up to parity with Windows! That means this update gives them all the fixes below, plus everything listed in the previous two updates (here & here). Fixes:

• We fixed the "upgrade" process for foreign users. There were exchange rate issues. Before, it was always "4.99" in local currency. This was fine for some people and a ton of Russians got to upgrade for the equivalent of 7.4 cents :) [don't worry, you get to keep that upgrade]...but it was a bad bug for people in Indonesia and Japan because the conversion was SO low that Steam wouldn't process it (it was less than 0.01). Should work for everyone now!
• There was an error that would pop up in the case where one player moved a pawn forward 2 spaces, then the other player immediately did a Pawn Promotion or Castled. ^_^ ...the fact that people were able to give us such great bug reports on this so quickly is a huge benefit of having 80,000 players!

Thanks to everyone for playing & for all of the support! :D If you like our game, please rate it in Steam also. We've been getting several bad ratings from people who don't like that we made the game free (w/Cross Promotion & Premium Upgrade) and wanted this to be a for-pay game instead. If you like that the game is free, give us a review and make your voice heard! :) And lastly, I can't thank you enough for all of the great support & all of the detailed bug-reports we've been getting over the past few days since launch!! There are sooo many of you and you've hit so many bugs that we never ran into during testing, but with all of the help from the community, we've been able to get through almost all of the big issues & will be able to keep making great progress. Thanks so much for joining us for the ride!!! :D

[ 2015-09-16 21:02:51 CET ] [ Original post ]

This is a follow-up to our first batch of bugfixes.

Fixes

These fixes are still only Windows for now (we're panicing and fixing all of the urgent stuff, then we'll rebuild Linux & Mac... the rebuilding got blocked by a compiler error in Mono that's going to take some cleverness to work around... those updates should happen this week too, though). Fixes in this update:

• BLACK CAN BE ON THE BOTTOM NOW! Player 1 starts out on the bottom regardless of color now. If you're the only person on your computer... you're player1.
• If you don't like the default side (player1 on bottom) you can now press "F" to flip the board sides.
• Did you know that you can press "D" to switch between 2D/3D? I hadn't written that in the Advanced Controls section before, but it's been in the game ;)
• There was an error with threat-detection (knowing when a King is in Check) related to pawns needing to move 2 spaces to block a Check. Thanks to some screenshots from users, we were able to fix this up quickly :)
• The music-volume would go back to full when you restarted the game even if you'd turned it down before. Now it will correctly remember the setting across sessions.
• Mojoshader.dll was crashing on startup for some people. This was a dependency issue in the installer & we've fixed it.
• The board-spaces were backwards on the 3D Bauhaus board (eg: light square always goes under white's kingside rook)... now it's right.

Next up!

• The game is still crashing on startup for certain graphics cards. This is really 2 problems: 1) it should be selecting your better graphics card 2) it should work on Intel HD graphics even if you don't have a better card. Working on it!
• We gotta get Mac & Linux up to speed at some point.
• More random bugs
• Later this week we'll try to figure out a way to make the card to Steam Trading Card drops (apparently, this doesn't normally happen until you spend $9 on a game... we don't have a way for you to spend $9 yet, since the Premium version is only $4.99).
• Some PC Master Race people have been really upset about ads (cross promotions for our 3 other Steam games) in free games... they want hats or something. ...or paid Chess Sets (which we were hoping to do for free)... we're thinking about it. Bugs are more urgent than making money off of this though... so we're fixing bugs first, then we'll figure this out. The game has only been out 3 days and we're scrambling to fix issues that the 70,000 of you found... we will definitely think more about monetization stuff when things calm down. Thanks for your patience & understanding!

I'll try to respond to forums when I can... I've been spending way too many hours though... so hopefully I'll get faster. I get to most threads eventually! Thank you to everyone who plays!! :D

[ 2015-09-14 21:09:35 CET ] [ Original post ]

Thank you all for giving this game a try! ...I was never expecting this level of involvement. In just over 1 day there are more than 5x the downloads that our most popular game Hive had gotten. Here's the first batch of bugfixes (lots more to come!):

• Last night, the Online Game menu was lagging for a while because we were trying to repeatedly re-generate the list of 1,912 in-progress games!! Needless to say, I've never stress-tested it to that level ;) Now you'll see open lobbies, games you're a member of, and then the most-recent 150 in-progress games that you're not a member of.
• Durp... actually made the leaderboard show up on Steam. You need 15 ranked games to get onto the list.

We support all 3 platforms & will try to keep them in sync. There is a compiler issue with Mono that's blocking the Linux/OSX builds for now, and everything is crazy, so I'm frantically patching Windows for now (vast majority of users are there) and then will try to get Linux/Mac up to the same codebase early this week. Sorry for the divergence! It's just a little crazy right now. Windows only (so far):

• The upgrade wasn't explained before, if you chose it from the main menu. Now it tells you what the upgrade does.
• The BlueLine Cloud Signup Dialog had huge text.
• Rematch functionality has a ton of edge-cases so we took the button out (took this out on Windows right before launch). It's only a problem when both users have the button & hit it at the same time, so it's not too dangerous unless Linux & Mac users are playing each other right now & both hit Rematch really quickly.

I spent 5.5 hours yesterday going through the forum, so I have a HUGE list of bug-reports and tweaks coming up (yes, we'll let you have Black be on the bottom when you're black ;) )... will push updates as fast as I can. In the meantime, I'm sorry if I don't answer forum posts quickly... I'm usually on top of that, but this game might have so many users that I'll never be able to catch up? Please help each other on the forums as much as possible and I'll definitely be in there tonight after I have a few of the most important bugfixes solved. PS: I still didn't fix the currency-conversion, so you can get the upgrade for 499 of whatever your currency is... might want to grab the Premium while it's still $0.07 in Rubles, lol ;) Thanks again everyone for playing! :D :D we're really feeling the love!

[ 2015-09-13 15:16:28 CET ] [ Original post ]