WHAT'S NEW

• Added "exhaustion" mechanic in an effort to discourage cheesing with one or two pieces for the whole game.
  • Exhausted pieces have their multiplier and capture value halved.
  • Exhausted pieces who continued to be used will become deeply exhausted and will be unable to move for ~6 turns
  • Added tutorials for exhaustion mechanic.
  • Added a new font for the body text.
  • Started work on refining font sizes and button proportions.
  • Added new curse cards: Paralysis and Attrition

  TUTORIALS

  
  
  • Resolved issue with tutorials triggering twice in some instances
  • Resolved issue with modal boxes and tutorial windows appearing offscreen on certain resolutions/aspect ratios
  • Added new introduction tutorial that clarifies you're in control of both colors
  • Re-wrote some tutorials for clarity
  • Moved "Reset Tutorials" option to Settings -> Gameplay

  GAMEPLAY

  
  
  • Resolved issue with selections/movement actions causing spooky action at a distance

  DAILY SEED

  
  
  • Added daily leaderboard score submissions to the client
  • Added leaderboard fetching for current player
  • Added leaderboard presentation for current player

  AUDIO

  
  
  • Added "CHESS AMP" music player
    • Started working on playlist
  • Added new song "System of a Crown" by artist Two Feet Deep
  • Added new song "Fay of Summer" by artist Two Feet Deep
  • Updated some sound effects
  • Resolved issue with UI buttons not playing their sfx

  MISC

  
  
  • Added new Credits scene (found in Settings)
  • Resolved issue where certain themes would fail to apply accent colors/button colors to UI elements
  • Fixed piece display issue where pieces would appear as pawns until they had a color set
  • The King will now always animate His movement regardless of if the player has disabled piece movement animation. This is to make the King's movement more obvious.

  BALANCING

  
  
  • Swapped the Rook's (2.25) and the Knight's (1.25) multipliers to 1.25 and 2.25 respectively.
  • Re-enabled grace moves after the player runs out of moves. (If there's a King in the game, it will amble around)
  • Nerfed pawn promotion point values.
  • Re-worked how promotion multipliers/values are calculated
    • Updated point value screen to reflect new values
    • Updated point value screen to use current piece theme
    
    [ 2024-11-04 20:36:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

The latest Chess Mess update (0.8.3b) is here. It includes a bunch of small fixes that improve the overall gameplay experience.

• Enhanced the game's stability on Steam Deck.
• Refined the focus experience.
• Updated the game board to wrap selection of columns and rows.
• Implemented keyboard input. Most of the game is playable with just arrow keys and the enter key. Notable exceptions include:
  • Card selection screen
  • Card slot selection
  • Options menu
  • Tutorials
  • Hints
• Enabled native touchscreen support
• Exported save data and preferences to external files that can be synced with Steam Cloud (WIP)
• This keyboard implementation lays the groundwork for gamepad input as well. Standard Xbox and DualSense controllers should work, but this is considered unstable and not guaranteed.
• Disabled the enableSteamOverlay function on Deck as this was causing the game to crash in Gamescope and it's not needed anyway.
  • Note that the Steam Overlay is currently broken on Desktop. We're working to resolve this issue.