By pressing M while in game you can switch the camera mode to a top-down isometric perspective. This mode is meant to add precision to navigation in lush environments with lots of trees and other obstacles. It might be useful in general, as it allows seeing zooming out to seeing all of the map at once. To enhance the experience, we recommend going to the settings while in game, and turning on icons for both chess pieces and buildings. This way you will see a neat display of the piece's icon over its tile. We are currently thinking of enhancing this overview mode, adding some sort of switch for it in the UI, in addition to the M key that toggles it. Perhaps it would also be helpful to show icons instead of trees and other obstacles, but we're thinking about it. Let us know what you think.
As part of this update, we also added two new maps: Ancient Maze and Swamplands.
Ancient Maze
Swamplands
Ancient maze boasts a very complicated layout with many and more elevation changes and tricky approaches to enemy bases. Best played with more action points and higher round limits as moving will take a time. It is a refreshing layout, featuring all of the game modes including the flag options, and meant for up to 4 players.
Swamplands is a relatively simple map with many small bodies of water. Up to five players can compete for whoever destroys the enemies first.
Out of Early Access
And we are launched! As of right now Chessboard Kingdoms is fully released and is no longer in Early Access. With this release we are also increasing the price by 1 USD (and by a corresponding amount in other currencies). Pricing changes are currently in processing and might be reconsidered later. Let us know if you consider the pricing fair. We would have liked the game to contain many more cool features by now, but there is no end to improvement, and so we feel like after a year in Early Access and many fixes and updates, the game is in a close-enough state to the original intent. Anyhow, we sincerely hope that you enjoy the game. If you like chess and don't mind checking out an alternative approach to the millennia old game,- come check us out!
Final fixes
This is the final planned updated before we transition from Early Access to full release. In this update we tried to fix a few more (mildly) annoying bugs in the game, as well as improved some features. Here's what we did this time.
Friendly units are no longer highlighted in mage's area of effect cells. This is to prevent the confusion, as there is currently no effect on friendly units, only on enemies;
Better synchronization between knight's jumping animation and his actual movement;
Fog of war fixes;
Fixed an issue where preview piece (when selected in the build menu) wouldn't show correct info;
Better fit for numbers in the build menu;
Settlers now perform a little animation when "settling" into a town center;
Corrected settler portraits, which were displayed for the wrong faction;
Fixed candle material glitches in the menu;
Fixed ambient occlusion glitches;
Shot trajectory for catapults and trebuchets no longer disappears when moving the pointer to a consecutive cell (within allowed attack path).
Bug fixes
Another batch of fixes make their way into the game. Slowly but surely we are moving towards a stable release. Among the latest fixes:
- Corrected wrong base highlight when building guard towers; - Guard tower ballista wrong direction when shooting fixed; - Regular units not being able to attack siege towers; - Wall snapping to wrong direction when built;
And in the Map Editor:
- Fixed player start position assignment and loading; - Corrected player indices between board pieces and starting positions.
Saves hotfix
Turns out there existed a problem with the save system in the game. Due to increased functionality to map building via the Map Editor, the saves haven't been working properly.
However, this issue is now resolved and it is again possible to save/load in singleplayer and hotseat modes.
In addition to that, a few other updates made it into the game and editor:
- all maps have been updated and are included with the game (they will no longer show as outdated);
- Map Editor has been updated to included our 3 latest piece: Tavern, Siege Tower, and Trebuchet;
- minor UI fixes.
Small update with relevant changes
There aren't a ton of fixes in this one, but the ones that are here are meant to have a discernible effect on the gameplay and aftertaste.
Smoother animation transitions for all humanoid units
Knight can no longer jump over walls, unless enchanted by wizard
Fixed guard tower's alerted animation, which plays when an enemy is in its range
Adjusted AO settings for high quality
Latest fixes
Two last updates concentrate on a bunch of various fixes and a few new features. Listing the features first, we have:
1. Leaderboard screen available from the main menu. As soon as you are logged in with your Steam account, you should be able to access the leaderboard via a button under your account name in the upper right corner.
2. UI scaler in the settings. While playing the game, you are free to go the graphics settings -- advanced section and scale the UI to 1x, 1.5x, or 2x using a dedicated control.
Fixes made are as follows:
Grass and other environment objects now properly shrink on elevated tiles
Connected walls no longer appear rotated in the wrong direction on some maps
Siege tower troops unloading elevation limit fix
Eastern knight's model is no longer stretched when previewed for building
Trebuchets and catapults now rotate towards their target without tilting in the wrong axes
Removed brightness highlights on selected pieces
Activating trebuchet siege or travel modes now properly updates the UI and paths
Small update: maps and water
In this latest updated we included two new maps, Plaza and Cliffside Cross. Plaza offers a new layout idea, with flag drop areas being available behind enemy lines, forcing the player to play aggressively. All that only concerns the Flag game modes. Otherwise the map can be played as usual. Cliffside Cross is just a medium-sized map for up to 4 players and some cool terrain.
We also upgraded our water with refraction, better normals, and underwater fog color. Perhaps a few tweaks will be needed, but it is a major step up from how it looked before.
Update -- Final animations and more
List of changes
all character animations finished;
"Random" map button in game creation screen lets you choose a random map;
after loosing a game to AI, you can still continue to watch the remaining AIs resume their battle.
Today's update marks a new era for Chessboard Kingdoms. One where all the characters finally are brought to life with a range of animations. Every single character is now moving, fighting or building, -- whatever their cause.
In addition to that, we included a couple of new features. There's now a "Random" button in the game creation screen. It simply gives the option of picking a random map, instead of having to choose one from the list.
We also fixed the inability to spectate a match against AI after losing. Choosing "Spectate" after your final score screen should now let you see the AIs battling each other, if any of them are still left in the game.
For the next update we will be working on more quality-of-life changes and new requested features. Some tweaks to animations and bugs fixes are also coming up. We greatly appreciate any and all feedback, so you're always welcome to leave even the tiniest note for us.
Some more animations
New update includes animations to the following characters:
Eastern wizard
Western vizier
Eastern vizier
Western bishop
Moreover, we added new icons and portraits for taverns and siege towers.
What's next
Only a few animations for our characters are left (also the eastern tavern), so we will try to finish those off. We will also be looking at the new ideas and suggestions provided by our players and will be integrating those into the game alongside bug-fixes. We hope to see you in game. Your feedback and support mean a lot.
