Chess Heroes: The Demo is LIVE!

I am excited to announce that the Chess Heroes demo is live and ready for you download!

http://chess-heroes.com/demo/

After three expo showings in three months (SIX in September, Captivate in October, iFEST in November) and after adding a ton of new features and polish, the demo has become quite a feature-packed action hour of fun! Please give it a try, and let me know what you think on Facebook or on Twitter!

One Day Of Development

Would you like to know what I get up to on a sample day? Specifically, a day leading up to the demo's full public release? Well, you're in luck! Here's a list of what I got done on Monday, Nov. 25th.

TITLE SCREEN
Remove "Work In Progress" bar
Change "Design Demo" to "The Demo Version!"
Add Web link
Add twitter link
Add blogger link
Add Facebook link
Add Steam link

THANKS FOR PLAYING
Add Steam link
Adjust position of "quit for real button"
Change release date

EDIT PROFILE
Remove Bar crown
Fix button positions to be proportional to screen

INTRO
Test deeper shadows, less ambient light (ambient from 51 to 25, angle prev. at rot. 50, 147, -3 now sharper)
Fix broken textures of castle

GAME
Destroy stars and checkmate ribbon so they don't block "you unlocked" screen
Create high spaces for Granary
Debug Commands only enabled if UIO is pressed together
Add debug mode to show cursor position

BUGS
Pawn King disappears after Checkmate [can't repro in debug environment?] [posted on forums]
Identify odd "speck" in lower left quadrant, visible in Harbor 1 [menu camera was not excluding board spaces]
allowPlayerKingToMoveIntoCheck not checked when entering state Turn Start
Sliding pieces not checking number of pieces between themselves and target when tested by CanCapturePieceIfOtherPieceMovesToXY
Enrage tutorial: bishop is not re-selected
After a piece has been enraged and moved, it can't be deselected if selected later in the game
Upgrade tutorial: could not select pawn

TEXT
Update intros for Act 2 and Act 3
Update summaries for all three acts
Update "About" text for Abilities and Magic
Upgrade tutorial: eliminate "captures create energy"
Update text for all four tutorials
Enrage tutorial: change "granary" to act 3

SOUND
Find or create Star sound
Find or create Checkmate sound
Find victory music
Find defeat music
Add Star sound
Add Checkmate sound
Add victory music
Add defeat music
Add Execute music intro (same as tutorial)
Reduce volume of spell casting
Add sound effects to Granary Menu
Add sound effect to "To Battle"
Add sound effect to vignette fade before battle

Chess Heroes News: November 8, 2013

BAM! It's update time, sucka!

At this time tomorrow, Corey (the musician) and I will be driving back from iFEST in Seattle. That's three public showings in three months, and it's pretty amazing to be in the middle of it all.

I've also been extremely active in the local business community, working with local game developers and entrepreneurs. I'm sowing seeds, basically, and what will pop up? I don't know, but I believe it will be good!

These expos and outreach programs carry a heavy cost. Since we're in November and Act 1 isn't ready yet, you can tell just how much of a hit my schedule has taken. However, the upside is more time on foundations, and making the game as widely appealing as possible.

So when's the game coming out?

November is now the month the demo will be released. After that will come an IndieGogo campaign for pre-orders, then a full release of Act 1 in December or January.

Oh yeah. I ran the game on an iPhone this week. Want to see what it looks like?

Pretty much the same, minus the shadows!

The game looks and plays brilliantly, even on the tiny screen. Along with a very, very consistent request people have made ("I want to play this on a tablet!"), these results have cemented my decision to not only support Windows, OS X, and Linux, but iOS and Android as well. While it will ALSO have an impact on my schedule, I can't afford to "leave money on the table," as it were!

Big thanks to Unity for making that possible. =)

What's new this week?

Along with the iOS build, I added full support for Check and Checkmate (which was waaaay deeper than I thought it would be). This satisfies a consistent request from chess teachers. I included a toggle as well, so I'm not tied down as a designer.

I also added "victory stars" for your performance in each scenario. This is another feature people have asked for, and -- silly as it sounds -- it really brings home the idea that it's becoming more of a "real" game.

New website! New website. Soooo much better than the old website. Check it out!

Finally, I realize I haven't been doing a good job keeping this blog up to date. I now have a Friday newsletter I e-mail "shareholders" (aka indie game dev support group), and that will help me keep this site fresh as well.

Dev Notes: Private Pre-Alpha Demo!

This is it! Chess Heroes has taken its first steps into the wild!

I compiled a list of 60 people whose opinion I trust and respect, and sent them links to the game today. This is a big step for me. It's sort of like the first time you leave your child at someone's house. If they get back in one piece and everybody's smiling when it's over, I'll call that a success. Until then, I'll be in a corner, gnawing on a frozen towel for comfort.

And reading this tweet, over and over:

@Oreganik Wow, Chess Heroes is so similar to a dream game of mine that exists only on notebook paper. Looking awesome!
— Christer Kaitila (@McFunkypants) September 17, 2013

Christer "McFunkypants" Kaitila is a bad-ass indie developer who consistently crushes it with game jam entries, and hosts a few of his own, including #onegameamonth. (Which I totally signed up for then immediately bailed on, due to hurricane levels of WTF in my life) His support means a lot to me, and he sent back some excellent feedback that -- no joke -- deeply altered some of the core level design concepts of Chess Heroes.

I also got help this week from Jon and Jon (Jon Rush of Battlecry Studios and Jon Heiner of Realta Entertainment), who helped me solve a texture problem that was bugging me.

All I can say is, developing a game by yourself just means you get the biggest credit on the box. There's no way I'd ever be able to do this alone.

Dev Notes: Demo Development!

Wither: A spell cast by the Scarecrow King.

Restricts movement to a single square.

The past week has seen the game transformed from a mostly-stable, silent, hands-on demo to a rock-solid downloadable demo that's alive with sound!

I wanted to be able to send the game to interested bloggers (like the fine folks at Geekenstein) without a full page of stuff "that should be there." I also entered the indie game competition at the Captivate Conference. The game must represent itself well, without me holding its hand, and I think I'm getting pretty close.

After a thorough round of testing, I'll be posting it live to the internet. 

Hoo boy.

Major additions this week (September 8 to September 14)

• Music Manager to handle transitions, fades, etc.
• Audio Manager to handle sound effect calls
• Integrated 18 sound effects. A mix of custom recording, remixes of base sounds, and direct downloads from freesound.org. (note: all sounds will be original on game's release)
• "Quit Chess Heroes" menu now available on all screens (before that was created, you had to kill the process to exit. heh heh)
• Revised cinematic for Upgrade spell to show Pawn transforming
• New cinematic treatment for boss abilities Wither and Riptide
• Revised logo graphic and added "Pre Alpha Demo" to title screen
• Keyboard input to acknowledge instructions, open menus, etc.

Bug Fixes of Note

• Fixed "Unlock All"
• New users no longer get the "Continue" option
• Title screen buttons now sit at screen percentage, instead of fixed height
• Various interface issues cleaned up
• No longer possible to "soft lock" the game using Enrage on a piece with no valid moves
• Indicator arrows match camera rotation
• Camera rotation does not snap back to default after each move
• Cleaned up various issues with spell interface

Dev Notes: Animations and Rigid Bodies

Wow! What a great week. I started knowing what I had to accomplish (adding character to the chess pieces via animation), but had no idea if (a) it would work and (b) how to actually do it. And then when I got (a) and (b) done, I had to worry about (c) getting it into the game!

I'm happy to report that the results are in, and measured by the "it feels good" meter, animating the chess pieces and tying that to a rigid body collision system really hits the mark.

The Pawn, for example, hops around from space to space, with a little squish and squash action on his base as he does so. And of course, he headbutts pieces he's trying to capture. Spunky little guy, isn't he? The rest of the pieces each have their own "personality" and set of animations. I can't wait to show you!

Collaboration!

Two other great things happened this week: my good friend Corey gave me a CD of musical "sketches" of him trying to hone the dual themes of the game: the bright, clear sounds of the Light side, and the heavy, warm sounds of the Dark side. It sounds great so far. He is a gifted musician, and I'm incredibly honored he will be taking the time to help me out on this.

I also sat down with my friend Jim, a senior designer at Zynga, for the first ever playthrough! Jim gave me clear-headed, well-articulated design critiques and suggestions that are extremely valuable. But the key emotional takeaways for me were the words "I'm impressed" and "It feels good to capture pieces." Rock on! Especially since I'd only finished integrating the animation system that morning. :D

Identification!

Jim also helped me figure out exactly what Chess Heroes is, in terms of genre classification. I was straddling the line between Tactics and Strategy, but it didn't really fit the definitions, and I wasn't comfortable with the "high concept" summary. But he helped me realize that, based on the scenarios I've designed, it's a "tactical puzzle" game. I've crafted each scenario with specific intentions in mind, and hopefully this will clear up any confusion from future players.

That's not to say I can't shift gears later, and offer a more strategic take in later builds or acts, such as a meta-design similar to the classic Heroes of Might and Magic. Time (and feedback!) will tell!

Market Penetration!

Ew! Really? Ok. Um.

I had to rejigger the website for Oreganik (it was pretty... boring) and make one for Chess Heroes. There's also a Facebook page, so please Like it if you'd like to get the updates and occasional funny game-related news snippets.

Preparation!

I'm actually writing this on Saturday, as I've shifted to a 7-day workweek schedule until the Seattle Indies Expo (SIX) is over. I was stoked to discover it will be next door to PAX, so if you're there on Sunday, please drop by and say hello!

Here's the hit list for the week. I'm considering posting the remaining list online. If I get a SINGLE E-MAIL saying that would be good idea, I'll do it. :)

BUSINESS TASKS

• New Business cards
• Get info on SIX turnout, layout, etc
• Buy set of warm gray Copic markers

MARKETING

• Set up Facebook page
• Create website (chess-heroes.com): features, summary, supported by, SIX3 blurb, launch date, Google analytics
• Oreganik.com update
• Update sword in logo (VERY IMPORTANT: the first sword was clip art off the internet! now it's all 100% original)
• Update logo in game and all websites
• Dev Blog Update (hello!)

GAME SALES

• Contact Humble Store (no response! *sadface*)
• Contact Fastspring

DEVELOPMENT

• Capture intro and send to Corey for music
• Hi-rez models of Knight, Queen, and Rook
• UV and Ambient Occlusion pass on King, Queen, Pawn, Rook, Bishop, Knight
• Light and Dark textures for King, Queen, Pawn, Rook, Bishop, Knight
• Add support for Dark textures
• Integrate animation system into game
• Animate move and capture for King, Queen, Pawn, Rook, Bishop, Knight
• Re-make Outline models for King, Queen, Bishop, Knight, Rook, Pawn
• Bug: Fix tutorial arrow placement on screen
• Playthrough and notes

Dev Notes: The road to SIX

On Sunday, September 1st, Chess Heroes will make its first public appearance at SIX3, the Seattle Indie Expo. This was not part of "the plan" until it was announced, but I feel like I can have the build in presentable shape by then.

So! Thus begins the Road to SIX. And, honestly, the journey started last Monday, so we're halfway to TWO or something. I have a laundry list of stuff to do, and here's a list of what was accomplished last week.

ART

• Value study of the Castle (this is where I use shades of gray to "sketch out" what will eventually be color values on the model. It helps makes things cohesive when actual color gets involved)
• Windmill Model and value study
• New chess piece model: Pawn King
• New chess piece model: Harbor King
• New chess piece model: Scarecrow
• Hi-rez King
• Hi-rez Pawn
• Hi-rez Bishop
• Hi-rez version of Oreganik Logo

ANIMATION

• Created an in-game cinematic system for camera and actor control
• Scripted the intro sequence.

DESIGN

• Added "boss battles"
• Integrated the Pawn King, Harbor King, and Scarecrow
• Added Boss Ability functionality (sort of like a unique spell)
• Created a boss ability called "Riptide" (it pulls pieces towards the boss, and they can be swept off the board)
• Created a boss ability called "Wither" (shrinks pieces on the XZ axes and limits their movement to one space)
• Finished the demo scenarios for Castle
• Finished the demo scenarios for Harbor
• Finished the demo scenarios for Granary
• Switched demo flow a bit, changed the order you get certain spells and abilities

TECH

• Discovered and fixed a handful of bugs

This week I'll focus on re-modeling and texturing all of the chess pieces, then animating them in game, to give them a bit of "life." (the example I give is Pixar's wonderful short "Luxo Jr.") I also need to set up business stuff so I can accept money for the game! Very important.

On an unrelated note, even though the game code framework is holding together, and I can add new features (like boss battles) fairly seamlessly, I am fighting a huge desire to go back and re-engineer the game "properly" now that I understand exactly what it is I'm making! I understand this is common...

Dev Notes: Stage Art Update

I apologize for not posting steady updates, but things have been fairly busy at Chez Oreganik. (and it's pronounced "or-eh-gan-ik," as it's a portmanteaufromhell of Oregon and Organic with a special K at the end for technical clout)

I spent most of the day yesterday fine-tuning an algorithm to properly simulate the sea foam that's generated when ocean water pushes back and forth against pier posts. And, yes, it makes me giggle uproariously that I got to spend an entire day exploring an artistic expression of nature's mathematics. =)

If you remember the last post, things were very basic looking. It's getting better, I think. What you can't see is the motion of the ocean, which is on an exponential sine wave. It flows out, flows in, then settles for a moment before starting again. It feels like I remember the sea to be.

As for what's missing, shadows are definitely on the list, and that's going to be "free" once I get Unity pro. The look of the water is "eh." The colors are not be final, either, but then again, the board really "pops," so I'm still thinking about how to best represent the board squares (maybe as chalk outlines on the pier?) What's important is that all of the textures are hand-painted as tonal values, and I can go back and adjust in Photoshop as time permits.

The Harbor Stage of Chess Heroes (work in progress)

There are going to be three stages in the demo: a Castle, Harbor, and Granary. Today I restarted the Castle, as the old model wasn't really up to snuff. Here's today's progress:

The Castle Stage of Chess Heroes (3D Model, work in Progress)

The outer walls are very plain, but won't be seen in the game. However, most of the interior will be visible during the intro, so I spent time on the buildings to give them a bit of Mediterranean flair in the geometry. (you can't see too much of that at this angle however) The central tower is based off of the King piece, and will be featured in the intro and opening scenarios.

After I add props and get the tonal values locked down, I'll mock up the intro sequence to make sure everything looks good before investing time in textures. And after THAT comes a Windmill model for the Granary, and after THAT, well... I'll be done creating scenery for the demo!

Dev Notes: On to art!

Today, the Chess Heroes demo reached a milestone: functionally complete! "All" that remains is the art pass, scenario fun pass, then playtesting and final bug fixes.

Some folks say "ship a broken product and fix it live." I disagree with that proposition. =)

Because the blog has been quiet (I'm working on the 7dRTS compo at night, among other things), I'll let slip a screenshot of the art in-situ. This is not final, in other words, but it gives you an idea of the style I'm going for: simple, hand-painted textures and soft colors.

Dev Notes: Approaching Feature Complete!

The past two days have been a bit slow. I've had to spend time working on the business plan for Oreganik LLC, and I've been going back and filling in any cracks I can find in the demo. This includes updating the look and functionality of the survey questions and inserting them into the flow of the game, and revamping the magic spell UI to be all purty and such.

One thing I learned at Neversoft was to make sure the build could be run, start to finish, each Friday. This provided a clean slate for the next week, and usually prevented any gnarly hacks from putting down roots. Now that Chess Heroes is chock-full of stuff, I'm going to incorporate that into the schedule.

It's extremely excited to be this close to Feature Complete. I thought I'd be here weeks ago, but being part of a family and several communities takes all sorts of odd bites out of the day. It's totally worth it, of course, yet I find myself longing for a cabin on an island where I could... er... sit inside and work all day.

Dev Notes: Cursors!

Having hammered the menu aesthetic into a cohesive form, it was time to fall upon the actual gameplay interface, and knock that into place. Ideally, games don't need to hold your hand through every simple action: you want it to feel like you're pulling on clothes that fit exactly as they should, without a tailor fussing about, or an instruction manual to refer to.

But when I sat people down with an early prototype of Chess Heroes, and they asked "which one am I," when there was a single white King, on the left, facing off against three black Pawns, I realized that there would have to be more handholding that I originally thought.

I'll admit, I spun my wheels for a bit, desperate for a way to indicate to the player what was going on, without using ugly in-game menus or text. Finally, I decided to pull up some videos of an old-school tactics game: Heroes of Might and Magic II. When I saw the cursor icons, I realized: that was the core solution!

I'd shied away from custom cursors in Unity before, because they rendered at game speed instead of hardware speed (imagine a target reticle following your mouse, and only catching up when you slowed it down). But in Unity 4, they introduced hardware-speed custom cursors! 

Happily, I went to game-icons.net, found some likely candidates, and went to work. Here are the results so far:

This changes the cursor into a "verb," so to speak: select, move, kill, etc. The next questions players have are: what is the subject ("who is doing this verb?") and what is the object?

Without the ability to dynamically draw an outline around mesh objects (I believe that's only in Unity Pro), I fell back on an old "cel-shading" trick: increasing the scale of a mesh and reversing the normals.*

It's not perfect, but for now, it's Good Enough. You move the mouse around, and the cursor changes to a Pointing Finger when it goes over a chess piece. You click, the piece glows gold, and the finger now has an X on it. You click, it's deselected, and the finger goes back to normal. Ah! Select and deselect.

You select the piece again, then move the cursor around the screen. You highlight a space, and see a boot: walk here. You highlight an enemy piece, it glows red, and the cursor becomes a sword: capture this. It all makes sense! That's a happy place to be right now.

* Everything in a game is drawn with triangles, and every triangle is one-sided. The side it faces is represented by the normal (I don't know why it's called that!). Imagine a perfect one-way mirror: one side is transparent, while you can see your face on the other side. That side is where the normal is facing.

Dev Notes: Menu Flow

The concept of "Flow" is a state people can enter when they are completely immersed in their work, fully engaged at such a level that they do not notice the passage of time. This is how you can look up from a good book and realize it's after midnight, or why kids always seem so surprised to see their parents come in after their two hours of game time is up. "But I only played for an hour!" they might say. (and when they do, a game designer gets their wings!)

Jenova Chen (Creative Director at thatgamecompany, makers of Journey) has a great primer on Flow, if you want to do some more reading on the subject.

When it comes to games, a team seeking to put their players into "flow" must do everything they can to not interrupt play. This includes loading screens, long cutscenes, dropped frames, and other glitches that basically scream "THIS IS NOT A REAL EXPERIENCE."

In the first stage of its development, every screen in Chess Heroes was its own level. This made it extremely easy to prototype quickly, and altering the "flow" (lower-case f!) through the menus and into the game and back out again was easy, too. But! Now that the game is getting into a more final state, I have to reduce the number of level loads so that "Flow" is maintained. This means smooth transitions between menu states, and clever ways to hide the frozen state of a game loading the next level. As you might expect, this is taking a bit of time, but with the look and "flow" finalized, it's worth it to finally nail down the "feel" of the game. This starts with the menus, flows into gameplay, then pulls back out again. So far, it's been a treat, and I'm ecstatic to be working on a fully realized polish pass, instead of hastily rushing through with a "good enough ok ship it" mentality.

And yes, when they say the last 10% of the work takes 90% of the time, they weren't joking. It really burns through the working hours, but at the end of the day, it's absolutely worth it.

Dev Notes: The Look

FOUR WEEKS PRIOR

The woman in the unemployment office lowered my resume and looked at me over her librarian glasses.

"So, you know computers. You should be able to find a job."

"Sorry, no, I'm a designer. Not a programmer."

"A designer?" She swiveled in her chair. Fingers flew across the keyboard, tapping a rhythm punctuated by a solid whack of the Enter key. "There are a few graphic design positions already in the database. What about that?"

I tried to be polite as I let out a mute sigh. "I'm not a good graphic designer. I know that from experience. And I do game design. It's a different discipline."

Turning slowly to face me, she handed back my resume and looked at me as if I was an exotic plant left in a parking lot. Clearly, I would require Special Attention And Care.

YESTERDAY

I woke up feeling refreshed, which is never a good sign. It's usually a sign that the good Lord is ready to test me. And when the dog started howling like foreign invaders had dropped from stealth planes onto our lawn and were fixing bayonets, I knew I was right.

So after spending the weekend cleaning out our garage, cleaning out our fridge, shredding a mountain of old documents, and remembering to get the trash bins to the curb the night before, a car had the decency to punt them fifty feet down the road and empty the contents onto the road.

That wasn't why the dog was howling. It's because our neighbor had come over to let us know what happened. Oh, well. The dog and I will have differences about what's worth a howl now and again. Comes with the territory.

I threw that image in there because I was getting Wordy and I dread losing your attention! Long story short: we cleaned up the mess with the neighbor's help, it was easier than expected, and the sun was shining in Oregon that day.

Still, I had a fully functional demo that looked like crap. This is the week I Try To Make It Look Good, so I wiped the slate clean and gave it a go.

Lo and behold, a few hours and several false starts later, I had The Look I Was Looking For! I'm as stunned as anybody, by the way, especially my former Art Directors. All of them used special tongs to handle my Art Suggestions.

Despite that, I hope you agree it's appealing. Just... please... don't call it graphical design. It's just a production phase I'm going through!

And yes, I painted those fluffy clouds! Arigatou gozaimasu, Kazuo-sama.

July 4th Week Update

Independence day! Fireworks! Barbeque! Beer! If there's going to be a hole in the development schedule, I hope that's the shape it always takes!

With a day gone, I wouldn't hit my Friday goal, so I've used this week to take care of some other business. I helped move office furniture into FertiLab, opened a bank account for Oreganik LLC, and finished a programming contract that will bring in a nice chunk of change... er, just as soon as I test it on my iPad.

I think the "week off" from Chess Heroes will be good, as I had been hard charging for a month. That can take some wear off the treads, you know? I've also been "relaxing" by working on two hobby games. Their smaller scope and easy-to-achieve feature additions give me a much-needed boost at the end of the night.

I'll be back next week with the regularly-scheduled program:

• Monday: Inspiration
• Tuesday: Dev Notes
• Wednesday: Unity Tech Tip
• Thursday: Dev Notes
• Friday: Indie Shout-out

Good luck out there!

Demo Progress

Dev Notes
It's been a steady march towards a feature complete demo, with the Friday goal still in reach!

• The pipeline for creating tutorials has been streamlined, making them very easy to pump out. 
• I've added the first magic spells: Enrage (move a single piece twice) and Transform (change a Pawn into anything else). Each spell "breaks" the game in a special way, so I've been altering the core logic to be a little more flexible. Having bespoke code for every single spell is a big no-no!
• I also finished and tested the "demo flow," starting from the Title Screen all the way to "Thanks for Playing." This involved a lot of writing and re-writing, to make sure the text on screen was short and to the point! 

The two "big" tasks left on the plate are tutorials for the spells and a system which gathers survey information. After that, it's bug testing, scenario design, and polish! My aim is to send a private demo to certain folks next Friday, in anticipation of a wider launch after I process their feedback.

State Machines

I've been using State Machines to handle game states since my very first Unity project -- Ninja Baseball -- yet somehow I neglected to do so with Chess Heroes. Big mistake! There's nothing worse than having to manage 1000+ lines of code in your core logic file when there are a large number of states to enter and process, and then adding to that complexity. Yuck!

If Chess Heroes moves into "Full Production" status, I'll be overhauling it to use a state machine. It allows for the graceful addition and removal of states, and keeps logic in check when altering flow. Watch this space (all two of you!) for details on implementation.

Demo Plans! Office Space!

My goal is to have a feature-complete demo by Friday, so I can spend another week polishing it before pushing it out to "the wild." It's ambitious, but I really have to test this concept to see if it's viable. And the plan is to use Lumos to track metrics and answers to questions like "How much do you know about chess?"

With a playable game, survey results, and game data, I should have no trouble deciding whether to press on, or pull the plug.

In other news, I'm helping the folks at FertiLab clean out their new "thinkubator" space in downtown Eugene. Here's a shot of the central room from today:

Once their internet is up and running, this is where I'll be working (albeit in an office space you can't see from here). I'm looking forward to hosting some rad release parties and game jams up in there! w00t!

Dev Notes: Week 3

It's been another great week! There's progress every day, summer is coming to Oregon, and... er... I have no idea what the game is going to look like!

Honestly, this kind of honesty gets me in trouble sometimes, but when space wayfarers from the year 45x923 (Zircon era) pass over these bits with their data scanners, they'll nod and say, "that boy spoke some truth!"

Yes. In the Zircon era, accents that echo the American southeast are all the rage.

But really, I've been getting consistent feedback that takes two forms: "Wow, yeah, you need to drop the chess thing pronto. Very confusing" and "Wow, yeah! This looks great! I'd love to play a chess variant like this!"

There's not a lot of wiggle room there. It's either ditch the chess concept, which is the "factor x" that makes my humble tactics game stand out conceptually, or keep it and risk alienating a huge swath of potential customers. Will the game still be called Chess Heroes when it's released? Watch this space!

New Features

• A progression system is mostly intact: title, zone, area, scenario, handling player progression, saving profile data, etc. And the way I'm organizing the files is slowly becoming set in stone. I usually spend way too much time in this area, and sometimes make the wrong guess, so now it's functionality first, dev-accessibility later.
• The game knows if it's in Demo mode or not, knows if it's in Debug mode or not. There's alternate progression models for Demo and special scripts for debug.
• You can lose if an enemy piece reaches your home row, and win if you reach their home row.
• There's a nifty help system for pieces that zooms in on the piece in question and brings up a diagram showing how the piece can move. It does this automatically when you load a scenario with a new piece or ability.
• The AI will signal when it has no moves (which is possible if it only has pawns left) and pass the turn back to the player.
• Pieces topple over and fade when captured. I love that it took all of two lines to make the toppling happen: 1. add rigidbody 2. rigidbody kick
• New particles go from a sacrificed pawn to its "taker." This effect needs to sell better, but it's a start.

Open Questions

• What's the look and feel I'm after? What suits the game best? Can it stand on its own as a casual turn-based tactics game? Scratch that... can it stand out as a casual turn-based tactics game? I have to come up with a hook beyond "it's cleverly designed," I think.