Hello royals! Thank you for your patience on this one. There were a lot of bug reports in the last two weeks, thanks for that, it really helps us fixing them! Most of them were pretty minor, and some were more annoying. In particular we're really sorry about the issues that some Steam Deck and gamepad users encountered, some of which were pretty bad. We unfortunately do not have a Steam Deck ourselves to test the game, and the core of our community plays with mouse and keyboard, so we're low on controller-playing feedback. Nonetheless, we did our best to fix all the issues that were reported, including the ones specific to Steam Deck and controller support. Please let us know how we did! On top of all these fixes, we also added a new thing that was requested on our Discord server: each individual shotgun now tracks the best rank you've won with it! We were not saving this progress before this patch, so you'll have to win at least one run to see it in action, but we hope it'll motivate you to play the game with the shotguns you don't usually pick up! And finally, this patch brings two new languages to the game: Italian and Barzilian Portuguese! Thank you to Primo Vinicio Calabrese and Emerson P. Machado respectively for making the game accessible to even more people! Here is the full changelog:

• [NEW] You can now track your best rank won on each shotgun in Throne mode
• [LOCA] Added Italian and Portuguese localizations!
• [BALANCE] Rooks can no longer protect the king with Castle when stunned
• [BUGFIX] Tentative fix for a bug on controllers where the right stick stops responding
• [BUGFIX] Fixed a bug on controllers where confirming your first move would send you to inspect your cards
• [BUGFIX] Move squares no longer flash at the start of your turn if you're holding right stick
• [BUGFIX] First choice on level ups no longer flashes when the appearing animation ends
• [BUGFIX] Fixed a bug where receiving ammo at the same time as you reloaded
• [BUGFIX] Further refined arrow folly shield detection
• [BUGFIX] Tentative fix for a bug where arrows kill you when they hit the square you just moved from
• [BUGFIX] Prevented level up screen duplication
• [BUGFIX] Bleeding buffs every separate shot from Unjust Decree
• [BUGFIX] Force-feeding now properly capped to 8 shells, even with Yvan IV
• [BUGFIX] Fixed piece %hp bonuses
• [BUGFIX] Mausoleum now gets the leader tag as intended
• [BUGFIX] Castle, Theocracy, Commoner's Reign, and Heir cards now all get the leader tag
• [BUGFIX] Can no longer get sanctified bishops' souls with the Wand of Souls
• [BUGFIX] Extra kings now get leader bonuses during the boss battle
• [BUGFIX] Removed irrelevent delay after white piece moves when there is no bow and arrows
• [BUGFIX] Vampire boss king can now properly suck the blood off the pieces surrounding it on all sides
• [BUGFIX] Codex back button now always shows above card descriptions
• [BUGFIX] Black Mist should no longer move you into arrows
• [BUGFIX] Fixed a bug where some achievement-tracking stats were not properly reset on hitting try again on the gameover
• [BUGFIX] Kite Shields now properly block and get used up by rats and taunting hops
• [BUGFIX] Castling now properly protects the king from rats and taunting hops
• [BUGFIX] Seer's Orb no longer lets you cycle through a piece's options
• [BUGFIX] Grenades will now always trigger Castle before doing damage to any pieces
• [BUGFIX] Castling now protects the king from bleeding
• [BUGFIX] Ambush no longer gets the grenade tag
• [BUGFIX] Fixed the Humiliation achievement so that it only triggers when killing a king by hopping on him
• [BUGFIX] You can now use grenades again right after refilling them with a disruption effect
• [BUGFIX] Can no longer shoot after resigning while being stuck in Analysis Paralysis
• [BUGFIX] Mangonels won't show the targetting line if they're not about to attack because of Selective Listening
• [BUGFIX] Unicorns no longer charge you if you're in stealth mode
• [BUGFIX] Plural forms of words now properly reset when switching languages
• [BUGFIX] Fixed a bug that prevented Sokoban rooks from trying to push you
• [BUGFIX] Folly shields now detect Sokoban rooks who can push you off the board
• [BUGFIX] Fixed a bug where Sokoban rooks or the pieces they push wouldn't fully register as going to their destination if the piece previously at that destination was just pushed off the board, resulting in other pieces being able to move to that same destination and stacking with the piece that just got there
• [LANG] The Royal Hunt's description now mentions the shooting speed increment on stack
• [LANG] Low-Cost Disguise's description now says "when a pawn dies" instead of "when you kill a pawn"

Thank you all for the support! Long live the Shotgun King! -PUNKCAKE Dlicieux

[ 2024-10-15 15:17:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi royals! Thanks to everyone who reported bugs on our Discord! We did a first quickpatch on Tuesday to fix one hard crash and instances of the game crashing on launch on Linux and Mac. Now we take care of the more minor stuff. Here's the changelog for this one!

• [BUGFIX] Elusive now works properly with pieces than are blocked
• [BUGFIX] Pieces no longer update their move timer while they're stunned
• [BUGFIX] Only the first rat hitting a bleeding piece during the same turn gets the bleed bonus
• [BUGFIX] No more double sound on pause exit
• [BUGFIX] Stun now transfers to morphing pieces
• [BUGFIX] Adjusted deepwater description (Knight can't attack from moat)
• [BUGFIX] Commoner's Reign now adds a knight to the white army
• [BUGFIX] Sokoban rooks can't push leaders anymore
• [BUGFIX] False Kings morph to knight AFTER bouncing back to board with Bouncy Castle
• [BUGFIX] Monarch's Confidence doesn't give negative firepower for overfed shotgun anymore
• [BUGFIX] Triggering Spy with Black Mist won't result in multiple disrupt panels and deafening sound
• [BUGFIX] Militia is now properly removed from pawn when sabotaged
• [BUGFIX] Seer's Orb attack target is now updated after holoking's death
• [BUGFIX] Humiliation achievement is now fixed
• [BUGFIX] Finer arrow detection for folly shields
• [BUGFIX] Lifting the Seer's Orb's target with King's Shoulders now sends the Seer's Orb to some other piece

As usual, thank you all for the love and support! We hope you're enjoying the new content! -PUNKCAKE Dlicieux

[ 2024-10-03 12:53:56 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello royals, We hope you had a good summer! We spent much of our own summer working on this update, beta-testing it, fixing it, and localizing it. It was so much work that it's coming a little later than we previously anticipated, but no matter, it is here now! Some highlights from this big update: new improved AI, 2 new shotguns, improved controller and Steam Deck support, 27 new achievements, and 43 new cards with brand new mechanics, such as pushing pieces off the board, new grenades, new stealth tactics, the Seer's Orb, re-rolling cards, unicorns, mangonels... and much, much more. Plus we're also adding three new localizations: Dutch, Romanian, and Vietnamese! These were done on a voluntary basis, and so we thank Thijmen Zuiderwijk, Etilon and Phm c Minh for translating and testing the game in these languages. All the previously existing translations were also updated, with the exception of German but we do have a translator working on it and so we expect to update the game's german localization very soon. Before I leave you with the cumulative changelog for this update (cumulative from all 23 of the beta versions that we put out in the last two months!) here is a brand new trailer we made with the newest version of the game, and with the work of our newest recruit, Julia, who is now making illustrations for us! (the queen illustration above is from her also!) [previewyoutube=Kpnp4YPHYI0;full][/previewyoutube] Here is the changelog:

• [NEW] +43 cards
• [NEW] +2 shotguns
• [NEW] added 4 disruption effects
• [NEW] improved AI
• [NEW] 27 new achievements!
• [NEW] Added new Dutch, Romanian and Vietnamese localizations!
• [GAMEPAD] Fixed, improved and updated controller and Steam Deck support
• [GAMEPAD] New inspection controls for controllers and Steam Deck
• [BALANCE] knockback can now push pieces off of the board
• [BALANCE] Force-feeding also gives +1 firepower while your gun is full, +1 ammo bonus removed
• [BALANCE] +100% Knockback on Imperial Shot Put
• [BALANCE] Analysis Paralysis now lets you recycle cards
• [BALANCE] Iron queen now removes a queen (need 2+ queens to spawn)
• [BALANCE] Throwing grenades doesn't spend a turn anymore and their damage is increased to 3
• [BALANCE] Kingly Alms only gives 1 grenade now
• [BALANCE] Bunker, Throne, Hunt, Buckler and Dagger now work on any leader
• [BALANCE] Guillotine and cards mentioning leaders are now excluding each others
• [BALANCE] Caltrops now has 10% chance to inflict bleeding on moving pieces and bleeding pieces lose 1 speed
• [BALANCE] Caltrops doesn't delay backup cards anymore
• [BALANCE] Kingly alms now inflict +2 dmg on center square
• [BALANCE] Small Fry Harvest now have +1 blade instead of +1 ammo_max
• [BALANCE] Healers now heal poison and bleeding
• [BALANCE] Saddle doesn't need Cavalry anymore
• [BALANCE] Jump from Taunting Hop is now a stat you can stack. You have to choose different targets for each jump on a single turn.
• [BALANCE] Disrupt effect Stab now only works on king (invisible if no king on board)
• [BALANCE] Engraved Scope now has search +1
• [BALANCE] Theocracy now needs 2 bishops to spawn
• [BALANCE] Wand of Wrath can't be used on leaders in general instead of just kings
• [BALANCE] Black Mist may bring you unexpected opportunities
• [BALANCE] AI now has difficulty levels which increase at ranks 4 and 10
• [UI] new interface for disruption effects (undercover mission)
• [UI] All temporary bonus/malus to firerange/firepower/fire arc now display in white/red
• [UI] Changed wand selection instructions and FX
• [UI] Fright range now displayed in left panel
• [UI] Wand selection now lets you see target hp
• [ERGO] Can now speed through the gameover animation after resigning by clicking anywhere
• [BUGFIX] pikes now work through moat
• [BUGFIX] Added a reset stats button in the codex
• [BUGFIX] Pieces with no possible actions will no longer shake
• [BUGFIX] grenade icon is now hidden when no grenade available
• [BUGFIX] Flipping Secret Heir now works properly
• [BUGFIX] Codex now displays achievements and completion correctly
• [BUGFIX] Healer can't heal allies above hp_max anymore
• [BUGFIX] Ammunition Depot rooks will now properly give you free ammo when they die, whatever the cause of death
• [BUGFIX] Re-fixed Fool Companion spawning requirements
• [BUGFIX] Lifting the last piece with king's shoulders does not end the level anymore
• [BUGFIX] Pieces now take full damage before knockback is applied
• [BUGFIX] Fixed pluralization of pieces on a few card descriptions
• [BUGFIX] Iron pieces no longer look like regular pieces when held with King's Shoulders
• [BUGFIX] Messages announcing backups now use the localized version of the card names
• [BUGFIX] Strafe shots now use parameters from before moving
• [BUGFIX] Killing the last leader with bushido while holding a piece no longer results in a soft lock
• [LANG] Corrected and modified some texts
• [LANG] Replaced all instances of "bullets" with "pellets" which should be less confusing in all cases
• [LANG] Ensured card effects will always be described in the same order
• [LANG] Updated the French, Spanish, Ukrainian, Polish, Russian, Korean, Chinese, Japanese and Catalan translations!

Thank you all for your support, we hope you enjoy the update! Have a lovely week, long live the Shotgun King! -PUNKCAKE Dlicieux

[ 2024-09-30 20:01:38 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello royals! Earlier this year we announced we would update Shotgun King over the summer. Well, we've been working on it! We already have a few small spoilers for you and the outlines of a timeline! Note that all these spoilers were posted on our Discord server over the last few weeks! If you want to see the next ones before everyone else, then that's definitely the place to be! [hr][/hr]
Say what you will about pawns, the white king sure has a way to inspire them, and to avoid the quick death they deserve for stealing your kingdom! Better practice some good old social distancing with pawns whenever this card is in play!
I don't know about you but I'm a big fan of trebuchets, even the word is nice. And what better way to transform any old battlefield into a frantic dancefloor! Rooks simply weren't deadly enough!
But I don't want you thinking we're only adding things on the white side, so here's a brand new ability for our beloved and ever-so-clairvoyant black ruler: the Seer's Orb! Predict an enemy piece's next movement... and lock it down so you may safely move elsewhere!
Okay but let's come back to making the white side a bigger pain to deal with! Here's something fun! Remember when you were a kid and your ultimate strategy was to sweep all the pieces off the board with your arms in a fit of frustration because this f*cking game is so hard to play? Well it seems the white king was watching you from just under the kitchen table, and they made sure to take notes... Honestly, if this really was an illegal move, they would have invented a chessboard with little walls. Change my mind. You can't. Also yes, the white side is actually getting smarter, as in we're improving the AI. Hang tight.
And finally, we thought some whimsy couldn't hurt, so here's a unicorn! It's like a regular knight, but they have a horn and they just love ramming into black kings walking a little bit to close to the edge of the board! What wondrous magical beasts! Wait what's this? A new shipment of royal shotguns was delivered to the castle?! The delivery man will have to be shot for being late, dreadful but it's as fair as the King's justice gets. But look! It seems some new abilities are at hand!
Any idea what this shotgun might do? Let us know in the comments what you think, you might well give us some other ideas to implement too! I'll give you a clue though, this is our answer to something that's been complained about a fair bit ever since the game got on Steam! [hr][/hr] And that is all for the spoilers we've shared on Discord so far! So when is all this coming into your hands? We're hoping to have a beta phase starting sometime during the end of July, and then we're aiming to release the update proper during the second half of August! We're going to do our best to update all the localizations in time for August as well, but there may be a small delay, these things just take time sometimes. We were also made aware that the current Chinese localization is quite far from perfect, so we will try to get that looked into as well. If you're interested in joining the beta, it will be available right here on Steam, but please make sure you join us on Discord so we can tell you how to access it and you can tell us about any bugs and issues you might find! And if you have any friends who don't own the game yet but might be interested helping out with the beta, or simply playing a ridiculous version of chess, then let me point out this is a great time to pick up the game as it's 30% off for the Summer sales! And by the way so are most our other games, you should check them out they're pretty good too!! That's it for now! We hope you're excited for the coming update, we're having a lot of fun working on it so far! Thank you all for your support, see you soon, and long live the Shotgun King! -PUNKCAKE Dlicieux

[ 2024-06-28 19:03:59 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi everyone! This is a quick post to let you know we just added native MacOS and Linux support to all our games, including Shotgun King and 17 others! PSA: If you've already been playing on Linux with Proton you may have to disable Steam Play to be able to play the game now that we have native support. This is a Steam bug, unfortunately we cannot fix it, but we hope Steam takes care of it eventually! To celebrate the news, we're holding a sale for almost all our games with 20% or 25% off on each of them! Go here to see them! We've also reworked the various bundles grouping the games and made a few new ones. We're looking at fixing a few minor bugs in Shotgun King shortly, and maybe give modding some more love, then we'll have new games for May, June and July, and then the Shotgun King content update we promised you at the start of the year! Exciting stuff! Until then! We hope you're having a nice week! -PUNKCAKE Dlicieux

[ 2024-03-28 17:25:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi punks! Thank you all so much for the love since the 1.4 update dropped! It's really heartwarming to see all the new positive reviews, it makes us feel like you appreciate the work we put into all this, and it's a very nice feeling! Plus it's so cool to see the mods popping up on the Steam Workshop, we're thinking of highlighting some of them soon! There's been quite a few minor bugs reported since the update dropped. Thankfully it seems we did manage to fix the major stuff during the beta week, so that's nice. There was also some unfinished business on the modding side, so we took care of that too. The patch notes are quite long as a result, so we recommend wearing your reading glasses if you're really going to read all of it. (nerds) Here are the full patch notes for v1.41:

• [ERGO] You can now read mods' descriptions (or at least the start of it) in the mod menu.
• [LANG] Fixed a typo in Bloodless Coups' english description.
• [FIX] Fixed controller rumble not initializing correctly on launch.
• [FIX] Fixed some controls counting twice or too early for both mouse controls and gamepad.
• [FIX] The shotgun and rank menu arrows now light up red again.
• [FIX] Attempting to use blade on iron pieces now triggers a folly shield.
• [FIX] Restored mouse drag controls for King's Shoulders.
• [FIX] Analysis Paralysis now properly pauses the timer.
• [FIX] Mod menu buttons won't get misplaced anymore if you spam-click the arrows.
• [FIX] Fixed switch back to gamepad controls on game over when using a mouse and a gamepad is plugged in.
• [FIX] Fixed a bug on the level up screen where a choice's descriptions sometimes wouldn't go away if clicking too fast.
• [FIX] Cannonballs are no longer affected by Saddle.
• [FIX] Catalan language was added back.
• [FIX] In settings the back button will now translate every time the language is changed.
• [FIX] Mod menu buttons are now always drawn with the pixel font, showing the correct icons.
• [FIX] Fixed an issue with game mode descriptions when scrolling.
• [FIX] Title will no longer appear behind the play menu when coming back from the tutorial and mods are present.
• [FIX] Game will now switch back to the default language if a modded language was previously selected but is no longer available.
• [MODDING] Mods can now access mouse controls variables
• [MODDING] Both local and workshop versions of a same mod will now be loaded up.
• [MODDING] Made the mod menu's upload buttons a little nicer.
• [MODDING] If an upload fails it will now tell you why and also print the reason in the log.txt.
• [MODDING] 'run' function now allowed in mods to restart the game.
• [MODDING] Empty mods (no language, game modes nor script) will no longer be loaded up.
• [MODDING] Fixed append and prepend so that they wouldn't crash if multiple mods use them. (or any, in the case of prepend)
• [MODDING] Now properly allowing global variable replacement for a set of variable names. (check 'gimme("replaceable")')
• [MODDING] Mods can now use newbnk, bset, bget, and savbnk to safely save players' progress to a mod-specific save.
• [MODDING] Custom pieces can now have custom movement, custom attack, custom draw, and custom debris.
• [MODDING] Added "cond_only_pieces" in language keys.
• [MODDING] Replaced deprecated function table_from_file with quarentine_req and quarentine_req_env.
• [MODDING] Fixed unhelpful "Error in error handling" error message when a mod's code crashes the game.
• [MODDING] Added support for custom pieces' souls.
• [MODDING] Shotgun sprites are now mode-specific. (load your spritesheet in initialize())
• [MODDING] Fixed custom pieces effects not showing in card descriptions.
• [MODDING] Fixed the Saddle carry effect when applied to non-knight & non-rook pieces.
• [MODDING] Added piece properties nocarry and freelift, they can be given with custom cards.
• [MODDING] Added support for custom game mode scores.

We hope you keep enjoying the game! We'll be back with some more news soon! Have a lovely day! -PUNKCAKE Dlicieux

[ 2024-02-01 17:21:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi punks! It arrived a few hours later than anticipated but it is here! The Shotgun King update that finally brings:

• Controller support
• A scripted tutorial
• New art
• & Steam Workshop modding

To celebrate, Shotgun King is on a Daily Deal sale, with 30% off! We also encourage you to check out our brand new other game Super Algebrawl, which is also on sale for its launch, it came out just two days ago! It's been a hectic week for us between the Super Algebrawl release and the Shotgun King beta, so the SK update might not be entirely bug free yet. We'll keep working on it for a little bit until it is. There will be some more love given to the modding possibilities as well, though I would say there's already a lot work with! Thank you to everyone who helped test the beta this week, and a very special thanks to all the early modders who have been coping with the pretty big changes from the earlier modding support. They've been super lovely and helpful and about it and once again we find we couldn't wish for a nicer community than the one we have. We hope you appreciate the new update, and we hope you have fun with the mods! If you're interested in modding the game yourself, we will add more intructions directly on the Steam Workshop soon, but for now the best place to be is still our Discord where you'll find all the resources and help you need to get started! Thank you all for the support! Have a wonderful weekend and long live the Shotgun King! -PUNKCAKE Dlicieux

[ 2024-01-21 01:39:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi everyone! Happy new year! It's been a little while but we have some exciting news! For the first time since PUNKCAKE Dlicieux's creation in 2021, we have made a roadmap! It details our plans for 2024, including plans for 9 new games, and plans for 2 Shotgun King updates, the first of which is coming very soon: on the 20th of January! We invite you to take a look for yourself at our Seasonal Menu for more info:
Our new game Super Algebrawl is coming out on the 18th! It's a mathematical tactics puzzle RPG with a roguelite dimension about another lousy king using unfair powers (in this case the magic of mathematics; granted it's maybe a little less exciting than a shotgun) to reclaim their status! Wishlist it to get notified when it comes out! This is what it looks like:
We will be doing a short beta run for the first Shotgun King update starting on the 15th! If you're interested in helping us fix some bugs please join our Discord and opt into the beta when it's live! If you're interested in our other games and projects, then our Discord is also the place to be! You can come chat with us and other players, it's a good time! Thank you all for your support and see you very soon for that update! We wish you a beautiful year! -PUNKCAKE Dlicieux

[ 2024-01-09 14:07:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi everyone! Some quick patch notes for you! Last week we did a sneaky engine update on the game. The engine update fixed a game-launching crash that some people had, but unfortunately it also broke a few things inside the game. So then we quickly made a patch for the first few issues that were reported, and just now we uploaded a second patch that fixes some other issues that remained. Sorry about all this, the good news is that now the game should be even more stable than it was on v1.37! Here's the complete changelog for the two patches! v1.38 changelog:

• [ENGINE] Engine update
• [FIX] Fixed wrong arrow sprites shown around the Black King.
• [FIX] Fixed a random softlock with unjust decree + sawed-off justice.
• [SAVE] Added basic backup system for saves, so that the game can recover on its own if your save is corrupt for whatever reason.

v1.39 changelog:

• [FIX] Fixed a crash that happened when getting pushed back onto a pentagram or an undercover mission tile with Sawed-off Justice.
• [FIX] It's no longer possible to get back onto the last of three pentagrams before they're done resetting.
• [FIX] Fixed pawn souls not increasing damage with Cannon Fodder.
• [FIX] Folly shields will now properly activate in case of an unsafe point-blank kill or blade kill. (still won't save you from discovered checks though)
• [FIX] Cannonballs can no longer spawn on the same tile.

That's it for now! We hear you about bringing controller support and the console version's tutorial to PC, we're working on it! Have a great weekend, long live the shotgun king! -PUNKCAKE Dlicieux

[ 2023-09-08 17:31:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

[previewyoutube=D4XTwoAPs04;full][/previewyoutube] Hi everyone! Shotgun King just released on Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series! In case you missed our last announcement, the console version features a few extra things such as new art, a tutorial, in-game achievements, and lots of interface work to make it ideal to play with a controller! Our friends at Headbang Club did all this and we thing they did a really good job of it all! We're in talks with the other studio to see if we can port some of these new features back into the PC version, we'll let you know when we have news! In our last announcement we also said we were going to start releasing our backlog of games here on Steam. Well we are well on our way, with already 4 new games added to the roster in the last month! We even put them all in a nice bundle so that you can get them at a discount if you already own Shotgun King! We still have quite a few games to put on here, we plan to keep releasing them one per week for the coming few months! In the meantime we invite you once again to come to our Discord if you want to chat about Shotgun King or our other games! Or if you want to discover the small Shotgun King modding community which we're hosting there as well! Thank you for your love and support! We hope you enjoy Shotgun King on consoles and our other games here on Steam! Long live the Shotgun King! -PUNKCAKE Dlicieux

[ 2023-08-24 14:23:43 CET ] [ Original post ]

Chess fans and frustrated monarchs of all horizons, hear hear! We have a double announcement for you today! Both have been in preparation for quite a long while, so we hope you're as excited as we are. First, Shotgun King: The Final Checkmate is coming to Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series on August 24th!! This is all thanks to our friends at Headbang Club who did incredible work of adapting the game to both the technical and design exigencies of modern consoles, and with very little help from us. The game even has some brand new art, a new interface for consulting achievements directly in-game, new controls, some new localizations, and a tutorial which I personally did the writing for! (though they wouldn't let me put "horse fers" in there but that's ok) The result is super slick and professional and we can't wait for you to see it! Plus, I mean, who hasn't been wanting to play Shotgun King on the go with their Nintendo Switch, right? But that's not all, here comes the second announcement for you PC gamers! All our other games are coming to Steam, one every week, starting next Thursday! You may or may not know this but we actually make a lot of games! For half of 2021 and the better part of 2022 we made a new game every month, and we intend to do it again for the entirety of 2024! So we already have 14 games, only 2 of which are currently on Steam: Shotgun King and Moonpong. Well this is about to change! Our very first game Antecrypt is releasing here on Steam next week on Thursday the 3rd, with an updated Soundtrack as well as Steam achievements and Steam cloud support! And then every subsequent Thursday, another of our games will come out, until we completely run out sometime around 3 or 4 months from now! Though it's not complete you can see all the games that already have a Steam page here. And please check-out the new trailer for Antecrypt! It's a single-stick arena shooter where the crosshair simply bounces around the screen and you have to shoot down enemies with your rechargeable laser beam! [previewyoutube=302xY-GD1uk;full][/previewyoutube] Thanks for your attention! More news for the PC version of Shotgun King are coming at some point in the near future! Have a great week! -PUNKCAKE Dlicieux

[ 2023-07-25 13:00:41 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi everyone! We're absolutely stoked to announce Shotgun King is Steam's Weekend Deal for the next 7 days, with a 25% discount which is the deepest discount we've done on the game so far! We even commissioned an artist to make some sick promo art! Check it out below, we think Fafodill did an amazing job! We're also featuring on brodcast a speedrun by our Discord member Etilon, achieving an impressive 1min win with the Victoria shotgun! Thanks to them for sharing the video with us and letting us show it off on the Steam page during the sale! And there's more! If you already own Shotgun King, we still have a discount for you! Our other game MOONPONG: Tales of Epic Lunacy is also on sale for 25% off, with a further 15% discount if you already own Shotgun King and buy it as part of the PUNKCAKE Dlicieux Developer Bundle! And if you got no money but still want to support us you can also wishlist our upcoming strategy dungeon-building roguelike The Wratch's Den! Thank you all for the love and support as always! There will be more Shotgun King news in a little while! Take care and have a great weekend! - PUNKCAKE Dlicieux

[ 2023-02-23 18:02:36 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi all! Happy new year!! Here's a small Shotgun King patch to start off the year! It fixes a few bugs, corrects a few mistakes in the translations, and adds a brand new language: Catalan, courtesy of Projecte Ce Trencada!! Here is the complete changelog:

• [BALANCE] Promoted jesters now pass the hat.
• [FIX] You can no longer trigger a right click ability and fire your shotgun on the same frame.
• [FIX] Fixed Iron Maiden description.
• [LANG] Added Catalan language option! Thank you to Arnau Frago from Projecte Ce Trencada!
• [LANG] Fixed a few issues in the Ukrainian, Korean, Chinese and Spanish translations. Thank you very much to players who submitted corrections!
• [LANG] Added translator names on the credits screen

And let me say it here again, thank you to the players who reported mistakes in the translations, and huge thanks to Arnau from the Projecte Ce Trencada for the Catalan translation! He even went through the trouble of remaking the trailer in Catalan which is just crazy!! You can watch that below by the way, and you should, it's so well done! [previewyoutube=GeM1bOjcmzY;full][/previewyoutube] I asked Arnau if he wanted to add a message to this post in Catalan, here's what he had to say! [hr][/hr] Renoi, des del Projecte Ce Trencada ha sigut un plaer enorme treballar amb Puncake Dliceux per traduir al catal aquesta pea d'art mestre tan entremaliada. No s cada dia que podem traduir de manera tan cmoda i lliure, un projecte tan illusionant com s Shotgun King The Final Checkmate. Ens han ajudat en tot all necessari, facilitant-nos des del material necessari per traduir el triler del videojoc fins a aquest espai per a explicar-vos que ja podeu gaudir del catal des del propi men d'opcions del videojoc. Fa goig poder treballar amb estudis de videojocs que s'impliquen i que entenen la importncia de la llengua per fer arribar l'experincia d'una manera ms ntima i directa a l'usuri/a final. Collaboracions com aquesta tornen l'esperana en la humanitat en contraposici d'aquells que veuen aquest esfor com quelcom innecessari o indigne del seu temps fins i tot quan se'ls hi ofereix de manera gratuta. Sn grans passos per al catal per tamb per al futur dels videojocs com a indstria, doncs s'hi uneix un altre estudi amb conscincia i valors. Esperem que podeu gaudir d'aquest videojoc de jugabilitat trepidant i addictiva tant com ho hem fet nosaltres i que us aporti moltes estones d'augusta frustraci i oims somriures. Qu per qu l'hauries de comprar? Visita la nostra pgina web i ho entendrs: https://www.cetrencada.cat/shotgun-king-the-final-checkmate Esperem poder collaborar en molts projectes ms, Projecte Ce Trencada. [hr][/hr] We really couldn't have said it better. (we unfortunately don't understand Catalan) Arnau was a wonder to work with, we feel really lucky for him to have approached us! This is it for now, but I can confidently day there will be more Shotgun King news this year again! I won't spoil anything just now but we hope you look forward to it!! Have a wonderful 2023! - PUNKCAKE Dlicieux

[ 2023-01-19 18:00:40 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi everyone! Here's a new patch that fixes a few bugs and crashes that were reported to us! As usual thanks to everyone who reports these, it really helps a lot! Here's the complete changelog:

• [BALANCE] Heir status is now preserved after promotion.
• [BALANCE] Iron Maiden now deactivate if there's only queens on the board.
• [BALANCE] Guillotine and Iron Maiden are not excluding each others anymore.
• [FIX] Fixed a crash bug involving Kingly Alms and Black mist
• [FIX] Healer won't heal cannonball anymore
• [FIX] It's no longer possible to jump over knighmares with taunting hop.
• [FIX] Fixed a bug where you can over-reload your gun if moving too fast after reload
• [FIX] Fixed a bug preventing the use of unjust decree if moving too fast after reload
• [FIX] Healers can no longer heal boss over max hp
• [FIX] Game won't freeze when secret heir, last guardian and king are killed with the same shot.
• [FIX] Philanthropy extra turn now work even if grenade fall off the board or in the moat.
• [LANG] Wording for iron effect : can't die -> can't take damage
• [LANG] Fixed Ukrainian plurals in descriptions
• [LANG] Now correctly replacing the $leader tag in disruption descriptions
• [ACHIEVEMENTS] Theocracy replaced with sanctity in the RELIGION achievement

That's it for now! We're slowing down the rate of patches to focus on other games for now, but we'll be back to give Shotgun King some more love soon enough, rest assured. :) Have a nice weekend! Long live the Shotgun King! -PUNKCAKE Dlicieux

[ 2022-12-16 14:09:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi everyone! Here's a new patch that fixes quite a few bugs that were reported to us and also includes some small balance changes! v1.35 complete changelog:

• [LANG] Piece's names are now correctly displayed on undead armies description
• [BALANCE] Undead Armies now reduces pawn hp by one
• [BALANCE] Golden Aging now reduces king and queen hp by one
• [BALANCE] one by one reloading removed from Church Organ
• [BALANCE] Richard III reworked: -1 ammo_max, +1 firerange, +25% pierce
• [ERGO] Title Intro now play only once when you launch game
• [ERGO] Retry sequence is now active after resign
• [FIX] Wizard achievement was fixed
• [FIX] Imperial Shot Put added to the chase mode banned cards
• [FIX] Stray pixels have been hunted down and decimated
• [FIX] Philantropy now works even if Kingly Alms is removed
• [FIX] Philantropy extra turns now bypass folly shield
• [FIX] Chase mode unlocked too early
• [FIX] Codex data now included in steamcloud save
• [FIX] bishop move-grid now takes account of the red book
• [FIX] stabbing the big king with Undercover Mission was fixed
• [FIX] It's now possible to throw a piece while moving with Royal Loafers even if you don't have any ammo
• [FIX] Shields are now totally removed on the same turn you put them to zero in options screen during game.
• [FIX] Fixed hint display for knockback and pierce
• [FIX] Kingly Alms is now added to needed card for Bunker & Philantropy
• [FIX] Big King won't step on zombies anymore
• [FIX] Undercover Mission now only displays available missions
• [FIX] Autoflipping white cards like Zealot or Witch's Curse can now be deactivated with Undercover Mission
• [FIX] Can't lift anything with King's Shoulder if you are already holding a piece or a cannonball
• [FIX] Fixed some gfx problem with lifted pieces from the moat

Thanks for doing half the job by reporting the bugs you find! We hope this makes the game more enjoyable! Oh also, shout-out to everyone who's been streaming and making videos of the game, we genuinely love to see you play the game and we're super grateful to you for helping spread the word about it! Special thanks to Aliensrock for boosting our sales since the update! Love your vids! Have a nice week-end all! -PUNKCAKE Dlicieux

[ 2022-11-25 18:42:03 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi there! It appears there was a big issue with the asian languages in yesterday's update. At first we thought it was an issue with the translations themselves, but it turned out instead that it was a text rendering functionality that had a last minute modification that was acting up. We sincerely apologize, and we hope this patch makes the game considerably more readable again for our asian players. Please do let us know, it's hard for us to tell since we unfortunately cannot read these languages. Here's the complete changelog for this patch:

• [LANG] Changed chinese translation for Ammo Max
• [FIX] Missing degree symbols in codex
• [FIX] Fixed an issue that was breaking multi-line texts in Chinese, Korean and Japanese, resulting in wrong and/or missing characters
• [FIX] Fixed an issue with "Add X pieces" text that occured after switching between certain languages

Thank you all for your patience with us. As you can probably tell we are still very much figuring things out as we go. Maybe some day we'll know what we're doing haha. ^^' Have a nice week, -PUNKCAKE Dlicieux

[ 2022-11-23 20:00:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi everyone! The translations have finally been updated to match all the new text from last week's big update and the subsequent patches! Not only this, but we've also added three new translations: German, Polish, and Japanese! Shotgun King is now available in:

• English (duh)
• French
• Spanish
• German
• Russian
• Ukrainian
• Polish
• Chinese
• Korean
• Japanese

Once again we're really glad to make the game accessible to more people around the world! All the translations were completed and reworked by professional game localization people LOC3. It's thanks to you all that we could afford professional localization, we really hope you'll appreciate the result! Also, you might have heard, the Steam Autumn sale is on! Unfortunately, because of the recent price increase, Shotgun King cannot participate in this sale because of Steam's rules, but we do have another game we've released a few months after Shotgun King, called MOONPONG: Tales of Epic Lunacy! This one is 10% off right now for the Autumn Sale if you want to check it out!! As always, thank you all for the love and support! Have a great week! -PUNKCAKE Dlicieux

[ 2022-11-23 00:29:07 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi there! Here's a new batch of fixes for all of you Shotgun Royalties! Changelog:

• [GFX] new shotguns have their own sfx and graphics in interface
• [ERGO] You can now read unlock conditions for locked shotguns in the shotgun selection screen
• [FIX] fixed Theocracy + Ravenous Rats + Undead Rats "Happy Hopping Rook" bug
• [FIX] fixed Sawed-off + Unjust Decree soft lock
• [FIX] "MMMMH DELICIEUX !" achievement is now fixed
• [FIX] zombie pawns won't spawn on fresh backup squares or boss anymore
• [FIX] Bodyguards protect big king as expected
• [FIX] Cannonball won't affect high focus anymore
• [FIX] Legacy modes won't crash the client if loaded on a modded game
• [FIX] spacebar now triggers force-feeding

Once again thank you for your patience! We're very happy to see that you seem to enjoy the big update!! -PUNKCAKE Dlicieux

[ 2022-11-17 13:25:35 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi there! Even though we did our best to catch as many bugs as we could before the big update, it seems we let a few through anyway. We're fixing them as fast as we can, here's a first quickpatch that takes care of most of the ones that were reported to us so far! Changelog:

• [BALANCE] Force-feeding now limited to 7 shells
• [BALANCE] Force-feeding extra ammo when level end
• [BALANCE] Analysis Paralysis is now capped to 6 turn.Free soul effect removed. Now Stackable ( for the nostalgics )
• [BALANCE] Caltrops now additionally delay backup arrivals by 50%
• [FIX] Boss music is back
• [FIX] Flying pieces now ignore moat to choose move/attack target
• [FIX] Collection achievements can't be unlocked on death anymore
• [FIX] Fixed a bug where Undercover mission waypoint was sometime missing
• [FIX] Fixed a bug making knightmares untargetable with blade
• [FIX] Dark Bishop won't respawn a second time if a bishop is left when he dies
• [FIX] Rats spawning because of wand effects will now attack targets before your next move
• [FIX] Rats won't spawn anymore on dark bishop spawn animation
• [FIX] Recoil from Sawed-off Justice now triggers Unholy Call & Undercover Mission
• [FIX] Cannonballs don't need to be killed to finish the game when king is guillotined
• [FIX] Cannonballs won't be destroyed by lightning and can now be used for dark bishop fight
• [FIX] Shotgun King won't spawn on an unholy pentagram anymore
• [FIX] Guillotine and Secret Heir won't spawn in the same game
• [NITPICKING] Unholy Call replaced by Caltrops in the NINJA achievement
• [NITPICKING] Airy Knights won't affect High Focus

We're also very aware that the translations are still incomplete as of right now. Complete translations are on the way and should arrive sometime this week! Thanks for your patience! -PUNKCAKE Dlicieux

[ 2022-11-15 17:40:02 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi everyone! It's here! The big update we announced 10 days ago is now live! You'll find the complete changelog further below, here are a few important points:

New Difficulty System

We replaced the old difficulty system and it's 5 levels (easy to king) with 15 ranks of incrementing difficulty. The goal here is to give you a much smoother diffulty curve than before so that the higher difficulties wouldn't feel as frustratingly tough as they used to. This does mean your old save is not compatible with the new version, since the difficulties you completed no longer exist. But we hope the various new unlockable things will motivate you to get blasting from the start again! The game should create a copy of your old save in case you want to keep it for personal use.

Unlockable Shotguns

The update also adds a new shotgun system! When starting a Throne run, you can select a shotgun to play with, with unique stats per shotgun. It's kindof like a character selection thing, except the character is still our beloved yet equally despicable Shotgun King, and you're just chooseing what shotgun he'll be working with. There are 5 different shotguns, 4 of which you will have to unlock. We'll let you figure out the unlock conditions on your own, but here's a hint: try to select cards to max out specific stats. Good luck!

New Cards

The update adds some 42 new cards to the game! Some white, some black, we're sure you'll find some pleasant and some less pleasant surprises in there. However, simply expending the card pool would mean pretty bad things for the balance of the game, since it means making it even more unpredictable. To remedy this, we made it so you'll have to get specific cards to unlock others in that run. That way the initial pool isn't too large, and you get a nice depth to explore. And to encourage you to explore it, we've added...

The Codex

The Codex is a new cozy little interface available from the main menu, where you can see all the cards you've had in the game so far, plus the unlock conditions for them! Will you be able to find 'em all?

New game mode: Chase

The update also adds a brand new game mode. You'll have to reach level 15 of Endless mode to unlock Chase! Chase mode is a sort of survival mode where white pieces continously come onto the board from all sides to challenge the black king. Every time you kill a white king, you get to choose one of three black cards and then continue your onslaught. But you can only have 5 cards at a time, when you get your 6th card, your 1st one gets destroyed. How far will you make it?

New achievements

We've also added 46 new Steam achievements! Some of them are like the old ones where you have to win a run with a specific combination of cards, but most of them are more original, like recomposing a classic chess army on the white side, or killing an iron queen, or even stealing the white queen! We've also added difficulty achievements now that we're happier with the new system!

Modding

The game already supported modding but we've added a whole new set of possibilities, including new card effects but also custom game modes! In fact the existing game modes use the new system, so that you could recreate them yourself. But we're sure you'll prove much more creative than that, as some of you already have with the previous version of the game! We still don't have support for the Steam Workshop yet but we plan to work on it. In the meantime, we're hosting the mods on our Discord server! Come join us!

About the languages

Before this update, the game supported a few different languages thanks to community-made translations. That was very generous of those translators and we're extremely grateful to them for this. However, the update does add a lot of new things so we felt this was a good time to switch to professional translations, especially now that thanks to you we have the funds for it! But unfortunately the new translations aren't quite ready just yet, so the update is only fully available in english for now. The translations should be coming sometime this week. There will be all the languages from before the update plus some three newcomers! We can't wait to announce them, stay tuned for that!

Price Bump

As announced in our previous post, the game's price goes up to 9.99$ today, or regional equivalent, from 5.99$ previously. It was that or make the update a DLC. We prefered this option better: this way all previous owners get the new content for free and we still get compensated for the extra work with the new purchases! We hope you'll find this agreeable! Ok, that about covers it all, kinda! It's a pretty big update! Here's the changelog! Complete Changelog:

• [NEW CONTENT] A codex has been added so you can track your cards statistics and try to catch'em all
• [NEW CONTENT] +42 new cards
• [NEW CONTENT] New shotgun selection system with 5 different shotguns (4 unlockables)
• [NEW CONTENT] New difficulty system for Throne mode, featuring 15 ranks to complete. Replaces old 5-level difficulty system.
• [NEW CONTENT] New Chase mode
• [MUSIC] New track for endless mode
• [VISUAL] Added a proper animation for soul reaping
• [VISUAL] Theocracy is now torn up when boss fight begins
• [VISUAL] Backups countdown is now visible on card
• [Balance] Knight speed -1 (they will now move every 3 turns like bishops)
• [Balance] Grenade dmg is now 2 and has its own ammo type
• [Balance] Grenade big bounce (2 squares away) is removed, but grenades can now fall off board or sink in the moat.
• [Balance] Bodyguard now give knights +1hp
• [Balance] Conscription now spawn pawns every 5 turns (was 4)
• [Balance] Conclave and Cavalry delay decreased from 20 to 15 turns
• [Balance] Pikemen now removes one pawn from the white army
• [Balance] Backups now behave like conscription, they spawn on the backline only
• [Balance] Percing Truth no longer removes 1 firerange
• [Balance] Black Mist now removes 1 firerange while the card is face up
• [Balance] Scouting now only add two pawns instead of three
• [Balance] Pikemen now gives pawn +1 hp but pawns can now longer attack diagonally
• [Balance] Knockback now prevents pieces from attacking you on the turn they are moved.
• [Balance] Wands are now limited to 3.
• [Balance] Zealots is now flipped if there's no bishop.
• [Balance] Ritual Dagger now has blade +1 but lowers king hp by 2 instead of 3
• [Balance] Lookout Tower now decreases backup timer each time you kill a piece
• [Balance] Pierce mechanic now works like knockback with a % chance for each bullet to pierce its target. Piercing Truth doesn't decrease firepower anymore.
• [Rework] Unfaithfull Steed: +1 move range, flip this card if there's no knight on the board
• [Rework] Taunting Hop: Once per turn, jump over a nearby piece dealing it $0 dmg without ending the turn. Now also works with soul moves.
• [Achievements] Added 56 new Steam achievements.
• [Achievements] Wizard achievement now only requires 3 wands.

Thank you once more for all the love and support so far! We hope you'll enjoy all the new content! If you encounter bugs or just want to chat about the game, or discover mods, please do come by on our Discord server, we're nice! Have a great week! -PUNKCAKE Dlicieux

[ 2022-11-15 00:22:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi everyone! We're happy to announce we're almost finished with the first big new update to Shotgun King since the Steam release back in May! An update that adds half again the current game's content and then some more, bringing the game's card count above 100, from 66 currently, and adding one brand new game mode alongside Throne and Endless. An update that adds an entirely new difficulty system, hopefully answering the most blistering critiques we've had so far. An update that adds a whole range of new modding possibilities. An update so big, in fact, that we almost made it a DLC!! That is genuinely something we considered. But we couldn't be bothered, so instead this is what's going to happen: On November 14th, all owners of the game will get the full update for free and we'll bump the game's price to 9.99$. (from the current 5.99$) That way we can bring the game's price to a place that is more representative of the added value, but without actually making anyone who already got the game pay anymore for it. At PUNKCAKE Dlicieux we don't like to simply see the glass half-full, we want our glass positively filled to the brim, overflowing even, drowning the entire room in both cleverness and magnanimity! That also means that if you haven't bought the game yet, or if you know someone who has been on the fence about it, well we'd recommend telling them, or yourself, to buy the game before the price increase and get free friendship (or self-love) points with that person! What's more, we're even doing a sale from now up to the 14th, exceptionally bringing the game's price below 5$! (or regional equivalent) With all this out of the way, here is a short gameplay gif of the new Chase mode that is coming to the update!
We hope you're excited! See you very soon! -PUNKCAKE Dlicieux

[ 2022-11-04 22:35:35 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi all! We're very happy to bring you more languages for Shotgun King!! Korean, Russian and Ukrainian have just been added to the game! The translations were made by Otiel, Trek, Drugon, and NamorSom who we thank very much for their help! We have 3 more translations which are awaiting approval. They are complete but need to be tested before we can add them to the game. If you can read Romanian, Polish or Brazilian Portuguese and you would like to help out, please come to our Discord server to download them and test them! Since the last News Post we also did two very small quickpatches, so here are the changelogs: v1.253:

• [Lang] Added Korean! Thank you Otiel and Trek!
• [Lang] Added Russian! Thank you Drugon!
• [Lang] Added Ukrainian! Thank you NamorSom!
• [Bugfix] Fixed text beeps playing for longer than the actual text in non-latin languages.

v1.252:

• [Engine] Fixed an issue that resulted in a heavily slanted screen.
• [Engine] Fixed an issue where audio wouldn't properly initialize, leaving the game silent - or crashing.
• [Ergo] Restored the old card description animation on card choice.
• [Bugfix] Fixed the little pause at the end of each line of the story texts for languages that use non-latin characters.

Once more, thank you all for your support! We are working on a bigger update, so stay tuned for that! :) Have a nice week! -PUNKCAKE Dlicieux

[ 2022-06-20 21:35:48 CET ] [ Original post ]