Master of Chess News

It's 2024, it's the year MoC comes out. And if everything goes well it should be out in couple of months. It's weird writing those words when there's so much more to do, but I'm excited for it. Future is bright!

If you want to talk chess or game development, join here: https://discord.gg/HYV8Zz8V2Q.




It's been so long since last demo version that it's hard for me to list out what has changed. Better question would be: what hasn't!? You'll find threats detection feature (you'll know it when you see it), a much improved AI, more polished UI, improvements in UX, more translations. Everything changed. (for the better, I hope!)


I've added as much as I've removed to deliver a more focused and polished version of the demo. So the demo no longer contains:

• 📰 Separate Tutorial screen. It's now built in the first match.
  
• 🤵 Player creation process. I wanted to let the player see the game in action as soon as possible. You're immediately presented with pre-created player from France - Matteo Martin.
  
• 🔑 Key Moments simulation. I don't have good explanation why, it just was too buggy after I added many AI improvements in the game and I decided to cut it out for a moment.
  

There's two threads I'm trying to follow.

First and foremost I'm looking into creating an alpha build of MoC. There's plenty of work to do, but I think I'm getting close. It will be rough, but it will be first real insight into the full game.

Secondly, I'm working on releasing a completely free app about chess opening repertoire creation. When folks saw the opening graph screenshots, a lot of comments were about how they would be interested in something like that, even if it was standalone. Now they can have it!

So a lot more work left. Check out the new demo and let me know what you think!

Heya!
It's 2024. It's the year Master of Chess gets released.

Safe to say I'm really excited for this year and my projects. If you're not visiting here often you might be wondering what's the latest state of the game. So here it is:

[h3]The Plan[/h3]

• I'm working on a FREE chess app about Chess Openings that I've extracted away from Master of Chess. It's called Chess Opening Repertoire Builder (CORB) and I plan to release it in February. It's my way of saying thank you to the chess community while simultaneously getting experience with releasing games on Steam.
  
• I'm upgrading the Demo. The newest update doesn't bring many new improvements but is more focused on polishing the existing experience. Expect an update in January.
  
• I'm preparing first alpha build of Master of Chess which I'll release on Itch.io. It's the biggest milestone of the game and I'll do my best to deliver it this month. This work is on hold right now because of some workstation issues but I should continue working on it soon.
  

Big thanks to everyone that have reached out and gave me their piece of mind. It's of great help in shaping this game. I'm loving it, I'm excited for what future holds.

Happy new year and lets stop the blunders!

BRANE

Steam Next Fest is long gone and it was an amazing ride!

• ✅ Hundreds of new wishlists (wishlist the game if you haven't!)
  
• 🎥 1600+ people at one point watching me stream the game
  
• 📢 Amazing feedback from the new players
  

Join discord here: https://discord.gg/HYV8Zz8V2Q to get daily updates on the game and provide your feedback!

[h2]What next?[/h2]

With that wind in my sails it is time to work on getting this game over the finish line. I worked past two weeks on creating the tournament experience. Couple of thousands tournaments later, I'm quite happy with the way it turned out (it will get a lot better after players get their hands on it)



So even though tournaments do need more love, I'll focus on the Match AI next as that was the biggest pain that the players experienced. After this work, I hope ELO will reflect more the strength of the AI you're facing.

At that point I'll release the new and last (I hope) version of the Demo.

From that point onwards all my efforts will be to get an early build of the full game out. This means finally adding the Openings feature, Finances management, redoing all the avatars in game, balancing the progression, fixing bugs (and those that I introduce on the way) and adding couple more smaller features.

All in all, it's exciting time for the game and I'm really happy with the way things are going.

Let's make chess fun for everyone!

The next week is probably the most exciting one since I started developing this game.

Steam Next Fest is a big thing for indie developers. So I made sure to polish my demo as much as possible before the festival began.




The new version brings loads of UX and QOL improvements.
But two features elevate the game completely:

- 🔎 Match review rewrite
- 👨‍🎓 Translations in multiple languages


I'm making this stream so I show the latest features and to record a stream for Steam Next fest. Join me!

Let's make chess fun for everyone!

Heya, we did this once already so now lets do it again but better!

Ask questions or just lay back and enjoy! I'll make sure to be as engaging as possible and to answer any questions you have!