• Fixed some spelling mistakes
  
• Added a translation item for the "Ever Sharp Dagger"
  
• Made some small balance tweaks to make Act 2 and 3 less punishing from getting hit. This mainly means less damage, but more health.
  
  
  
  • King base damge 6.0 -> 5.0
    
  • Act 2 Damage scale reduce from 25% -> 20%
    
  • Act 2 Health Scale increased from 40% -> 50%
    
  • Act 2 Elite health scale reduced from 20% -> 10%
    
  • Act 3 Damage scale reduce from 33% -> 20%
    
  • Adjusted Act 3 spawn rates slightly
    
  
  

Character Balance

• Joker Health increase from 50 -> 65
  
• Joker Melee Damage (5 -> 6)
  
• Added Joker healing per level up (0 -> 2)
  
• Added Joker Bonus Range (0 -> 1)
  
• Added Joker Bonus Melee Kill Healing (0 -> 1)
  
• Wizard Health increased form 54 -> 58
  
• Wizard Melee Damage increased from 0 -> 3
  
• Jak Max Health Per Level Increased (2 -> 4)
  
• Jak Healing On Level Up Increase (1 -> 3)
  
• Doll Ability Damage Scale Increase (25% -> 40%)
  

Enemy Balance

• Reduced Pawn Base Damage from 2 -> 1
  
• Reduced Rook Base Damage from 4 -> 3
  
• Reduced Bishop Base Damage from 3 -> 2
  
• Reduced Queen Base Damage from 4 -> 3
  
• Slightly tuned down some of the spawn rates during Act 1
  

General Balance

• Reduced XP Lvl Base Amount from (4 -> 3)
  
• Lowered XP needed for Player Progress Levels. Each level took 100 for XP, this is not only 50.
  

Bugs and Misc

• Attempted to fix an edge case where the Bullseye ability would sometimes cause the game to crash.
  
• Fixed bug where Yo-Yo sounds were not playing
  
• Fixed bug where the level up descriptions were not showing right away
  
• Update the enemies act order to prevent race conditions
  
• Update the end of act cleanup steps to prevent race conditions
  

• Fixed an strange behavior when switching between a controller and a mouse. This was causing the movement indicator to disappear. This should be resolved now. I will be improving the controller movement handler for both d-pad and joystick. Stay tuned for more updates.
  
• Update a typo for the Dwarven Pickaxe relic
  

• Fixed a small issue where the gameplay data popup was showing behind my little early access note.
  

Why Early Access?

Early Access Roadmap

QOL Improvements, Bugs Fixes and Balance:

Challenge Levels

More Abilities, Relics, and Character

End of Act Boss Fights and Map Diversity

Mod Support and other Steam Features

Miscellaneous and Scope Creep

• Added FPS options to setting screen
  
• Added Physics quality to setting screen
  
• Fixed buttons on "About" screen to link to press kit and YouTube channel
  

• Fixed a int division issue causing the marble's to no move
  
• Added the right mouse click to the input mapping so it passes the turn
  
• Added a 60 FPS cap, before the game was running at 500-600 FPS which is way overkill for a game like this. I will eventually added a setting to allow the player to lower/increase this.
  

Note from Aarimous

Detailed Notes

• Character Rework
  
  
  
  • Updated Art, I've updated all the character's art so they now have a blue and red color scheme as well as clearer direction. My goal was to make them visually distinct from the other gameplay elements and give them a cohesive style.
    
  • Reworked character select screen. Player will now choose a character (based on player progression) at the start of each run. Each character a defined starting ability. This removes the RNG base starting conditions from the game. I found the old system to be fairly restrictive from a design perspective, this change will allow me to create unique characters that have more powerful and synergistic effects.
    
  • Characts are now slowly unlocked as the player plays the game and gains progression XP
    
  
  
• New Tutorial & Controls Screens
  
  
  
  • Update these screens to now each have one screen making it cleaner and easier to understand
    
  • Added these screens to the pause menu
    
  
  
• New Run Settings
  
  
  
  • Added a run settings screen that appears before each new run
    
  • Added a slider that will allow the player to change the game speed. Various speeds will grant progression XP bonuses and slow speeds will disable achievements
    
  • Eventually more settings will be added, but right now this is a good enough screen. I'm hoping the XP bonuses will push players to play on the faster speeds, but I also want to allow for slower play for those who want it.
    
  
  
• Player Progression and Updated Game Over Screen
  
  
  
  • Added player progression with persistence so the player can unlock more complex character and relics
    
  • Chess Survivors has no meta-progression, but I want the player to feel like they are making progress each run. This system will do that as well as allowing me to have "tutorial" characters and more complex characters as they play the game more.
    
  • Updated the game over screen to show XP gained and any new unlocks
    
  
  
• Steam Achievements and Gameplay Stats
  
  
  
  • Added simple steam "test" achievement to ensure this works
    
  • Added gameplay stats tracking for game balance. There is also a setting to turn off gameplay data. Note: no personal data is being collected
    
  
  
• Miscellaneous and Bugs
  
  
  
  • New music added to menu and game loop
    
  • Added settings screen to main menu and pause screen
    
  • Added "Join Discord" button
    
  • Added Bug Report button
    
  • Movement coins and Potions now get picked up in same range as XP gems. My goal here was to make movement coins easier to grab as before they were cumbersome
    
  • Show "new" on relics and character the player has never seen
    
  • Updated loot/relics screens to have cleaner UI
    
  • Update controller support for various screens
    
  • Minor game optimizations to reduce/remove any lag spikes
    
  • A ton of bug fixes that I can't even remember