If you want to chat about the game, I created a Discord that I'm still not actively promoting anywhere because the game isn't ready: https://discord.gg/HYV8Zz8V2Q
Focus
Up until few weeks ago my main goal was to make screens looking all nice and dandy for the game trailer video and screenshots. Getting wishlists is what Steam is all about and I tried my best to create content that would attract potential players.
Ever since I released the trailer video I'm now focused on creating a first demo of Master of Chess. That change in perspective has been a blast! The outline of the demo is:
1. You create your chess player
2. You go through small "How to play a match" tutorial
3. You enter a chess tournament and play it out
4. If you do good you acquire Candidate Master (CM) norm.
My current estimate is that I will have a playable prototype of the demo around start of the April but you never know. Past couple of weeks I was mostly working on the tutorial system. Because of how unusual the game is I'm trying my best to make the tutorial both fun and instructive.
Additional notes
- Game is now running in Godot 4.0 which is awesome. I took a small gamble last year when I started developing the game in an unstable early beta build but all important engine bugs are looking to be squashed by the time the game is ready.
- I've faced many dilemmas with designing the main game loop of the game. It's actually scary not really being sure what the game loop is and will it even be fun by now, but it is at least calming that I am more and more certain I'm getting there.
- I'll also try and make these progress logs every couple of weeks, I guess it will be great to have them to look back on and if there's anyone really interested in the game they can have additional look into the game.
New feature
The more I thought about the design of the game and issues the players could face in their attempts to have fun, the more I realized a new feature in the game is needed.
It's going to be quite similar to Chess Puzzles that are available on lichess.org or chess.com but they will reuse the play mechanism of Master of Chess, where player chooses the best move out of available moves. Current idea is to have these puzzles appear each month and make them completely optional, but if you solve them you get additional Progress Points. I think it plays perfectly into the current idea of what Master of Chess is.