Kingdom Chess News

Finally an update. After about 3 months of work, new character models are brought to Kingdom Chess. It couldn't be updated earlier because changes affected some core mechanics, so all old models needed to be replaced. This month some minor improvements should be made (hair models, inventory icons, item values, item drop models, monuments) along with creation of new models (bandits, villagers).

Here is summary of the improvements:
- More detail has been added. Base model has been rebuilt several times. Now it has about 3-4 times more triangles. Shoulders and hips are now properly connected with torso. All the body parts has been shaped look more like human but it's still very blocky as intended.
- All the previous models have been replaced (pawn, rook, knight, bishop, queen king and jester). 3 new models have been made (cannon, phoenix and elephant). Thanks the feedback received before, now it should easier to distinguish different pieces on the board.
- Skeleton adjustments have been made for the models to deform better. Also corrective bones have been added in few places and animations has been reloaded.
- Models are now properly divided for customization purposes. Before I could only add extra models on top of existing ones which was very limiting. Now body parts can be replaced in 4 areas: chest, legs, head and hands.
- Characters have been optimized in few areas. Materials have been put together into atlases to reduce draw calls. Separate body parts are merged into single models. Animations are optimised to reflect visibility and distance from camera. All that together allowed to increase performance by about 30 fps on my computer (standard setup with 32 characters).
- All the weapons have been corrected, to match new character models.
- It's now fully implemented into the game so everything works properly with all systems updated.

Prepare to mate - I hope you can see where the inspiration for this new character came from.

Just a quick update. Bugs have been fixed for single player campaign. There is still a lot of room for improvements, but It's time to dive into characters. Nothing new has been added to the game yet but it's time to improve, optimize and expand characters for the game. At this stage base model has been redesigned to look better and skinned for animations. Also body parts has been separated for customization purposes. Now it's time to update and optimize all the relevant character functions. Once all characters / gear is upgraded, new content will be added. It will be nice to populate current areas with diverse NPC's and enemies before moving to a new one.

A lot of work has gone into the single player campaign. The dungeon should be finished this week. Also there is a lot of bug squishing and minor improvements to be done (in both single player and multiplayer), so that will be the focus for this month. Hopefully there will be a new trailer and a bit of promotion before developing new area for single player. Here is a summary of features added last month:

- Dungeon update. Most of the rooms has been finished and filled up with enemies. Fog of war now covers the dungeon. It requires further visual improvements, but it functions correctly. Also the village has been filled up with merchants and pieces to recruit.
- Recruitment. Your wealth is based on the equipment you have (on your king), so you won't be recruit everyone right away. Of course you still need enough gold to pay them, but that's a secondary condition. For now team size is capped at 6, but this system will be expanded later to balance out dual wielding and include new features (deployable pawns).
- Interactive objects. Most of the objects existed already, but now it's all updated with sounds and new functionality that requires you to walk up prior to interaction (in campaign). Objects: doors, windows lights, chests, sarcophaguses, crypt, lever, portcullis gate, pick up items and loot drops.
- Inventory UI improvements. Now you can drag and drop with left mouse button. Now you can find items in chests and trade with NPCs. Tooltip has been added to show moveset associated with each weapon and value of each item.
- Enemy Leaders. Basically one of enemies is a King, but can have any moveset. Once you kill a leader, you kill everyone he controls, so it comes under "check". Leader tooltips have orange backgrounds, but that will be improved later with character tooltip upgrade.
- 2 new weapons (broken sword and arrow). Very simple ones just to weaken the initial enemies.
- Campaign movement improvements. New collision system has been developed to prevent characters from stepping into unavailable areas.

Finally a new update! Sorry for the lack of information on progress. There was a month break and then focus on development without investing any time in promotion.

Features added over last 2 months:
- Visual improvements. A lot of experiments took place to see how to make the game a bit more attractive visually. Texture variations and model improvements along with new assets has been included to add more detail to the world.
- New map has been created. It's a bigger village with access to underground dungeon through the crypt (back of the church). The map isn't finished yet (it requires few touches), but you can explore it while in the main menu. It's important step in development of new single player campaign, which is now getting all the focus.

It was quiet and productive month. Puzzles meant to be an easy addition, but it consumed much more time then expected.

Features added last month:
- Puzzles! Brand new section of the game located in "Battle". Over 1.5 million classic chess puzzles have been imported and 4 modes introduced. "Bolt", "Fever" and "Survival" encourage players compete against their own score. And "Explorer" allows to customize the experience by tweaking with "time" and "lives" options. Few finishing touches like difficulty, themes and custom puzzles will be added soon.
- Campaign tutorial now covers all the core mechanics. Few finishing touches will be made just to improve experience.
- Piece icons improvements. Edge is more visible and classic icons are available (Settings/User). Also you can hide characters by holding "Tab" on your keyboard. It's not really how the game should be played and "modern" icons are more visible under characters. These features are designed to share chess puzzles outside the game and now it's available to everyone.
- New welcome screen as been added to improve communication. It's hard to miss it.
- Promotion improvements. UI has been polished and now it appears before making the move.
- Mismove & Miskill improvements. Few tweaks took place and notifications now will appear only in developer's mode.