Chess Survivors

Note from Aarimous

Detailed Notes

• Turn Timer
  
  
  
  • Total Turn Duration 3 -> 4.5 seconds The goal of this was to allow the base game to have a few extra "beats" so the player can make a better selection. Ideally this doesn't change to much as most turns are quick and easy, but some might take longer to parse and this should allow for that.
    
    
    
    • Player Turn Phase now lasts at most 3.49 seconds
      
    • Movement Phase now lasts 0.11 seconds
      
    • Abilities Phase now lasts0.45 seconds
      
    • Enemy Turn Phase now lasts 0.45 seconds
      
    
    
  • Turn timer now ends slightly earlier than the actual phase. As the player might rush to pick a tile and I wanted to create some coyote time to allow for that
    
  • Turn timer is now brighter and changes color once the turn get's close to the end
    
  
  
• Misc
  
• Act Feature : added in acts which will have an act intro as well as rewards for Act 2 & 3. Nothing will change for the demo
  
• Steam Integration: added in the SDK for a steam integration which will allow achievements and other key steam features in future patches
  
• Added a level up queuing system. This allows for multiple level ups to happen back to back. More or less just a tech debt fix that shouldn't change the demo
  
• Adjusted music: toned down the base and "sound effects" in the music as they felt too much and were distracting
  
• Updated the max time between songs to allow for some more downtime between tracks
  
• Performance improvements to the A* pathfinding, before the game was doing a lot of extra calculations resulting in small but slightly noticeable lag spikes
  

• Pawn Damage Base 2 → 1
  
• Knight Damage Base 2 → 1
  
• Bishop Damage base 5 → 3
  
• Knight Health Base 10 → 9
  
• Rook Health Base 15 → 13
  
• Bishop Health Base 15 → 13
  
• Elite Always Act Mod Health Scale 400% → 300%
  
• Elite Damage Mod Health Scale 600% → 400%
  

• Added two new songs
  
• Changed Game Over text to say "You died, Checkmate" when the player dies
  

Note from Aarimous

Detailed Notes

• Bullseye Ability
  
  
  
  • Added a new ability that is tied to the players movement instead of a cooldown
    
  • Create a small target around you dealing damage to any enemies within its area. The target is created whenever you moves tiles and is slightly larger the further you move.
    
  
  
• Music
  
  
  
  • I've removed the two current songs and replaced with 3 that sound wayy better IMO
    
  
  
• Bug, Balance, and Misc
  
  
  
  • Balanced the abilities and relics again. This will be continual and not really worth noting the specific values.
    
  • Added the tutorial screen with images
    
  • Removed screen aberration as it wasn't adding the effect I wanted to
    
  • Adjusted the screen shake to use a different type of shake
    
  • Added new splash screen and warning
    
  • Updated text labels for character info
    
  • Tuned enemy health numbers as they felt too squishy
    
  • Added attack sounds for player melee
    
  • Added screen shake for player melee
    
  • Added relic rarity, this will allow me to create powerful relics but put them behind rarity so they don't appear every run
    
  • Added more relics
    
  • Bugs fixes and other stuff that I can't remember
    
  
  
  

Note from Aarimous

Detailed Notes

• Enemy Pathfinding
  
  
  
  • Non-Pawn enemies now use an implementation of the A* pathfinding algorithm to move towards the player
    
  • Pawn still act like pawn so they don't need pathfinding as their movement is by design pawn-like and very "railroaded"
    
  • The result of this is that enemies are now able to move around wall and hunt down the player.
    
  • I find this particularly interesting with the knights as they will now move in a patter that results in them being able to attack the player. Prior to this patch they knights might result in a situation where they will get near the player but never be able to attack.
    
  • This is not a perfect system and there are likely many "sub-optimal" moves the enemies will make. But I'd argue the player shouldn't really notice the edges cases.
    
  • This will be improved upon further.. soonTM
    
  
  
• Enemy Turn Order
  
  
  
  • During the enemy phase of the turn enemies now act in "closest to the player" fashion.
    
  • Enemies actions are slightly spaced out to
    
  • The result of these changes now allows all enemies to move. Before there were many situations where enemies were blocked by pieces that would move after them.
    
  • This is a small change but I think it makes the game feel a little better as there is a cool wave effect that happens during enemy movement.
    
  • Please report any lag this sorting might have created. Thus far I haven't felt anything. But I am just one money with a computer.
    
    
  
  
• Bug, Balance, and Misc
  
  
  
  • Fixed a bug where the non-pawn enemies were spawning near the origin. This combined with the old enemy movement caused a lot of enemy time if the player moved far away from the starting tiles.
    
  • Many bugs were fixed most of which are small and not noteworthy
    
  • Adjusted ability upgrade numbers, I want the early game to feel harder so most of the easily targeting abilities got their starting damage lowered. This should give more power to early relics that grant bonus damage. It will also make early damage investment feel a lot better as it will enable abilities to one shot.
    
  • Added new relics
    
  
  
  

Note from Aarimous

Detailed Notes

• Polish
  
  
  
  • Starting game screens, level up, and relics screens have all been updated to feel better to use.
    
  • This included some sublet on hover animations and on load sound effects
    
  • These screens have also been updated to allow for better keyboard and controller animation
    
  • Improved "more info" and "descriptions" when hovering over a new ability or ability upgrade. Ideally this will make it easier to understand the info that is provided
    
  • Added a tutorial prompt and icon based controls to the tutorial
    
  • Added UI translations for properties and text (English only)
    
  • Coins and Potions now have a nice animation on consume
    
  • Chests have an exciting animation on consume
    
  • Healing now has a sound effect
    
  
  
  
• Bug and Balance
  
  
  
  • Many bugs were fixed most of which are small and not noteworthy
    
  • Balanced the various character to ensure each feels unique and fun to use
    
  • Adjusted ability upgrade numbers
    
  • Updated many of the relics to have similar or in many cases better modifiers
    
  
  
  

Note from Aarimous

Detailed Notes

• Elite Enemies:
  
  
  
  • Elites will have bonus health, be larger, and have one of three combat mods. They can also have a chest buff which will grant even more bonus health, but the enemy will drop a chest on death.This is a key system that will be expanded upon further with new combat mods and additional depth. The mods right now are simple, but sometimes simple is nice.
    
  • Combat Mod: Damage, enemy deal 2x damage to player, enemy has 4x health
    
  • Combat Mod: Take Less Damage, enemy takes -1 damage, enemy has 3x health
    
  • Combat Mod: Always Act, enemy will act each turn and cannot be slowed, enemy has 3x health
    
  • Reward Mod: Chest, enemy drops a chest on death, enemy has 1.5x health
    
  • Reward Mod: Misc, enemy either drops a health potion (healing 33%) or drops 8xp (multiplied by act). This misc mod only applies when the elite doesn’t have the chest mod
    
  
  
  
• Controller Support
  
  
  
  • This was a long time coming, but I wanted to ensure I had a good approach. There are some edge cases that likely need to be handled but I’d love to hear your feedback. I think the recommended way of playing will be mouse, but this surprisingly feels pretty good.
    
  • Players can now use WASD or arrow keys to move around the cursor to moveable tiles. The player then needs to press (enter) to confirm the movement. This also works for a controller using either sticks, or D-pads. A/X will then confirm movement.
    
  • Screens have been updated to allow button navigation with controllers.
    
  
  
  
• Consumables
  
  
  
  • I’ve added chest and health potions that can now drop only from Elite enemies. They act the same way as the movement powerups where the player needs to enter the tile to consume.
    
  • Chests will grant the player a choice of a random relic
    
  • Health potions will heal the player for 33% of the max health. These don’t drop often so I wanted to ensure they feel rewarding, but this could be changed in the future as the player can scale the healing with relics.
    
  
  
• Character Info Screen
  
  
  
  • Pressing “C” will show a screen of the current player/game stats. This is a great QOL for me as well as a QA of the relics and various game elements. My goal was to give players all the numbers so they can create truly broken builds.
    
    
  
  
• Polish
  
  
  
  • Enemy now spawn in and have a slight animation/sound which makes them look like they are dropping
    
  • New sound effect for level up screen. This just makes it feel better
    
  • Small delay and light show on level up, again to make it feel more impactful
    
  • Enemy moves now slightly squish and stretch
    
  • Player move now slightly squish and stretch
    
  • Relics now show in the UI and have a hover for the tool tip
    
  • Update the relics descriptions and mod values
    
  
  
  Bug fixes
  
  
  
  • As always a bunch of bug changes to numerous to mention
    
  • There are plenty of known issues, but if you find any please go report them in my discord.
    
  
  
  
  

Note from Aarimous

Detailed Notes

• New Marble ability:
  
  
  
  • Fling a marble around the player dealing a small amount of damage to enemies it collides with. The marble remains as long as it can still pierce more enemies. Scale modifiers do not affect the size of the marbles.
    
  • The goal with the ability was to create something that looked visually different from the other abilities and also had some fun gameplay functions. The original idea for this came while remaking my game in 9 lines of code for my post recent YouTube video.
    
  
  
• Character Perks
  
  
  
  • You can now play as the Creepy Doll and the Evil Monkey. Characters also have unique starting stats damage, health, healing, melee damage One major difference is also their base movement patterns.
    
  • The goal here is to have the player create their starting conditions with three key choices. These changes were to add in the character choice and make that decision feel like it matters and will add to the flavor of the run. None of the actual numbers are final and will be changed over time.
    
  
  
• Updated enemy visuals + improved clarity
  
  
  
  • New art for the enemies which make the fatter and have a new color so they stand out more. A white outline will also show when the enemy intends to act.
    
  • It’s long been known the the visual clarity of enemy movement was trash. This is my attempt at fixing that, so I’ll be interested to see if this fixes it or if I need to go further. I’m still hesitant to go so far as to show the enemy “tiles of influence” as that would remove some of the key challenge of parsing the enemy movement and just turn the game into “move to the non red tile”.
    
  
  
• Ability upgrade mini-rework
  
  
  
  • Ability upgrades are now gated behind the current act.
    
  • This is a huge nerf to early player power because now you can’t get the crazy upgrades like going for 4->8 playing card projectiles in Act 1. This has always existed as a problem, but with the introduction of relics, player power far outpaced enemy difficulty. I also decided to keep enemy health amounts flat and only increase at the start of a new act. Soo, the player power had to be pulled back. Back in August I tried to rework the upgrade system to fix this issue, but the pure RNG system was just better for my vision. As mentioned, enemy power will increase at the start of each act, which would also be a good time to adjust player power, so naturally (and with low effort) I was able to create a system for gating the upgrades. From a design perspective this will also allow me to balance the acts around the abilities and also push crazier power into later acts.
    
  
  
• Performance improvements
  
  
  
  • Refactor the map system to use the Godot tile map system.
    
  • When moving large distances there was a large lag spike. Probably not noticeable to all, but I knew this would eventually be a big problem. Should have no game play effects, other than certain ideas for future systems just became harder at the cost of major performance gains. IMO worth.
    
  
  Balance changes
  
  
  
  • Adjusted some ability values to accommodate the above changes
    
  
  Bug fixes
  
  
  
  • As always a bunch of bug changes to numerous to mention
    
  • There are plenty of known issues, but if you find any please go report them in my discord.
    
  
  
  

Note from Developer

Detailed Notes:

• Relic System:
  
  
  
  • Many base game stats have been moved into global modifiers which will allow for relics that will alter the various stats (player damage, enemy health, healing)
    
  • This shouldn’t have any gameplay effect, but will allow for more interesting relics and abilities
    
  • Update to game starting conditions. The goal here is to create uniqure runs each time by giving the player a few small but meaningful choices to give their run a flavor.
    
  • Players now get to choose a starting ability. Right now there are only 3 starting abilities but eventually there will be more.
    
  • Player gets a choice of a starting relic. Relics are new items the player can earn (right now only though the stat) that will dramatically change or boost the player stats. Many of the relics will also have a negative. The goal is to allow for really powerful relics that will not always be the optimal choice due to the downsides.
    
  
  
• Balance Changes:
  
  
  
  • Enemy health no longer scales over the demo (act 1). I want to make it clearer to the player when the enemy health increases. So, at the start of each act a popup will show any and all enemy buffs.
    
  • During some of the enemy spawning phases I’ve added a boost to the initial spawner budget. I’m hoping this creates some more spikes of difficulty earlier on in the run instead of just at the end.
    
  • Adjusted some number for abilities and relics
    
  
  
• Bug fixes
  
  
  
  • To be honest, I haven’t tracked very many of the bugs that I’ve fixed. I’ll try and keep a better log for the next patch notes. :)
    
  
  

New Devlog