Shotgun King: the Final Checkmate cover
Shotgun King: the Final Checkmate screenshot
Genre: Shooter, Strategy, Turn-based strategy (TBS), Tactical, Indie, Arcade

Shotgun King: the Final Checkmate

Quickpatch: v1.343 Changelog

Hi there!

Here's a new batch of fixes for all of you Shotgun Royalties!

Changelog:

  • [GFX] new shotguns have their own sfx and graphics in interface
  • [ERGO] You can now read unlock conditions for locked shotguns in the shotgun selection screen
  • [FIX] fixed Theocracy + Ravenous Rats + Undead Rats "Happy Hopping Rook" bug
  • [FIX] fixed Sawed-off + Unjust Decree soft lock
  • [FIX] "MMMMH DELICIEUX !" achievement is now fixed
  • [FIX] zombie pawns won't spawn on fresh backup squares or boss anymore
  • [FIX] Bodyguards protect big king as expected
  • [FIX] Cannonball won't affect high focus anymore
  • [FIX] Legacy modes won't crash the client if loaded on a modded game
  • [FIX] spacebar now triggers force-feeding


Once again thank you for your patience! We're very happy to see that you seem to enjoy the big update!!
-PUNKCAKE Délicieux 🥞

Quickpatch: v1.342 Changelog

Hi there!

Even though we did our best to catch as many bugs as we could before the big update, it seems we let a few through anyway. We're fixing them as fast as we can, here's a first quickpatch that takes care of most of the ones that were reported to us so far!

Changelog:

  • [BALANCE] Force-feeding now limited to 7 shells
  • [BALANCE] Force-feeding extra ammo when level end
  • [BALANCE] Analysis Paralysis is now capped to 6 turn.Free soul effect removed. Now Stackable ( for the nostalgics )
  • [BALANCE] Caltrops now additionally delay backup arrivals by 50%
  • [FIX] Boss music is back
  • [FIX] Flying pieces now ignore moat to choose move/attack target
  • [FIX] Collection achievements can't be unlocked on death anymore
  • [FIX] Fixed a bug where Undercover mission waypoint was sometime missing
  • [FIX] Fixed a bug making knightmares untargetable with blade
  • [FIX] Dark Bishop won't respawn a second time if a bishop is left when he dies
  • [FIX] Rats spawning because of wand effects will now attack targets before your next move
  • [FIX] Rats won't spawn anymore on dark bishop spawn animation
  • [FIX] Recoil from Sawed-off Justice now triggers Unholy Call & Undercover Mission
  • [FIX] Cannonballs don't need to be killed to finish the game when king is guillotined
  • [FIX] Cannonballs won't be destroyed by lightning and can now be used for dark bishop fight
  • [FIX] Shotgun King won't spawn on an unholy pentagram anymore
  • [FIX] Guillotine and Secret Heir won't spawn in the same game
  • [NITPICKING] Unholy Call replaced by Caltrops in the NINJA achievement
  • [NITPICKING] Airy Knights won't affect High Focus


We're also very aware that the translations are still incomplete as of right now. Complete translations are on the way and should arrive sometime this week!

Thanks for your patience!
-PUNKCAKE Délicieux 🥞

Shotgun King Content Update: New Difficulty System, New Game Mode, New Cards...



Hi everyone!

It's here! The big update we announced 10 days ago is now live! You'll find the complete changelog further below, here are a few important points:

New Difficulty System


We replaced the old difficulty system and it's 5 levels (easy to king) with 15 ranks of incrementing difficulty. The goal here is to give you a much smoother diffulty curve than before so that the higher difficulties wouldn't feel as frustratingly tough as they used to.

This does mean your old save is not compatible with the new version, since the difficulties you completed no longer exist. But we hope the various new unlockable things will motivate you to get blasting from the start again!
The game should create a copy of your old save in case you want to keep it for personal use.

Unlockable Shotguns


The update also adds a new shotgun system! When starting a Throne run, you can select a shotgun to play with, with unique stats per shotgun. It's kindof like a character selection thing, except the character is still our beloved yet equally despicable Shotgun King, and you're just chooseing what shotgun he'll be working with.

There are 5 different shotguns, 4 of which you will have to unlock. We'll let you figure out the unlock conditions on your own, but here's a hint: try to select cards to max out specific stats. Good luck!

New Cards


The update adds some 42 new cards to the game! Some white, some black, we're sure you'll find some pleasant and some less pleasant surprises in there.

However, simply expending the card pool would mean pretty bad things for the balance of the game, since it means making it even more unpredictable. To remedy this, we made it so you'll have to get specific cards to unlock others in that run. That way the initial pool isn't too large, and you get a nice depth to explore. And to encourage you to explore it, we've added...

The Codex


The Codex is a new cozy little interface available from the main menu, where you can see all the cards you've had in the game so far, plus the unlock conditions for them! Will you be able to find 'em all?

New game mode: Chase


The update also adds a brand new game mode. You'll have to reach level 15 of Endless mode to unlock Chase!

Chase mode is a sort of survival mode where white pieces continously come onto the board from all sides to challenge the black king. Every time you kill a white king, you get to choose one of three black cards and then continue your onslaught. But you can only have 5 cards at a time, when you get your 6th card, your 1st one gets destroyed. How far will you make it?

New achievements


We've also added 46 new Steam achievements! Some of them are like the old ones where you have to win a run with a specific combination of cards, but most of them are more original, like recomposing a classic chess army on the white side, or killing an iron queen, or even stealing the white queen!

We've also added difficulty achievements now that we're happier with the new system!

Modding


The game already supported modding but we've added a whole new set of possibilities, including new card effects but also custom game modes! In fact the existing game modes use the new system, so that you could recreate them yourself. But we're sure you'll prove much more creative than that, as some of you already have with the previous version of the game!

We still don't have support for the Steam Workshop yet but we plan to work on it. In the meantime, we're hosting the mods on our Discord server! Come join us!

About the languages


Before this update, the game supported a few different languages thanks to community-made translations. That was very generous of those translators and we're extremely grateful to them for this. However, the update does add a lot of new things so we felt this was a good time to switch to professional translations, especially now that thanks to you we have the funds for it!

But unfortunately the new translations aren't quite ready just yet, so the update is only fully available in english for now. The translations should be coming sometime this week. There will be all the languages from before the update plus some three newcomers! We can't wait to announce them, stay tuned for that!

Price Bump


As announced in our previous post, the game's price goes up to 9.99$ today, or regional equivalent, from 5.99$ previously. It was that or make the update a DLC. We prefered this option better: this way all previous owners get the new content for free and we still get compensated for the extra work with the new purchases! We hope you'll find this agreeable!


Ok, that about covers it all, kinda! It's a pretty big update! Here's the changelog!

Complete Changelog:

  • [NEW CONTENT] A codex has been added so you can track your cards statistics and try to catch'em all
  • [NEW CONTENT] +42 new cards
  • [NEW CONTENT] New shotgun selection system with 5 different shotguns (4 unlockables)
  • [NEW CONTENT] New difficulty system for Throne mode, featuring 15 ranks to complete. Replaces old 5-level difficulty system.
  • [NEW CONTENT] New Chase mode
  • [MUSIC] New track for endless mode
  • [VISUAL] Added a proper animation for soul reaping
  • [VISUAL] Theocracy is now torn up when boss fight begins
  • [VISUAL] Backups countdown is now visible on card
  • [Balance] Knight speed -1 (they will now move every 3 turns like bishops)
  • [Balance] Grenade dmg is now 2 and has its own ammo type
  • [Balance] Grenade big bounce (2 squares away) is removed, but grenades can now fall off board or sink in the moat.
  • [Balance] Bodyguard now give knights +1hp
  • [Balance] Conscription now spawn pawns every 5 turns (was 4)
  • [Balance] Conclave and Cavalry delay decreased from 20 to 15 turns
  • [Balance] Pikemen now removes one pawn from the white army
  • [Balance] Backups now behave like conscription, they spawn on the backline only
  • [Balance] Percing Truth no longer removes 1 firerange
  • [Balance] Black Mist now removes 1 firerange while the card is face up
  • [Balance] Scouting now only add two pawns instead of three
  • [Balance] Pikemen now gives pawn +1 hp but pawns can now longer attack diagonally
  • [Balance] Knockback now prevents pieces from attacking you on the turn they are moved.
  • [Balance] Wands are now limited to 3.
  • [Balance] Zealots is now flipped if there's no bishop.
  • [Balance] Ritual Dagger now has blade +1 but lowers king hp by 2 instead of 3
  • [Balance] Lookout Tower now decreases backup timer each time you kill a piece
  • [Balance] Pierce mechanic now works like knockback with a % chance for each bullet to pierce its target. Piercing Truth doesn't decrease firepower anymore.
  • [Rework] Unfaithfull Steed: +1 move range, flip this card if there's no knight on the board
  • [Rework] Taunting Hop: Once per turn, jump over a nearby piece dealing it $0 dmg without ending the turn. Now also works with soul moves.
  • [Achievements] Added 56 new Steam achievements.
  • [Achievements] Wizard achievement now only requires 3 wands.


Thank you once more for all the love and support so far! We hope you'll enjoy all the new content!
If you encounter bugs or just want to chat about the game, or discover mods, please do come by on our Discord server, we're nice!

Have a great week!
-PUNKCAKE Délicieux 🥞

Big Content Update and Price Increase coming on November 14th



Hi everyone!

We're happy to announce we're almost finished with the first big new update to Shotgun King since the Steam release back in May!

An update that adds half again the current game's content and then some more, bringing the game's card count above 100, from 66 currently, and adding one brand new game mode alongside Throne and Endless.

An update that adds an entirely new difficulty system, hopefully answering the most blistering critiques we've had so far.

An update that adds a whole range of new modding possibilities.

An update so big, in fact, that we almost made it a DLC!! That is genuinely something we considered. But we couldn't be bothered, so instead this is what's going to happen:

On November 14th, all owners of the game will get the full update for free and we'll bump the game's price to 9.99$. (from the current 5.99$)

That way we can bring the game's price to a place that is more representative of the added value, but without actually making anyone who already got the game pay anymore for it. At PUNKCAKE Délicieux we don't like to simply see the glass half-full, we want our glass positively filled to the brim, overflowing even, drowning the entire room in both cleverness and magnanimity!

That also means that if you haven't bought the game yet, or if you know someone who has been on the fence about it, well we'd recommend telling them, or yourself, to buy the game before the price increase and get free friendship (or self-love) points with that person!

What's more, we're even doing a sale from now up to the 14th, exceptionally bringing the game's price below 5$! (or regional equivalent)

With all this out of the way, here is a short gameplay gif of the new Chase mode that is coming to the update!



We hope you're excited! See you very soon!
-PUNKCAKE Délicieux 🥞

Shotgun King now available in Korean, Russian and Ukrainian!



Hi all!

We're very happy to bring you more languages for Shotgun King!! Korean, Russian and Ukrainian have just been added to the game!

The translations were made by Otiel, Trek, Drugon, and NamorSom who we thank very much for their help!

We have 3 more translations which are awaiting approval. They are complete but need to be tested before we can add them to the game. If you can read Romanian, Polish or Brazilian Portuguese and you would like to help out, please come to our Discord server to download them and test them!

Since the last News Post we also did two very small quickpatches, so here are the changelogs:

v1.253:

  • [Lang] Added Korean! Thank you Otiel and Trek!
  • [Lang] Added Russian! Thank you Drugon!
  • [Lang] Added Ukrainian! Thank you NamorSom!
  • [Bugfix] Fixed text beeps playing for longer than the actual text in non-latin languages.


v1.252:

  • [Engine] Fixed an issue that resulted in a heavily slanted screen.
  • [Engine] Fixed an issue where audio wouldn't properly initialize, leaving the game silent - or crashing.
  • [Ergo] Restored the old card description animation on card choice.
  • [Bugfix] Fixed the little pause at the end of each line of the story texts for languages that use non-latin characters.


Once more, thank you all for your support! We are working on a bigger update, so stay tuned for that! :)

Have a nice week!
-PUNKCAKE Délicieux 🥞

Bugfixes: v1.251 quickpatch



Hi all!

Very quick message to let you know we've patched some bugs and issues that appeared after yesterday's update.

Here's the changelog:

  • [Bugfix] Black mist can't be triggered twice with the same grenade
  • [Bugfix] King's shoulders can't lift two pieces at once anymore
  • [Bugfix] fixed joust extra turn when you kill a knight with a throw
  • [Bugfix] killing heir and king in a single shot won't crash the game
  • [Bugfix] Fixed access to the secret boss
  • [Lang] It's now possible to add any fonts to the font folder
  • [Lang] lang file : added font_size, font_line_height, font_offset_y to adjust font's settings
  • [Lang] removed "depixel" font, replaced with "Terminus" which is smaller and supports more characters

Thanks to people who reported problems!

And as always thank you all for your support!
Take care!
-PUNKCAKE Délicieux
🥞

Patch notes for 1.25 - Shotgun King now available in Chinese!


The Chinese text reads "Shotgun King now available in Chinese!"

Hi all!

We've just uploaded patch 1.25 for Shotgun King!

It contains a lot of bugfixes and some minor improvements and balance changes. And it adds simplified Chinese to the game's available languages!

We've spent a lot of time working on our game engine so that it would support unicode characters, and then so that it could display them at a different resolution without utterly butchering the game's looks. And now that it's done, it means we can support many more languages. Chinese is the first to come to the game but we have plans for more, more info further below!

We also took the time to add back accents and special characters to the existing French and Spanish translations, as well as rework the French translation a little bit.

Here's the complete changelog:

  • [Controls] SPACE shortcut to reload
  • [Controls] King Shoulders now use drag & drop to be activated
  • [Balance] Castle now stuns king and rook so they can't attack you right after swapping
  • [Balance] Castle now offers +1hp to rooks
  • [Balance] Secret Heir is now theocracy compatible
  • [Balance] Theocracy and throne room now exclude each other
  • [Engine] Grenades now explode right after being launched.
  • [Engine] Surrender now happens on last leader death. It won't happen anymore if there's no leader in the level setup.
  • [Engine] Taunting Hop can now override Folly Shields if it kills its target
  • [Engine] Folly Shields now take extra damage from Unjust Decree into account
  • [Engine] Sacred crown now ignores Folly Shields when you use a soul.
  • [Visual] Heir animation is skipped if there's only one pawn.
  • [Visual] Moat floating animation is now compatible with flying bishops and spotted heirs
  • [Bugfix] reloading shotgun now waits for full ammo regeneration
  • [Bugfix] Folly shields now check for 3 dmg (not your firepower) if you throw a piece at close range with King's Shoulders
  • [Bugfix] You can now throw pieces with King's Shoulders even if your shotgun is empty
  • [Bugfix] Pause is now activable only during your turn
  • [Bugfix] White Pieces and Black King starting their turn in the moat can now move within the moat without constraint
  • [Bugfix] Thrown pieces can't overlap knocked back pieces anymore
  • [Bugfix] Folly shield now take account of the Royal Loafers target
  • [Bugfix] HP Bar now display correctly when 10hp+ pieces fall below 10hp
  • [Bugfix] Theocracy bishops can now be thrown at each other, without Castle's rooks crashing the game.
  • [Bugfix] Exorcised steam achievement doesn't block the unlocking of Avenged steam achievement anymore.
  • [Bugfix] using black mist to escape a grenade won't make you invicible to other grenadas.
  • [Lang] added Chinese translation!
  • [Lang] reworked the French and Spanish translations
  • [Lang] "souls" has been added to translation file
  • [Lang] difficulty mode now displays correctly in the game footer

Thanks to everyone who reported bugs and issues with the game! We hope you'll appreciate all the fixes and changes!

As usual, all these changes also apply to the demo which we just updated as well.

And now that the game supports non-latin characters, we're looking to add more translations. We already have a few community-made translations that we'd like to officialize, including Japanese, Korean, Ukrainian, Polish, Russian, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, and Romanian! Those all need to be updated for the new version, and more importantly they need to be tested by other players who understand the language before we can add it in.

If you'd like to help test out new translations, or that you'd like to propose a new one, please come to our Discord! That's where we're storing all the translations right now and where we coordinate everything. Your help would be more than welcome!

We're excited to make the game accessible to more players all around the world with your help!

Once again thank you all so much for your support and for making Shotgun King the success it is! It's been barely four weeks since the release and we're still overwhelmed with how well it's been doing! Thank you!! ❤

Have a great week!
-PUNKCAKE Délicieux
🥞

QoL improvements and bugfixes: v1.245 Patch



Hi all!

The new patch is here! It's mostly bugfixes, plus a few QoL improvements you've been asking for.
As promised, both the full game and the demo get the update!

Changelog:

  • [Ergo] Added a "resign" button to the pause menu
  • [Ergo] Left-click to speed up level complete sequence
  • [Ergo] Triple-click at the start of the intro to skip it
  • [Bugfix] Crash on lifting secret heir
  • [Bugfix] Weird patterns after waking up computer from sleep with the game still running
  • [Bugfix] Fixed some annoying mod folder crashes
  • [Bugfix] Black Mist now saves you from the boss and the Kingly Alms
  • [Bugfix] Free turns give you back your folly shield
  • [Bugfix] Now checking on white king death after using magic wands
  • [Bugfix] Now processing white king death before free turns
  • [Bugfix] Menu back buttons now update when changing language
  • [Bugfix] Fixed crashes and freezes that could happen after the splash-screens or during the game


We hope you like what you see!

If you catch anymore bugs you can report it on our Discord or on the game's Steam forums!

We're blown away by all the attention the game has been getting. and so, so glad to see so many of you enjoying the game! Thank you all for the support!

Have a lovely week,
- PUNKCAKE Délicieux
🥞

Successful release! // First patch // Future plans



Hi all!

Thank you all so much for such a warm reception for our first game on Steam!! In less than 24 hours Shotgun King already paid back its development costs in full! 🎉

That's just amazing, we really didn't expect it to do that well, but we're super glad you're enjoying the game! Thank you for your support!

We want to adress some questions we've seen pop up here and there, then we want to tell you about the first patch we just uploaded, and then we want to tell you a bit about our plans for the future of Shotgun King. If you're interested in any of that, please read on!


About the demo



We've seen some confusion as to what the full game brings on top of the demo, so here's clarification about that and about the demo in general:

The demo is basically the full game's endless mode with half the cards. On top of the endless mode and double the cards, the full game has a story mode with 5 different difficulties to beat, Steam achievements, and mod support. (mod support is experimental for now, more info further below)

As some of you have noted, the demo is quite generous and stands well-enough on its own. We're ok with that, we hope that if you really love the demo you'll find it in your heart to buy the full version and get the extra content. If you're broke or just don't care about the full version you can just keep on playing the demo, it is here to stay.

Not only is it here to stay, it will also receive all balance fixes, bugfixes and new localizations from the full game. We already updated the demo when the game released and we'll do it again with every new update. We don't care if this is a stupid business move, y'all deserve to have some good things in your life for free.


First patch



We just put up the first patch! It's a pretty small one but it should fix all the bugs and crashes that were reported to us so far.

If you find bugs or that your game crashes, please do let us know! The best place to do that is on our Discord in the dedicated #bugs channel, the second best place is in the game's Steam Forums, in the Bug Reports category. If you are reporting a crash, please look into the game's folder and give us the crash_log.txt!

Here is the changelog for version 1.244:

  • [Bugfix] Unjust decree won't lock aiming anymore on folly shield use
  • [Bugfix] Fixed bullet trajectory (some ~45° bullets had a chance to miss)
  • [Bugfix] Game won't crash anymore after you throw a heir with King's Shoulders
  • [Bugfix] Fixed a random crash on level complete when the game is in French
  • [Lang] Renamed the card "Crossdresser" to the more positive, inclusive and safer name "Genderqueer"


Future plans



The good news is, yes there are future plans for Shotgun King! The bad news... no, no bad news! Future plans yay!!

Besides bugfixes, we do have actual updates coming. We want to rework the game's different difficulties to give you something a little more interesting (that's actually why there are no achievements for completing the difficulties for now, we did make them but we're keeping them warm for that update), and we want to integrate Steam's Workshop for mod support.

The game already has experimental mod support. You can download the sample mod off of the game's Itch page (scroll down to the Downloads) and play around with it. If you'd like, you can find some people to help you and to share mods with on our Discord server.

We also want to bring more localizations to the game besides the existing French and Spanish ones. Let us know what languages you'd like to see!

We do not have a precise ETA for these things yet, but we expect to bring them to you in the coming months.

Besides Shotgun King, we'll also keep on making new games! Our thing is to make a new one every month. Even though Shotgun King is the first to get on Steam, it's actually our 9th game. We have a Patreon subscription where you get the new game every month, and we're also selling all our previous ones on Itch io. Check out our previous games if you want, we promise they're all pretty good!


In the meantime



You're still here?? Woah, thanks for reading all that, that's dedication!

Well, since you're so dedicated, what better moment to tell you some things you can do to help us make Shotgun King a complete hit! If you're enjoying the game so far, please consider doing the following things:

  • Leave the game a short review! Those really help the games sell, the more positive reviews we have the better! Note that if your main language isn't english, your review is even more valuable!
  • Tell your favorite streamer about Shotgun King! This is seriously the second best thing you can do for the game besides leaving a Steam review. Help us show the game to more people!
  • Join our Discord! That's the best place to be in contact with us, receive news and be part of our little community of players! We have a team of moderators keeping things safe and we try to be personally present to chat with you as well. Only good vibes allowed~


Ok, I think that's it for now! We hope you're looking forward to what's next for Shotgun King!

Once again thank you all so so much for your support!!

Much love,
PUNKCAKE Délicieux 🥞

Shotgun King arrives on May 12th to give Chess an explosive update



Hi there!

We know you've been waiting for this, here we are, PUNKCAKE Délicieux finally releasing one of their games on Steam!

Until now we've published all our games on Itch.io and on our Patreon and that was cool, but we figure if we want to go mainstream, we have to go where the main stream of players is, right?

Of course, we're PUNKCAKE, the only reason we want to go mainstream is to destroy the status quo, break the wheel so to speak, then make a new wheel, make it octogonal and give it little silver spikes, crush the industry elite with the octogonal spiky wheel, sow utter chaos and desperation, and finally reinvent video games as we know them.

But I digress, there will be time for that later, right now we're in a bit of a hurry, because...

We're releasing Shotgun King, the game of Chess where your army is replaced with a royal shotgun, here on Steam on May 12th!



That's next Thursday! We have tons of stuff to prepare, so I'll go now. We hope you're excited!

Have a nice few days, see you on Thursday! ❤
PUNKCAKE Délicieux 🥞