Shotgun King: The Final Checkmate News

Happy new year royals!

2025 is here and while we don't have definite plans yet, we are hoping to do another content update this year. We already have a few ideas, but we figured it couldn't hurt to ask your opinion on what you'd like to see improved!

And so we ask for ~10 minutes of your time to complete this little survey where you may tell us your thoughts, if you feel so inclined. The survey starts with a few questions to help us understand who's playing the game now and how, and then you'll get a few questions about QoL things, and then more specific questions about the different shotguns and ranks in throne mode, about endless mode and chase mode, and then on general gameplay.

Please note that even if you haven't explored the full content of Shotgun King your opinions are still valuable to us and so we encourage you to complete the survey, and maybe tell us why you didn't explore the full content.

A big thank you to Etilon, who built this survey in the first place.

If you're encountering bugs or crashes, this survey is not the place for that. Please come report those on our Discord, it makes it much easier for us to keep track of them and eventually fix them! Our Discord is also a good place to get news from us or be part of the Shotgun King community if you're interested in that!

We're planning to make a lot of games this year, but we're happiest when we know people are having a good time with our past releases as well. Thanks for still showing love for Shotgun King in 2025!

Have a wonderful year! Take care! -PUNKCAKE Délicieux 🥞

Hello royals! Happy new year!

Here's another patch with a few bugfixes, but also with a new and hopefully more stable save system! This new system was built to avoid situations where saves would get corrupted without a safe backup for the game to revert to. It might still happen, but even then, the new system should be able to make it so you can still play the game at least.

Here is the full changelog for this version:

• [SAVE] Now using a new save system which should be more stable!
  
• [BUGFIX] Fixed a crash when Lady in the Tower should have saved you from other pieces after landing in their way
  
• [BUGFIX] Fixed phrases with no space characters in story screens and in tutorial not showing correctly
  
• [BUGFIX] Fixed CRT shader for MacOS
  
• [MODDING] Fixed 'require' only returning the first result of the required file
  

Thanks for playing! Have a great weekend!
-PUNKCAKE Délicieux 🥞

Hello royals!

Here's another patch with a few bugfixes for bugs that were reported after the patch from Monday! Apologies in particular for the text bug that cut off a lot of in-game descriptions for the Chinese, Korean and Japanese localizations. We realize how annoying it must have been, so we tried to fix it as fast as we could.

If you find other bugs, please come report them on our Discord, it's much easier for us to keep track of them there!

Here's the changelog for v1.515e:

• [BUGFIX] Phrases with no space characters (notably in Chinese, Korean and Japanese) are now properly broken down into multiple lines again
  
• [BUGFIX] Pieces will no longer randomly stop acting at all
  
• [BUGFIX] Folly shields no longer warn you against safe Sokoban Rooks
  
• [BUGFIX] Knockback angle now calculated before strafe movement with Royal Loafers
  
• [BUGFIX] Sabotaging the Mangonel card will now cancel prepared mangonel shots
  

Have some great holidays everyone!
-PUNKCAKE Délicieux 🥞

Hello royals!

We'd like to wish you some happy holidays and some not-too-horrible family dinners! We know how it is. We thought you might appreciate a new Shotgun King patch. It's mostly fixes, but it's always nicer to play a game without encountering bugs! We also got someone who knows their stuff to review and improve the spanish localization, and someone else to localize it further for Latin American Spanish! Yay for more localizations!

Before leaving you with the changelog, now seems as good a time as any to point out that we have a lot of other games and that they are all on sale right now! We also have a few upcoming games that you can get excited about and wishlist now if you can find it in your heart! You can find all this on our developper page! (consider following it!)

Okay, here's the changelog:

• [BALANCE] Inquisition bishops are less likely to target Moles and Undercover Mission tiles if other moves are available
  
• [BALANCE] Black Mist now teleports you to an actually safe tile even if you are in stealth
  
• [BUGFIX] Bishops and rooks will no longer use Tag Team for no reason
  
• [BUGFIX] Rooks will no longer use Sokoban for no reason, and are less likely to sacrifice other pieces
  
• [BUGFIX] Rooks will no longer use Sokoban on you when you are in stealth
  
• [BUGFIX] Sokoban rooks will now actually try to kill you if they have the chance
  
• [BUGFIX] Fixed a bug where pieces could stack on top of each other because of simultaneous Sokoban pushes and Tag Team swaps
  
• [BUGFIX] Fixed a rare crash on aiming with a game controller
  
• [BUGFIX] On a gamepad, pressing B no longer triggers special abilities
  
• [BUGFIX] Fixed the Discord link on the title screen
  
• [BUGFIX] Seer's Orb now positions itself correctly above the boss white king
  
• [BUGFIX] Horsemen no longer get buckler and bow when you step on the third Unholy Call pentacle
  
• [BUGFIX] Stepping up to the mole as you kill it with Royal Loafers will no longer crash the game
  
• [BUGFIX] Folly shields now properly warn you against shooting at a pawn when you have Low-Cost Disguise but a Mangonel rook is about to fire at you
  
• [BUGFIX] Mangonel shot line and circle now properly disappear if canceled with Castling
  
• [BUGFIX] Sabotaging Vampirism now properly removes blood sucking abilities from queens and leaders
  
• [BUGFIX] More precise knockback
  
• [BUGFIX] Fixed rendering of kite shields on knightmares
  
• [BUGFIX] You can no longer shoot before reloading ends
  
• [BUGFIX] King's Shoulders now explicitely excludes blade cards using codex tags
  
• [BUGFIX] Moving into an Inquisition bishop's path with holocloak will now properly use up a folly shield
  
• [BUGFIX] The correct track is now played after triggering Black Mist during a secret boss fight
  
• [BUGFIX] If Lady in the Tower places a promoted rook on a square that blocks another threat to the black king, then you are now actually saved from that threat
  
• [BUGFIX] Fixed button hitbox position for reloading the shotgun with the mouse
  
• [BUGFIX] Fixed a bug were pieces would appear to slide on the board after getting pushed off the board by a Sokoban rook then saved by Bouncy Castle or Black Mist
  
• [BUGFIX] Poor cannonballs can no longer be scared
  
• [LANG] The spanish translation was reviewed and reworked
  
• [LANG] The spanish translation was further localized into a LATAM spanish translation!
  

Have a very nice end of the year and don't forget to be naughty next year, gotta deserve that lump of coal! Love you, -PUNKCAKE Délicieux 🥞

Hello royals!

Thank you for your patience on this one. There were a lot of bug reports in the last two weeks, thanks for that, it really helps us fixing them! Most of them were pretty minor, and some were more annoying. In particular we're really sorry about the issues that some Steam Deck and gamepad users encountered, some of which were pretty bad. We unfortunately do not have a Steam Deck ourselves to test the game, and the core of our community plays with mouse and keyboard, so we're low on controller-playing feedback.

Nonetheless, we did our best to fix all the issues that were reported, including the ones specific to Steam Deck and controller support. Please let us know how we did!

On top of all these fixes, we also added a new thing that was requested on our Discord server: each individual shotgun now tracks the best rank you've won with it! We were not saving this progress before this patch, so you'll have to win at least one run to see it in action, but we hope it'll motivate you to play the game with the shotguns you don't usually pick up!

And finally, this patch brings two new languages to the game: Italian and Brazilian Portuguese! Thank you to Primo Vinicio Calabrese and Emerson P. Machado respectively for making the game accessible to even more people!

Here is the full changelog:

• [NEW] You can now track your best rank won on each shotgun in Throne mode
  
• [LOCA] Added Italian and Portuguese localizations!
  
• [BALANCE] Rooks can no longer protect the king with Castle when stunned
  
• [BUGFIX] Tentative fix for a bug on controllers where the right stick stops responding
  
• [BUGFIX] Fixed a bug on controllers where confirming your first move would send you to inspect your cards
  
• [BUGFIX] Move squares no longer flash at the start of your turn if you're holding right stick
  
• [BUGFIX] First choice on level ups no longer flashes when the appearing animation ends
  
• [BUGFIX] Fixed a bug where receiving ammo at the same time as you reloaded
  
• [BUGFIX] Further refined arrow folly shield detection
  
• [BUGFIX] Tentative fix for a bug where arrows kill you when they hit the square you just moved from
  
• [BUGFIX] Prevented level up screen duplication
  
• [BUGFIX] Bleeding buffs every separate shot from Unjust Decree
  
• [BUGFIX] Force-feeding now properly capped to 8 shells, even with Yvan IV
  
• [BUGFIX] Fixed piece %hp bonuses
  
• [BUGFIX] Mausoleum now gets the leader tag as intended
  
• [BUGFIX] Castle, Theocracy, Commoner's Reign, and Heir cards now all get the leader tag
  
• [BUGFIX] Can no longer get sanctified bishops' souls with the Wand of Souls
  
• [BUGFIX] Extra kings now get leader bonuses during the boss battle
  
• [BUGFIX] Removed irrelevent delay after white piece moves when there is no bow and arrows
  
• [BUGFIX] Vampire boss king can now properly suck the blood off the pieces surrounding it on all sides
  
• [BUGFIX] Codex back button now always shows above card descriptions
  
• [BUGFIX] Black Mist should no longer move you into arrows
  
• [BUGFIX] Fixed a bug where some achievement-tracking stats were not properly reset on hitting try again on the gameover
  
• [BUGFIX] Kite Shields now properly block and get used up by rats and taunting hops
  
• [BUGFIX] Castling now properly protects the king from rats and taunting hops
  
• [BUGFIX] Seer's Orb no longer lets you cycle through a piece's options
  
• [BUGFIX] Grenades will now always trigger Castle before doing damage to any pieces
  
• [BUGFIX] Castling now protects the king from bleeding
  
• [BUGFIX] Ambush no longer gets the grenade tag
  
• [BUGFIX] Fixed the Humiliation achievement so that it only triggers when killing a king by hopping on him
  
• [BUGFIX] You can now use grenades again right after refilling them with a disruption effect
  
• [BUGFIX] Can no longer shoot after resigning while being stuck in Analysis Paralysis
  
• [BUGFIX] Mangonels won't show the targetting line if they're not about to attack because of Selective Listening
  
• [BUGFIX] Unicorns no longer charge you if you're in stealth mode
  
• [BUGFIX] Plural forms of words now properly reset when switching languages
  
• [BUGFIX] Fixed a bug that prevented Sokoban rooks from trying to push you
  
• [BUGFIX] Folly shields now detect Sokoban rooks who can push you off the board
  
• [BUGFIX] Fixed a bug where Sokoban rooks or the pieces they push wouldn't fully register as going to their destination if the piece previously at that destination was just pushed off the board, resulting in other pieces being able to move to that same destination and stacking with the piece that just got there
  
• [LANG] The Royal Hunt's description now mentions the shooting speed increment on stack
  
• [LANG] Low-Cost Disguise's description now says "when a pawn dies" instead of "when you kill a pawn"
  

Thank you all for the support! Long live the Shotgun King!
-PUNKCAKE Délicieux 🥞

---

Edit: Just put up a new quickpatch which takes care of a crash that was introduced with the 1.515 patch. Here's the full changelog for v1.515b:

• [BUGFIX] Fixed a crash on picking the disrupt reload option
  
• [BUGFIX] Fatality check now takes Bodyguard, Kite Shield and Cathedral into account
  

Edit 2: Just put up another quickpatch after it was reported that controller controls were still bugged. After some testing it appeared that the version of Steam's dev stuff we were using was outdated and it's possible the issues people were having were simply Steam Input acting up because of this. I also fixed some other bugs, here the full changelog for v1.515c:

• [BUGFIX] Fixed a crash when releasing the soul of a sanctified bishop with no soul slot
  
• [BUGFIX] Fixed a visual bug where after killing a santified bishop it looks like you're about to steal its soul even if you don't have an empty soul slot
  
• [BUGFIX] Codex and Shotgun progress badges no longer share the same save space
  
• [ENGINE] Updated Steam API, which hopefully fixes the controller issues a few people have been having