tl;dr; New character, ability, relics, and a ton of small balance/QOL changes
Hi All,
The preview build for the 0.8.0 patch is now available on the beta branch. This patch has a lot of changes so I'm hoping to get a few days of testing before I move it to the main build on March 16th. I'd still like to add in a few more relics to this patch as well as a screen to show current seen/unlocked content but too be determined if I'll get that ready by my deadline of March 16th.
Much love, Aarimous
Here's a video on my 2nd channel where I talk about path to releasing Chess Survivors this year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKO6DqODjuw
New Content
New Koala Character
New boomerang ability
New 4 relics
Changes
Increasing to max health now also grants that much current health
Rare relics on the main game UI now show with a rare color in the background
New colors for relic rarities [
[ Act rewards now give you a choice of 3 rare relics
Lucky Crown relics now increases chance to spawn a rare relic by 10% (previously 5%)
Chance to loot a rare relic does not increase each act. Instead it’s now a flat 10% chance for the entire game
Blocked damage appears as floating blue text for both enemies and players
Updated player healing floating text animation
Updated damage floating text to scale with amount of damage
Enemy floating damage text is now yellow when greater than 10, and orange when greater than 15
Setting to enable floating text now applies to damage, heal, and block texts
Gambit levels now grant 10% Player Progression XP increase pre level (previously didn’t effect Player Progression XP)
Playing on normal speed no longer grants 10% bonus Player Progression XP
Playing on chill now grants -15% Player Progression XP (previously was 0%)
Removed Give Feedback buttons from Main Menu and Pause screen, I wasn’t checking the form and nobody was really posting there
Level up screen now prevents player from clicking the upgrade until the upgrade is visible
Slightly adjusted the timing for when upgrades to popup
Bug Fixes
Fixed a bug where the player was healing after killing an elite
Fixed a bug where the level up screen could case the game to crash, not sure if anyone actually had this bug. But I found it while testing other features
Beta Branch 0.7.3 plus some of 0.8.0
Fixed a bug where ability bonus damage and ability damage multiplier stats were being applied twice when calculating ability damage.
This patch also has some change as part of 0.8.0
Increasing max health now also grants that much current health
Rare relics on the main game UI now show with a rare color in the background
New colors for relic rarities
Blocked damage appears as floating blue text for both enemies and players
Updated player healing floating text animation
Updated damage floating text to scale with amount of damage
Enemy floating damage text is now yellow when greater than 10, and orange when greater than 15
Setting to enable floating text now applies to damage, heal, and block texts
Gambit levels now grant 10% Player Progression XP increase pre level (previously didn’t effect Player Progression XP)
Playing on normal speed no longer grants 10% bonus Player Progression XP
Playing on chill now grants -15% Player Progression XP (previously was 0%)
Removed Give Feedback buttons from Main Menu and Pause screen, I wasn’t checking the form and nobody was really posting there
Lucky Crown relics now increases chance to spawn a rare relic by 10% (previously 5%)
Chance to loot a rare relic does not increase each act. Instead it’s now a flat 10% chance for the entire game
Hot Fix 0.7.2
Fixed a bug where I had not turned the Steam integration back on... I turned it off during development and completely forgot!
Dice Ability Update 0.7.1
This is a small patch for some changes I was working on last night after work. In general, this should make the dice ability feel better to use, looks cooler, and be more performant.
Dice Change:
New explosion animation that looks SOOO much better (IMO). Under the hood I also made a new system where I can create explosions like this easy for other event, which means there will be some new relics with this in the next patch.
Updated the abilities UI art as the only one looked like cheese
Dice will now blow up after 1 turn, previous it was after 2 turns. The delay just felt clumsy and now the player should be able to make the next turn faster if they want the dice to blow up before it fully comes to rest.
Tweaked the damage numbers, but I can't remember exactly what the old number were
Dice damage now increases with the dice roll, goal here is to make rolling a 6 feel really good since it deal more damage and is way larger than rolling a 1
Dice explosion now scaled based on player AOE multiplier, previously it was unaffected
Dice explosions now scale at only 1/3 the dice roll, but have a larger base scale about. This means that rolling a 1 still effects nearby tiles, but rolling a 6 doesn't blow up the half the screen. If you want to blow up the entire screen you will need to find relics grant AOE multiplier.
Fixed a bug where the first time a dice was spawned it lagged out the game
Fixed a bug where the dice spawning would sometimes cause the screen to tear or show random white particles. You'll be happy to know this was user error and I had the wrong setting checked for the dice in the Godot game engine.
Patch 0.7.0
tl;dr; New character, new ability, more Gambit levels, new relics, particles, and keyboard key bindings
Note from the Dev
Hi All, This patch is a bit of a mixed bag, but adds in more content as well as more quality of life features you would expect in a full $3 game made by a solo dev like myself. I've also dropped last number from my patch versioning so #.#.#.# to #.#.# (0.7.0 and not 0.7.0.0). My goal here is to more accurately communicate when I've completed the scope for the next patch.
Speaking of next patches, I've scoped out my goals for Chess Survivors to be fully release. This works out to be 3 more major patches and then a massive final patch to get us to 1.0.0 launch. I will be making a separate post later this week with an updated timeline and general description for each major patch.
Godot (the engine I built the game in) just dropped a massive 4.0 update, I strongly considered upgrading Chess Survivors to it. But I've against that, in order to focus on getting this game completed in a timely manner. Watch my most recent video for more info on this decisions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o93piWUrm7E As always, thank you for playing my little indie game, it warms my heart to read your positive reviews and hear your ideas in the Chess Survivor Discord.
Much love, Aarimous
Patch Notes
New Content and Features:
Added 5 new Gambit Challenge levels
New achievement for winning the Game on the 10th Gambit level
New character The Real Knight unlocked at Level 7
New Achievement for winning the game as The Real Knight
New ability nightmare
5 new relics some of which are unlocked through in game progression XP
New button to play as a randomly unlocked character
Added new run settings like total damage delt, total healing done, and number of enemies killed
Added settings to players can now remap keyboard controls and controller controls. Please let me know if there are any other control mapping things I missed.
Added on death particles to enemies which will explode out based on the angle of impact from the entity that delt damage to the enemy.
Balance Changes:
Lowered the player progression XP needed to progress player levels
Reworked Steadfast Protector relic to now always provide 1 damage reduction. Previously reduced 3 damage when not moving. This felt clumsy and overly complicated.
Sneezy Ghost increased base health from 20 to 22
Bug Fixes and Misc:
UI Fix: Healing will now only be applied up to the max heal. So if you are already at full heal the green healing text will no longer appear. This is only a display change as this is already how healing worked.
Fixed a bug where the Ability Damage Scale moodier was not correctly applying to some abilities
Attempted to fix a bug where the Dice ability was creating strange visual glitches when spawning. This ability still does lag the first time it spawns, but that will be addressed in a future patch.
Fixed an issue where the main menu music and in game sound track were not changing correctly
Probably some other bug or changes, but at this point I can’t remember them
New Beta Build
tl;dr; New character, particles, and keyboard key bindings
New Beta Build
Hi All, This is the first wave of changes for the 0.6.6.x patch. I also made a devlog on my YouTube channel so go check that out as well. Please checkout the new character and let me know if you come across any bugs or have feedback for balance/game play. All the best, Aarimous
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zSlukHqLKE
Steps to enable a Chess Survivors beta build:
1. Right click on Chess Survivors in your Steam library 2. Select “Properties” from the popup 3. Navigate to the “Beta” tab 4. Select the Beta branch
Beta Notes 0.6.6.0
New character The Real Knight added unlocks at level 7
Changed the Smol Wizard base movement so it is unique from The Real Knight
Added on death particles for enemies
Added a screen to change the keyboard key bindings
0.6.5.2 Live Now
tl;dr; Reworked setting screen, new abilities, new relics, bug fixes, and performance improvements
0.6.5.2 Live Now
Hi All, I feel comfortable with the 0.6.5.2 build after a week of beta testing on the new beta branch. Thank you to any played on the beta branch. I will put out a new branch for 0.6.6.0 once it is ready (TBD). My plans for the next patch is to add in a few new characters, controller mapping and keybinding, and hopefully a few new relics. I'm feeling recharged and ready to keep working on Chess Survivors, and can't wait to add more content and features. All the best, Aarimous
Note: I have removed the "Kill 5000 Normal Enemies" and "Kill 1000 Elite Enemies" achievements as they were simple not fun. I will be adding more achievements in future patches.
Patch Notes 0.6.5.2
Made the following settings local (warning this will cause old values to be defaulted): Enable YoYo Sounds, Enable Xp Sounds, Enable Melee Sounds ,Enable Melee Sound , Enable Fast Loot Screens, Enable Damage Text, Enable Damage Vignette Red Color, and Enable Vignette Pulsing.
Added a new stetting to shuffle the music
Fixed a bug where the menu music was not starting when navigating from certain Menu buttons
Fixed a bug where certain on/off modifier were not displaying the correct info
Patch Notes 0.6.5.1
Along with all the changes from 0.6.5.0, I have also included some accessibility settings, a rework of the settings screen, performance fixes, and bug fixes. I will also be removing the Enemy Killed and Elite Enemy Killed achievements so those will no long work on 0.6.5.1.
Setting
Reworked the setting screen to have 3 new tabs
General
Sound
Accessibility
Added a setting to Enable/Disable Damage Text
Added a setting to Enable/Disable the Damage Vignette Red Color
Added a setting to Enable/Disable the Vignette Pulsing
Process Improvements and Bug Fixes
Fixed a bug that was causing an excessive amount of particles to spawn
Reworked the Game Over code to ideally fix the crashing issue
0.6.5.0 Patch Notes
tl;dr; New ability called Nightmare, combined the Tic ability and the Tac ability to be Tic-Tac-Toe
New Ability
Added a new ability called Nightmare. This was another great idea from one of you players. This ability is themed around dealing damage to specific nearby tiles. My hope is that this will reward careful movement to deal large burst of damage to a targeted location.
Added “Nightmare” to the base ability loot pool.
Nightmare’s description: “Automatically target nearby tiles based on normal knight movement patterns. On cooldown, spawn projectiles on the targeted tiles dealing damage to any enemies on those tiles. The targets will then be rotated clockwise.”
Reworked Ability
The Tic ability and Tac ability are boring. I had originally created these hoping to add a hidden interaction “Toe” which would trigger if you got both abilities (get it Tic-Tac-Toe). I think this is still a great idea, but that doesn’t solve the core issue here, Tic and Tac are just too close to the same ability. My design goal for abilities is for them to feel unique or at provide meaningful tradeoffs for early power vs risky late game scaling. So my solution is to combine Tic and Tac to be one new ability called “Tic-Tac-Toe”. The feels way more thematic and makes the ability stand out on it’s own. Previously Tic and Tac felt like nice to have’s but never part of the core build.
Remove Tic from the ability loot pool
Remove Tac from the ability loot pool
Added Tic-Tac-Toe to the ability loot pool.
Tic-Tac-Toe’s Description: “Fire a burst of projectiles around the player for 3 turns in a row. First burst is X’s in the diagonal directions. Second burst is O’s in the cardinal directions. Final burst is both X’s and O’s. Number of Projectile modifiers have no effect.”
New Relics In a future patch I plan to do a massive update to the relics system. But I had a nice request from one of you beautiful players to add these two relics and it wasn’t to hard so here you go. Go find out what they do. :)
Added “Gift to Plebs” to the base relic loot pool
Added “Gift to Protectors” to the base relic loot pool
Bug fixes:
I’m sure there were some bugs fixed, but I can’t remember them.
New Beta Branch
tl;dr; You can now test the newest Chess Survivors builds using Steam's beta branch (more info below)
New Beta Branch
Hey there,
Back in December I released the 0.6.5.0 patch which introduced the Nightmare ability and Tic & Tac rework. Unfortunately, this patch also introduced a bug which caused the game to crash and I was unable to quickly fix this major bug. Because of this bug I ended up reverting the game back to the previous build.
Now, as Chess Survivors has grown it has become more challenging for me to fully regression test the various systems since I’m a solo indie developer.
Moving forward I will be utilizing Steam’s beta branches to push new changes to. I’m hoping some of you will opt into playing the new branch and report any major bugs to me via the Chess Survivors Discord or the bug report forum.
Thank you for your support and patience as I continue the early access development of Chess Survivors. Over the holidays I was able to get some much needed rest and am feeling recharged and ready to dive back into Chess Survivors. My next goal will be to add in a few new characters and additional Gambit challenge mode levels.
Cheers, Aarimous
Steps to enable a Chess Survivors beta build
1. Right click on Chess Survivors in your Steam library 2. Select “Properties” from the popup 3. Navigate to the “Beta” tab 4. Select the beta branch you want to play
Beta Patch Notes for 0.6.5.1
Along with all the changes from 0.6.5.0, I have also included some accessibility settings, a rework of the settings screen, performance fixes, and bug fixes. I will also be removing the Enemy Killed and Elite Enemy Killed achievements so those will no long work on 0.6.5.1.
Setting
Reworked the setting screen to have 3 new tabs
General
Sound
Accessibility
Added a setting to Enable/Disable Damage Text
Added a setting to Enable/Disable the Damage Vignette Red Color
Added a setting to Enable/Disable the Vignette Pulsing
Process Improvements and Bug Fixes
Fixed a bug that was causing an excessive amount of particles to spawn
Reworked the Game Over code to ideally fix the crashing issue
Reverting Patch 0.6.5.0 Due to a Game Crashing Bug
I am reverting the live build back to the previous version. I've had a few reports of a game crashing bug after dying or wining a run. I will push the patch back out once I feel comfortable with the stability.
Nightmare & Tic-Tac-Toe Ability Patch (TEMPORARY DISABLED DUE TO BUG)
TEMPORARY DISABLED DUE TO GAME CRASHING BUG
0.6.5.0 Patch Notes
tl;dr; New ability called Nightmare, combined the Tic ability and the Tac ability to be Tic-Tac-Toe
Hi All,
This patch was focused on adding a new ability and reworking the Tic and Tac abilities. My next goal will be to add more Characters to the game. This new ability was based on an idea from a player so please share your idea over in the Chess Survivors’ discord. A quick note, I’ve recently started a new job and have had less time to dedicate to the development of Chess Survivors. I fully plan to execute on the roadmap I posted previously, but please adjust your expectation for the frequency of major patches. As always, thanks for playing my little game. Stay safe out there!
Cheers,
Aarimous
New Ability
Added a new ability called Nightmare. This was another great idea from one of you players. This ability is themed around dealing damage to specific nearby tiles. My hope is that this will reward careful movement to deal large burst of damage to a targeted location.
Added “Nightmare” to the base ability loot pool.
Nightmare’s description: “Automatically target nearby tiles based on normal knight movement patterns. On cooldown, spawn projectiles on the targeted tiles dealing damage to any enemies on those tiles. The targets will then be rotated clockwise.”
Reworked Ability
The Tic ability and Tac ability are boring. I had originally created these hoping to add a hidden interaction “Toe” which would trigger if you got both abilities (get it Tic-Tac-Toe). I think this is still a great idea, but that doesn’t solve the core issue here, Tic and Tac are just too close to the same ability. My design goal for abilities is for them to feel unique or at provide meaningful tradeoffs for early power vs risky late game scaling. So my solution is to combine Tic and Tac to be one new ability called “Tic-Tac-Toe”. The feels way more thematic and makes the ability stand out on it’s own. Previously Tic and Tac felt like nice to have’s but never part of the core build.
Remove Tic from the ability loot pool
Remove Tac from the ability loot pool
Added Tic-Tac-Toe to the ability loot pool.
Tic-Tac-Toe’s Description: “Fire a burst of projectiles around the player for 3 turns in a row. First burst is X’s in the diagonal directions. Second burst is O’s in the cardinal directions. Final burst is both X’s and O’s. Number of Projectile modifiers have no effect.”
New Relics In a future patch I plan to do a massive update to the relics system. But I had a nice request from one of you beautiful players to add these two relics and it wasn’t to hard so here you go. Go find out what they do. :)
Added “Gift to Plebs” to the base relic loot pool
Added “Gift to Protectors” to the base relic loot pool
Bug fixes:
I’m sure there were some bugs fixed, but I can’t remember them.
