Chester One
Patch 2.3 is live and 2.4 "Gettin' HD With It" is now up on the Beta branch!
Patch 2.4 - 'Gettin HD With It' now replaces 2.3 on the Beta Branch!
2.4 brings a few changes to how the game is rendered, finally breaking away from the old method of rendering the game at 1280x720 and scaling to the screen.
The game will now render to your chosen resolution (capped at 2048 per dimension) providing sharper visuals and showing more of the world on the screen. (Warning: While in beta there may be some strange visual glitches with this one.)
Thanks for the support, and if you find any bugs with either version please report them here. :CupcakePurple:
:CupcakeYellow:To enable to beta branch right click ChesterOne in your library->Preferences->Beta->'BETA' from the dropdown list.:CupcakeYellow:
ChesterOne v2.3.0 - 'New Resolutions' is now in Beta!
If you're still having the issue where fullscreen mode is squished try out the Borderless mode to see if that solves the problem. (You may still have black bars on the top and bottom of your screen to keep everything at the correct aspect ratio. Those are normal for now!)
This patch is the first part of an HD-ifying set of updates that I'm working on, with the next adding in scaling options and removing the forced aspect ratio.
:CupcakeYellow:To enable to beta branch right click ChesterOne in your library->Preferences->Beta->'BETA' from the dropdown list.:CupcakeYellow:
RIP - Some Broken Achievements
I'll eventually be reworking and cleaning up the achievement system but for now the broken ones have just been removed.
Thanks again to everyone for reporting the bugs that they find.
If you spot a bug feel free to report it here.
What the &*?% happened to the remaster?!
Due to several reasons I unfortunately haven't had the time to devote to game development that I once did, so the remaster is on an indefinite hiatus for now. Good news is one of those reasons is that I'm finishing up my Computer Science degree so I should be equipped to make a much more solid game when I do return to development.
While work on the remaster has halted for now I will be doing what I can to clean up the bugs and issues with the current release: including missing items, several broken achievements, and some newly discovered scaling issues.
Thanks for all of the support over the years and for your understanding. :CupcakeBlack:
Chester One Remaster - Alpha v0.0.3!
Week 3. Build 3. Here we go! :squirtyay:
New/Restored Features
:CupcakeGreen: The 'Press Start' screen and the start menu have been combined into one WIP artsy screen.
:CupcakeGreen: Controller rumble for character footsteps, landing, and wallsliding. Going to be adding in options to customize your rumble settings in a future build.
:CupcakeGreen: New mouse-cursor from the Cursor-Universe. Hoping to add some simple animations to him in a future build.
:CupcakeGreen: Game now opens to a loading screen instead of just taking ~15 seconds to open up. Still looking to improve the loading time of this intro screen.
Adjustments
:CupcakeYellow: Reworked jumping and air movement to hopefully feel a little more natural
:CupcakeYellow: Pretty much every Chester had it’s basic movement adjusted in some way or another. Trying to focus on making each Chester really feel like a different and unique character in the remaster and movement is going to be a big part of that.
:CupcakeYellow: Update to Bit-Chester’s companion movement. Instead of orbiting the player and being generally useless it will now track to any enemy you damage or get hit by and idly sit by it being useless! (Still need to add attacks in for the little guy.)
:CupcakeYellow: BLOCKSTER now attacks by launching shockwaves when he lands instead of a normal bullet attack. Going to be fine tuning this in future builds/power it up with leveling.
Bug Fixes
:CupcakeRed: Fixed a bug that caused items to not load correctly after the first level you load.
:CupcakeRed: Reactivating a Companion no longer causes them to just fly away from you like a jerk.
:CupcakeRed: Quit-to-Start popup menu doesn’t remain open when loading a second savefile
:CupcakeRed: 'Create New Save' no longer auto selected on Save Manager menu. That was annoying
:CupcakeRed: Sketchster bullets now interact with stamps
:CupcakeRed: Fixed some more ui-scaling issues
Other
:CupcakeRainbow: Fun behind the scenes stuff like improved target tracking, menu styles, and more!
:CupcakeRainbow: Hold C, H, E, A, and T on the map to unlock all current Chesters
To enable the Alpha right click Chester One in your Steam Library, select Properties, and in the Beta branch choose ChesterEngine. You may need to restart your Steam client.
NOTE: I would not recommend this version for a first playthrough just yet as there is still quite a bit of missing content and bugs; but if you’ve already played the game and want to take a glimpse at what’s to come then give it a go!
:CupcakePurple: Feedback is always appreciated and thanks for your time.
:CupcakeBlue:
Chester One Remaster - Alpha v0.0.2!
A decent amount of time this week was spent cleaning up/organizing code and redoing the base of the menu/mouse input system; so you just know you’re in for a good time!
New/Restored Features
:CupcakeGreen: Camera shake/bounce added for hitting enemies, getting hit, explosions, and more
:CupcakeGreen: How stamps react to being shot now depends on your active Chester level+element. Higher levels cause stamps to be easier to catch.
:CupcakeGreen: Audio Options menu for adjusting levels of music, effects, and ambient sounds
:CupcakeGreen: Restored a lot of missing audio files including ambient background tracks and various movement/attack sounds. Also using some sounds from Chester United.
:CupcakeGreen: Mouse support added for map navigation
:CupcakeGreen: Redone menu system/layout (mostly functional now but will be getting a visual redesign in a future build)
:CupcakeGreen: Step effects added for Chester movement
:CupcakeGreen: Separate sprite sheets for elemental Chesters instead of the old simple recolor
:CupcakeGreen: Can open Shop/Bestiary from the Map screen. (Although not much point to it yet as they’re still broken…!)
Adjustments
:CupcakeYellow: Chegami’s movement is being adjusted to be more like his ChesterUnited-hovering self. Still quite a bit of adjusting to do on this.
:CupcakeYellow: Adjusted gravity/falling rates a little bit to make gameplay feel a little more tight. I will probably continue to adjust this in future builds based on feedback
Bug Fixes
:CupcakeRed: Fixed a few issues with things not scaling to different resolutions correctly
:CupcakeRed: Items that land on moving platforms now move with the platform
:CupcakeRed: Sprites attached to moving platforms reset with that platform correctly
:CupcakeRed: Stamps hit by Grass bullets now always successfully launch themselves into the air.
:CupcakeRed: Gear Shields for LCD Chester’s Special no longer have a set lifespan.
:CupcakeRed: Fixed a bug where wallsliding wasn’t reducing player’s descending rate
:CupcakeRed: Cannon attacks realigned
:CupcakeRed: Enemy shockwave bullets no longer travel through the air
:CupcakeRed: Cannon Fireball bullets now successfully explode into smaller fireballs
Other
:CupcakeBlack: Hold down C, H, E, A, T on the map screen to unlock all Chesters.
:CupcakeBlack: All sorts of behind the scenes stuff. Mmmm, so fun!
To enable the Alpha right click Chester One in your Steam Library, select Properties, and in the Beta branch choose ChesterEngine. You may need to restart your Steam client.
NOTE: I would not recommend this version for a first playthrough just yet as there is still quite a bit of missing content and bugs; but if you’ve already played the game and want to take a glimpse at what’s to come then give it a go!
:CupcakePurple: Feedback is always appreciated and thanks for your time.
:CupcakeBlue: Now if you'll excuse me, I have some blue and red spheres looking to send me into a swearing tirade. :CupcakeRed:
Chester One Remastered - New Engine Alpha
After ~6 months I’m finally about ready for the first big step of that remaster: getting the new engine up and running.
There is still a ways to go before this new engine will become the main version of the game, but it’s far enough along now that I think it’s ready for some public testing.
I would not recommend this version for a first playthrough just yet as there is still quite a bit of missing content and bugs; but if you’ve already played the game and want to take a glimpse at what’s to come then give it a go!
To enable the new engine right click Chester One in your Steam Library, select Properties, and in the Beta branch choose ChesterEngine.
This new engine still uses XNA (for now) but besides that it is a near complete recoding of the game. In addition to hopefully being able to maintain 60fps/1920x1080 on a wide variety of machines, the new engine is also a lot more versatile when it comes to creating new Styles, Chesters, and gameplay elements.
This first build unfortunately doesn’t really show off most of these improvements as the current focus is to get the original game content running first.
Once all of the content from the original game is up and running I will start working on new features and improvements; including additional + customizable Styles, redesigned levels, restored cut content, and more.
While the current focus is to get the original game into the new engine, there are a few things that stuck out to me after playing through the game for the first time in a few years and from watching others play that I wanted to try to address as well.
The first was that the Chester switching and elemental combat really seemed to be the highlight of the gameplay. It was simple but fun and encouraged the player to switch their active Chester frequently instead of just sticking with one.
Changing styles on the other hand, did not really have any of this type of encouragement. This seemed to result in a large portion of people to leave each level in its its default Style and not even bother with the Style switching system. With the Style switching intended to be a huge aspect of the game I realized that I needed to come up with some new ways to encourage the player to use this mechanic.
To do this I’ll be trying a few things with future builds. Aiming for the the next build to experiment with initially linking Style and Chester switching together; with being able to use a Style unlinked from its Chester by beating the associated planet instead of buying them with Stamps.
This linking Chesters and Styles together will also make playing levels in a still-locked Style a bit more exciting, as you’ll also have the chance to play as a new Chester. This should help Styles feel a bit more unique in addition to their slight gameplay changing aspects.
Chesters that don’t have a matching Style (Chegami, Chesty, etc.) will most likely be able to switch between all Styles that have been fully unlocked by beating the planets.
This build does includes one of my favorite new small changes though: how you charge up your special attacks! (Although special attacks haven't actually been added yet, so hmm.)
In the original game you would start each level with a full charge and could recharge it with a very rarely dropped Cookie from an enemy. This worked well enough, but it never really felt like you were earning the use of your special attacks and was way too reliant on luck to get more than one use per level.
The new method for charging up your special attacks revolves around shooting stamps and catching them before they hit the ground. Also to help differentiate the elemental Chesters a bit more each elemental bullet type has a different effect on how stamps go flying: Fire sends them arching in the air towards you, water encases them in a slowly ascending bubble, and grass causes them to fall to the ground in a dandelion-like fashion. (Currently represented by horrible circle sprites! This will look less hideous once Particle Man gets involved with the engine.)
The caught stamps will still add to your stamp total as well; just make sure not to let them hit the ground or they’ll lose their value.
This new method allows a lot more control over charging up your special and should make filling it up feel more rewarding.
Collecting experience has also gone through a bit of a change as well. Instead of it just being added to your Chester when you defeat an enemy, experience-orbs* fly out of defeated enemies and charge towards you. The longer you can avoid them, the more experience they’re worth! It sounds a bit weird but I think it adds a fun little twist that makes something as normal as the actual gaining of exp somewhat exciting.
*Cookies for now. Because placeholders are yummy!
Support for multiple save files has been added too. There should also be a file automatically converted from your old game save if you have one. Note that anything done in the new engine won’t transfer back to your original save file.
That is I think about it for the main gameplay changes, but as I mentioned there is still quite a bit that needs to be done before this version is ready to replace the original. Some of the missing content includes special attacks, a few enemies here and there, Style-unlocking, non-hideous menus, polish, the UI design mouse support, and more.
Thanks a lot for giving it a try if you do, and let me know any feedback that you have! :CupcakeOrange:
Chester One v2.2.6 - Minor Bug Fixes
Bug Fixes
-The Chestius unlock in the Stamp Shop now successfully unlocks Chestius!
-Bug fixed where game didn't always pause on Style/Chester switching.
-Bug fixed that would cause player to occasionally fall through quickly moving platforms.
...and that's about it for now. Phew, almost ran out of breath listing all of those updates.
Have a few other reported bugs I'm working on taking care of that are being a little more stubborn, but wanted to finally get the Chestius fix out for those that collected all of the ship pieces.
The complete code overhaul is also still underway; no set date for that though. Hoping to have a small demo-scene in the new engine ready sometime in the near future.
Thanks for the patience and enjoy the game! :CupcakeBlack:
Chester One v2.2.5 - UI Redesigns and Loads of Achievements
[Img]http://i.imgur.com/pbGgGYJ.jpg
Visual/UI Changes
- The Stamp Shop has been completely redesigned and simplified. No more multiple categories, just everything on a nice fun scrolling list. So fun!
- Redesigned the Style and Chester switching overlays to provide more information about each. Also a bit more visual flair to them now.
- Sprites now fly away and come back while switching Styles, similar to earlier versions of Chester United.
Achievements
- There are now just shy of 250 Achievements in the game!
- Broken up into multiple categories including
- Progression
- Collect-O-Thons
- Using Special Attacks
- Too Much Stat Tracking
- Challenges including Pacifist/Untouched runs, handicapped boss fights, and more
- Secret/Misc
- Progression
Gameplay Changes
- Catching stamps dropped by enemies now doubles their value! Going to be adding in some visual and audio cues to make this more clear in a future patch.
- Your active Style is no longer changed when hit by something you are weak against. This seamed to be mostly just be causing confusion.
- Rearranged a few levels on earlier planets to get a better difficulty flow.
- Moved the locations of a few hidden items.
- Lowered the cost of the Guaranteed Brain Drop and a few early Chester unlocks.
Bug Fixes/Misc
- The Spring-Gear at the end of the Bit City Sketch level should no longer randomly launch you to your death!
- Shooting a flamethrower bullet on Easy will no longer crash the game.
- Pressing start on the death screen now advances to next screen.
- Adjusted the levels of a few sound effects that were on the loud side.
- Reduced the bloom of the BLOCK Style to bit a little less blinding.
Mime Chester
Help test out the 200+Achievement patch before it goes live!
An early version can be tried out by enabling the "Test" branch of Chester One from your Steam client. Just right click on Chester One in your library, choose Properties, and then the Beta tab. Select the Test branch from the dropdown and the update should start to download.
The patch will go fully live sometime soon, main holdup is the 200 + achievement icons I now have to create. Oops.
There is no plan to reset Achievements with the full launch but if something does go horribly wrong before then there may be an Achievement wipe.
Edi: The achievement patch is now live! Most achievements are currently using placeholder icons that will be updated in future patches.