SFML community forums
General => SFML projects => Topic started by: CJ_COIMBRA on October 18, 2011, 02:08:15 am
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Chesster is a match 3 game based on the rules of chess. The objective is simple, connect 3 like pieces horizontally or vertically for points. However, the pieces can only move like their counterparts in chess. Chesster will be a stand out puzzler because it of it's slower, strategy oriented gameplay (not racing against the clock), crisp professional graphics and rich period inspired music!
(http://www.playchesster.com/gamefiles/concept%20art/level%20art/dungeon%20web%20final.jpg)
It is being developed in C++ with SFML.
If you feel like, help us talking about Chesster or even helping in our Kickstarter page right here:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1619230931/chesster-a-new-puzzle-game-based-on-chess
There are awesome rewards!
Thanks!
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Hey, I just watched the teaser. Very nice graphics and immersive music. Any chance it will be cross platform? I use OS X :)
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Yeah, isn´t it? This guy I am working with is a very talented and professional designer... I managed to join him on this project before any other smart programmers had the chance 8)
We are thinking on a short term: PC and iOS.
When we get the iOS version acomplished I think it will be a small step to port to OS X.
If everything goes wrong, Steam doesn´t take Chesster and our Kickstarter project fails to be funded, then we will probably stick only with iOS.
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iOS is fine I guess because I have an iPhone/iPad too! Oh yeah, make sure you develop for iPad, much better for games, the phone screen is way too small to do anything funky.(See world of goo :P)
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This is something I am thinking of. The background art plus the game board won´t fit the iPhone, at least not in a pleasant way. If all screen space is dedicated to the board, the game might be playable, but it won´t be the same!
We´ll see!
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I'm sorry but I dont belive in this project. The video should be more focused on explaining the difference to regular chess than just stunning cool eyewatering effects. Also, Chess is really really old because no one tampered with it, a spinoff of something as original as chess is just a waste of time and will never be profitable.
You guys seem to have the aestetichal skills to compete with some huge players in the business, focus on a RPG / FPS game instead.
Feel like a bastard for just chopping up you ideas like this but it's just my thoughts.
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The graphics look very good! But as nice as they are, you should also show or at least explain more about the gameplay. I can't really imagine how such a game sequence might look like.
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Haikarainen,
No problem and don´t be sorry. It´s not my idea anyways, I am representing the dev team... I agree that the video could handle out some more info on the gameplay, but that´s all the designer has at this time. More videos, screenshots and information will be added during the next weeks.
At least in my opinion, it´s much more a match-3 game with custom rules than a standard chess game.
Unlike you, I think it is a good idea and it can be profitable. Also it is a project that we can actually acomplish in a reasonable time, and that´s perhaps the main reason for me to have joined the team.
Nexus,
Thanks. Since several people are having the same feeling about the video I´ll discuss it with the designer so we can show up some gameplay soon. By the way, your C++ library is great!
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I agree that there should be gameplay in the trailer video. But as I saw it, it was a new idea and that maybe there isn't enough to show yet. As for being profitable, I don't really care if you make money or not from it, I just wanna play it because I love chess and puzzle games :)
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Just a little video of the gameplay (work in progress).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjSH8iPBorg
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After a while we have some gameplay to show and we are also a couple weeks from the demo version which will have all main features of the final game except that it will only have the first stage.
Of course when it´s ready, I´ll provide the full beta version to the SFML community to test drive it!
The game is planned to Windows, OSX and iOS.
The project´s owner has setup the Indiedb page:
http://www.indiedb.com/games/chesster
That´s all for now! Thanks!
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We´re on Facebook now! Check it out if you have interest in Chesster progress: http://www.facebook.com/playchesster (http://www.facebook.com/playchesster)
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Hi, again!
Chesster´s demo is out! If you have a chance, take look and give us some feedback on this early playble version of our game.
Any SFML fellow programmers feedback is very important for me!
http://www.indiedb.com/games/chesster/downloads/chesster-demo-10 (http://www.indiedb.com/games/chesster/downloads/chesster-demo-10)
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I just downloaded it and had some time to play some rounds. Initial thoughts about the style was chess combined with tetris.
Here is a list of some of the things I thought
- Great graphics, how about putting some kind of protection on them because at the moment I can view every single .png in the folders.
- On the currently available level, it is very easy to meet the demand and not loose parts of the chess board. So maybe give us a slightly harder level to test with 8)
- Show places that are available to move to. For example, maybe after a piece has been selected, highlight places that the piece is capable of moving to.
- In places in the game that require you to "press a button to continue" how about allowing a click of the mouse to work too.
- Sometimes when the game is animating the removal of pieces from a combo, instead of going in order (1,2,3,4) sometimes it is out of order (1,3,2,4).
- Ever consider a time limit? Maybe a time limit per turn or time limit per game.
- Treasure, maybe instead of making it just for points allow it to unlock more levels of gameplay.
I will play it a bit more and tell you if I see anything else.
On the side, I did get a crash of the game once, but I was unable to reproduce it on Win Vista SP2 32 Bit.
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Great graphics, how about putting some kind of protection on them because at the moment I can view every single .png in the folders.
# Data packaging and protection is in our to-do list for sure!
On the currently available level, it is very easy to meet the demand and not loose parts of the chess board. So maybe give us a slightly harder level to test with 8)
# We couldn´t avoid that in the demo because the main game mode was designed to be played in a sequence where you build up score and carry it to the next level (if you pass). Each subsequent level has a higher demand so if you dont score big points in the easiest levels you wont pass the harder ones later. I am sure we will have another demo version later with a couple more levels this give this sequence feeling.
Show places that are available to move to. For example, maybe after a piece has been selected, highlight places that the piece is capable of moving to.
# Good point, we had that partially working so I disabled it for the demo version so it didn´t look like a bug.
In places in the game that require you to "press a button to continue" how about allowing a click of the mouse to work too.
# Another user experience item that we had to rush because we needed to finish this demo for our Indiecade festival entry! This wont happen in the final version.
Sometimes when the game is animating the removal of pieces from a combo, instead of going in order (1,2,3,4) sometimes it is out of order (1,3,2,4).
# This is my fault! I´ll fix that!
Ever consider a time limit? Maybe a time limit per turn or time limit per game.
# Well, the game designer didn´t want a timed game. But we are working on a versus mode where two players will compete over the internet and instead of avoiding negative scores you will have to get a score higher than you adversaries. This game mode will definitely need a time limit.
Treasure, maybe instead of making it just for points allow it to unlock more levels of gameplay.
# Treasures do have other utilities on our design, but again, demo limitations!
This crash you had is probably a memory usage problem. I am already working on a solution to manage memory better. We are working with full hd assets that take a lot of memory, because they are just resized to your resolution. I guess I´ll have to find a workaround for that.
Thank you very much for this huge and informative feedback. It´s means a lot for me and for my team! I´ll post here any news on Chesster, but you can track us on indiedb or facebook if you like! Oh, and Chesster is to be released also on OSX(confirmed) and iPad(just planned).
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Hey, I'm back again. I just couldn't stop playing this game.
I found 3 more bugs for you to look at.
1st is that when playing a game that has lost areas of the chess board(not meeting demand) pressing escape to exit the game does not reset the areas lost on the chess board. After exiting the game and beginning a new game the new game will have the old areas still covered up.
2nd is that I think you need to recheck your code for determining combos. I had a
KQQ
**K
and it still registered a queen's coronation. However it did not remove the king from the bottom line from the chess board. I noticed this a few other times but finally caught an exact example.
3rd is something along the lines of if you have positive points going into a turn and at the end of the turn you end up with negative the bars will flash on as if to block the 1st row and then will turn off as soon as they appear fully on.
And a suggestion would be to instead of just increasing the bars that block the board from the top left hand corner how about randomly choose which which corner they will block that round. And to add to that, how about instead of instantly removing all of the bars as soon as the points get positive, maybe remove one set at a time.
Another thing to add to the suggestion above, use combinations of the above to increase difficulty. For the 1st level keep it as it is. As the difficulty increases maybe then start to choose from which corner the board gets blocked and/or how many bars to remove a turn for positive points.
EDIT Had another crash, here is the error message so maybe you can glean some information from it.
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: Chesster.exe
Application Version: 0.0.0.0
Application Timestamp: 4fa871ca
Fault Module Name: Chesster.exe
Fault Module Version: 0.0.0.0
Fault Module Timestamp: 4fa871ca
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 0001b7e7
OS Version: 6.0.6002.2.2.0.256.6
Locale ID: 1033
Additional Information 1: fd00
Additional Information 2: ea6f5fe8924aaa756324d57f87834160
Additional Information 3: fd00
Additional Information 4: ea6f5fe8924aaa756324d57f87834160
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Alright, I´ll definitely do some bug hunting before start adding new stuff again. Thanks again for the info!
On the bars layout, I´ll talk to the game designer and pass your suggestions to him. I agree with what you said about the bars being removed all at once, maybe this helps with increasing the game overall difficulty. Randomly spawning those bars is also cool and I like it. Maybe we could offer a difficulty level menu...
Out of curiosity, did you manage to get the 4th treasure?
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Out of curiosity, did you manage to get the 4th treasure?
After you mentioned this I did some more testing just for this. To start I tried the game at 0 demand. (You can change the demand in config.txt ;) )
I personally was able to to get the 4th treasure at 0 demand, but not at 100 demand. However it is possible to get the 4th treasure at 100+ demand because I am able to get combos 400+ or even 800+ sometimes. I just wasn't lucky that I already had 3 treasures when the big combos came in.
Now to the point, I think at the way it currently stands, the game is based a bit off of how lucky you are when the pieces respawn to keep adding to your combos. I thought of a few ways to change this.
- Stop respawning chess pieces until all have fallen and all possible combos being removed and then slightly lower the points required for treasures. And on the respawn, do it like a new game; don't allow new pieces that spawn to make combos.
- How about for total points over 1 turn for treasures, you can greatly increase required points for a treasure and then count overall points for a treasure.
- Even more interesting is like the first one, but instead of counting just the one turn's points, total the current turn + the last turn to get the points for the treasure
On the side, I found 1 graphics bug. The buttons to bring up the pieces moves, treasure list, or combo list slightly overlap. Therefore it is possible to place your mouse in the center of one of them and 2 buttons will highlight, not just one. Then this makes it impossible to know which is going to get clicked. ;D
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I managed to spawn the last treasure with 100 demand but I was already in the last turn so I couldn't capture it.
On the respawn, I did some work to prevent the respawned pieces to match with previously existing pieces (actually it's the same code of the game start)... if they are matching, then it is a bug! However when pieces fall down, they can match with others. The plan is also to have a % of each kind of piece to spawn (so that you don't get too many valuable pieces or too few) and make it progressively difficult along the levels.
On the treasures, we will need to experiment different ways of handling their spawn. The way it stands today was just faster to implement.
I am aware of this button bug. I let it pass for now because it wasn't killing the app or anything. One thing I also need to do is to rework the loading of the game.
We won't build another demo for some weeks, but I can provide you with the build I am currently working if you like.
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We won't build another demo for some weeks, but I can provide you with the build I am currently working if you like.
Sure, I would be happy to continue to test this for you. Maybe you could give me a download link in a PM or something. ;D
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Here is the latest build so you can try:
http://www.mediafire.com/?uuc98xwjo5e7q1x (http://www.mediafire.com/?uuc98xwjo5e7q1x)
Lots of things to do yet.
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Here is the latest build so you can try:
http://www.mediafire.com/?uuc98xwjo5e7q1x (http://www.mediafire.com/?uuc98xwjo5e7q1x)
Lots of things to do yet.
Thanks, I will start to play with it right away. ;D
Also, maybe if you are going to keep providing new builds how about leave the graphics out of the new downloads if the graphics have not changed as MediaFire has bandwith limits on downloads and my crap internet has a very small daily download limit. :P
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Also, maybe if you are going to keep providing new builds how about leave the graphics out of the new downloads if the graphics have not changed as MediaFire has bandwith limits on downloads and my crap internet has a very small daily download limit.
Good point. I´ll do that next time. It´s just that recently the graphics changed so much that it became automatic for me to put the new gfx folders. Perhaps if I just provide the same gfx folder with only the new graphics (when they are needed) in the right path, it will ask you to merge the folders...
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Ok, I played the latest build you gave me and it looks good. I only found 1 bug. When you are in a game and press escape to go back to the menu the background image shrinks smaller. After beginning a new game again and pressing the escape the background will continue to get smaller.
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I´ve uploaded a new intermediate build:
http://www.mediafire.com/?2u78da65o67qlpx
It´s not the official 2nd demo, but I´d like anyone interested to test it.
Lots of bugs fixed... lots of new bugs!
A few new features:
- three levels
- unique treasures for each level
- save/load (after level 1)
- some new animations
- new score frame layout
- dinamic score couting (a bit buggy yet)
- a decent looking loading screen
- new background musics (now from the definitive composer)
It´s running very high on memory (350 ~ 400 MB), I am still figuring out how to optimize that...
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Hi there.
After a long while I am posting and updated version of my project for OSX users only. This is because we are close to a definitive demo now and I wanted to level the OSX version together with the stable Windows version (which I'll post here in a couple weeks).
So if you are a mac user and cares about puzzle games, would you kindly test this build of my project? Any feedback would be appreciated! If you click something on the menu and nothing happens it's probably disabled because of issues between win/mac port I am still figuring out.
Chesster OSX
http://www.mediafire.com/?p7qo938pmqu4bc9 (http://www.mediafire.com/?p7qo938pmqu4bc9)
And this is the link to our most recent update on Indiedb
http://www.indiedb.com/games/chesster/news/chesster-update-puzzle-mode-final-level (http://www.indiedb.com/games/chesster/news/chesster-update-puzzle-mode-final-level)
Edit: I've included my own progress on the Puzzle mode so if you want to play from the very first puzzle, then overwrite your local "puzzle_selection.txt" file with the one attached. It's located on the "Config" folder.
Thanks!
[attachment deleted by admin]
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I made a few progress with the Windows/PC version and here is link if anyone wants to test it:
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?8eq83tl3d3s3sik (http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?8eq83tl3d3s3sik)
Thanks!
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I like the game a lot, and the graphics are indeed very polished. With the font and the music, it really conveys a cool atmosphere.
Some points I have noticed:
- The total score counter goes sometimes up higher than 1000, but after a lower number is visible... I haven't understood what that number represents.
- The right click to deselect the current piece doesn't work, one has to try an invalid move to deselect it.
- I was surprised that you can move a piece only once per turn. This prevented some of my strategies ;)
- Maybe the scores need some balancing. For example, I would make the knight give more points than bishop and rook, since it's usually more difficult to get a combination. Also, some queen combos are quite difficult to achieve, and hardly pay off, when one can use the 3 moves for something better.
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Hi and thanks for the feedback, Nexus.
The issue with the total score is known and I will fix it before the final release. It's actually a visual problem only with the animated score counting. The score that is displayed in the end, after the animated counting stops, this one is correct (the other higher amount is not).
A few builds ago, one had to click the piece to select and then click again to land it. Now it works better if you just drag and drop the piece. I forgot to remove that warning of the right button. If you drop over an invalid tile, it will reset to the original tile.
The score definitely needs balancing. There's someone else taking care of it. But if you care enough, you can change the values in a txt config file under the Config subfolder.
One thing that I couldn't fix yet, and will eventually cause major problems is the memory consumption. The first idea that crosses my mind is to version the assets to lower resolutions since all assets are compliant with full HD.
Thanks again.
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What uses the biggest part of RAM? Aren't the textures stored in video memory?
Instead of loading everything in the beginning, you could also try to load some assets only when necessary (or shortly before). This would also reduce the loading time at startup.
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A few parts of the game work this way already (loading when necessary), but the core still not (because I need to refactor some critical stuff before in order to do so).
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But do you still use sf::Image or store the graphics in another format? Because if you load them with sf::Texture, the RAM should be kept almost free -- everything is on the graphics card.
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I am using sf::Image because I'm sticking with 1.6 for now. Maybe that's a good reason to migrate...
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There is a new development build available here (windows only):
There won't be many noticeable changes to the gameplay. I've focused on fixing bugs and overall stability lately. Any feedback is welcome.
EDIT: updated the link with a new build (http://www.mediafire.com/download/h5vk4v4dtzqt5b7/Chesster_Intel_LevelUp_Entry.zip[/url)
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Hi, again.
After a long period it seems that we are getting to the end of this! So, I´d like to invite anyone interested in puzzle games to test the full game this time (not the demo). The game has 8 levels that you unlock one after each other in the normal mode and 64 quick puzzles that you also unlock the next one.
It still has some bugs and stability issues that we are aware of and working to fix them. The idea is to try the Steam Greenlight so any feedback is welcome in order to improve our chances to get there.
http://www.mediafire.com/?ooh9fnlstw9zjc3 (http://www.mediafire.com/?ooh9fnlstw9zjc3)
Thanks.
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Hello,
I played through the first level. The visuals and audio appear very sleek and professional. The gameplay on the other hand I did not find particularly engaging. I must admit, I 'm still fuzzy on the details. A few things to note:
-The tutorial tips come after making moves - and they 're things I 'd have rather known before.
-Queen combos card is available before the first queen appears
-Inability to move same piece twice is never stated and comes as a nasty surprise just when ready to pull a big fat combo off
-The rules for connceted pieces are not entirely clear
Despite being this fuzzy, I got 1305 pts and 3/4 treasures. At no point did I feel I would not make it or that I had to really sink into thought.
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Thanks for taking the time to play. I´ll take the points you mentioned to the main designer for discussion.
Despite being this fuzzy, I got 1305 pts and 3/4 treasures. At no point did I feel I would not make it or that I had to really sink into thought.
The ideia here is to increase the difficulty each cleared level. Maybe the first one is too easy?
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Wow, nitpicking is more fun than I thought. Prepare yourself...
I've never touched any previous version of the game, and I've only played one level so far, and here's what made me scratch my head:
-The border for the playing field seems to cover up the bottom row slightly; nowhere near enough to interfere with gameplay but it does look odd
-I'm not sure if I agree with Kojay's claim about the tips coming up after you need them, tbh there's so much information in them I think it would've overwhelmed me all at once, BUT I think they shouldn't cover up the playing field so much, because then I forget what I just did and can't see what the effect was, and that definitely makes it harder to figure out for the first few moves.
-I had a lot of trouble telling which chess pieces are which (the blue things in particular I had no idea were pawns for a while), so it might be a good idea to add some popup text to clarify that as part of the tutorial feature
-I have no idea why the "Demand" mechanic exists, maybe it was explained and I missed it but I just don't remember it and it seems really pointless. Why not just let everyone keep all the points they earned? It's simpler and more satisfying.
-In the top right it says "Next Tresure", which is not only a typo, but confused me for a while because it shows the treasure currently on screen, not the next one; not sure what the optimal terminology is for that
-I'm totally confused as to what the criteria are for cascading (ie, after you do a match and new pieces fall to replace them, and those new ones happen to form a match, does that new set of matching pieces get destroyed and turned into points?). Maybe I'm missing something, but to me it felt completely random when it did and didn't occur.
Edit: Especially confusing is when I make three matches, then the game only counts one of them and ignores the other two, even when falling blocks didn't undo those matches.
-I see a lot of comments about queen combos but personally I had no trouble performing them (maybe that's been fixed). My problem was finding the opportunity to do them; partly because of all the impenetrable blocks I had a couple useless queens lying around for most of the game, but in the end I did manage two of them, so I assume this is deliberately balancing.
-The tutorials really should switch themselves Off after the first usage.
I got 3/4 treasures and 790 points.
-Hmm, it says my high score is 50, not 790. No idea what's going on there.
Edit: Well, considering neither of us got all four treasures on our first tries, I wouldn't say the first level is too easy.
Oh, also tried Puzzle mode for a bit:
-The puzzle pieces on the puzzle selection screen don't appear to be lined up correctly with the chessboard spaces. In the actual puzzles they're fine.
-When playing one of the puzzles, the moves and turns left numbers in the top left corner look lower than they should be.
-Puzzle 3 seems to be a good example of my confusion regarding cascading rules: It seems like moving the leftmost night from d5 to f4 might work, but it tells me I failed even when all three knights are touching after the kings are destroyed.
Like everyone else said, cool graphics and music and neat idea for a puzzle game. Hopefully this post helps. I might try the other levels later to see if I spot anything else.
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Played Castle Walls, got 3/4 treasures and 550 points but the high score's only 70. The cascade confusion was much worse on this level, sometimes I got -10 on a turn where I should've easily gotten 50.
Also, is there some way to make treasures appear faster? It seems like there has to be as the fourth one never showed up in this level, but I don't remember anything like that from the tutorial.
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Ok, thank you for the very informative feedback!
I'll try to comment on your items:
-I'm not sure if I agree with Kojay's claim about the tips coming up after you need them, tbh there's so much information in them I think it would've overwhelmed me all at once, BUT I think they shouldn't cover up the playing field so much, because then I forget what I just did and can't see what the effect was, and that definitely makes it harder to figure out for the first few moves.
Well it's clear that the tutorial needs work. We had a tutorial screen back on older versions that explained the game step by step but no one would care to read it then we decided to take it into the game, maybe we should think a bit more on this feature since the game depends on the player knowing what to do.
-I had a lot of trouble telling which chess pieces are which (the blue things in particular I had no idea were pawns for a while), so it might be a good idea to add some popup text to clarify that as part of the tutorial feature
We had a help frame just as the treasures and special combos for this but with the highlighting of the possible landing tiles we decided to take it out as it would be redundant. Did you notice the highlighting I mentioned?
-I have no idea why the "Demand" mechanic exists, maybe it was explained and I missed it but I just don't remember it and it seems really pointless. Why not just let everyone keep all the points they earned? It's simpler and more satisfying.
Well it is explained in the tutorial, to be more precise when the demand is subtracted for the first time. It is a game design feature, on the later levels (with higher demand values) if you cant satisfy the demand and your total score goes negative, part of the board will became unavailable (also explained on the tutorial). You can "open" the board again by getting positive. I'll raise this discussion with the game designer.
-In the top right it says "Next Tresure", which is not only a typo, but confused me for a while because it shows the treasure currently on screen, not the next one; not sure what the optimal terminology is for that
Yeah I'll fix that. There will be a little animation when you spawn the treasure as well.
-I'm totally confused as to what the criteria are for cascading (ie, after you do a match and new pieces fall to replace them, and those new ones happen to form a match, does that new set of matching pieces get destroyed and turned into points?). Maybe I'm missing something, but to me it felt completely random when it did and didn't occur.
Edit: Especially confusing is when I make three matches, then the game only counts one of them and ignores the other two, even when falling blocks didn't undo those matches.
Yeah, it's a loop. You move three pieces then the matching happens. After that, if no more matches are found, the existing pieces fall from their positions and new ones fall from the top, again, the matching happens ... if at this point no matches are found, then the total is calculated (turn score - demand) and it's your turn again.
The game shouldn't ignore matchs, if this happened then I got a serious bug to solve. However a match just happen if you have a least 3 horizontal pieces straight (or vertical). Example:
this is a match:
XXX
this is also a match:
X
X
X
and also this (even the irregular X below because I have the base 3 horizontally)
XXX
YYX
but this is not because I dont have at least three in sequence be horizontal or vertical:
XX
YX
-I see a lot of comments about queen combos but personally I had no trouble performing them (maybe that's been fixed). My problem was finding the opportunity to do them; partly because of all the impenetrable blocks I had a couple useless queens lying around for most of the game, but in the end I did manage two of them, so I assume this is deliberately balancing.
-The tutorials really should switch themselves Off after the first usage.
We had problems on the past, but they were solved I guess. Special combos using queens should be very special and we are trying to find a balance here.
I got 3/4 treasures and 790 points.
-Hmm, it says my high score is 50, not 790. No idea what's going on there.
I'll check this, could be a bug saving the score perhaps. Did you notice this on the "level cleared" screen ?
Did you by any chance run into game crashes? Would you kindly provide my your computer specs?
Again, thanks.
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Nope, no crashes.
@Piece confusion: Yeah I did see those highlights, though that didn't always make it immediately obvious what a piece was because of the solid blocks cutting off some of the movement paths. In retrospect though it seems like you're right, it should've been enough...maybe the tutorials covering up what I was doing made it worse than it should've been?
@Demand: Ooooooh, that explains why part of the board got cut off during Castle Wall. I had no idea that was related to Demand in any way. I'll reread the tutorial later and see if I can identify why I missed it.
@Matching Rules: Ah, I think that might be a big part of the answer for me. Personally, those matching rules feel strange. I would have expected it to be either 3, 4, 5, etc in a row, or 3, 4, 5 etc all touching each other in any pattern. Requiring them to all touch each other but also contain a 3-in-a-row just seems arbitrary. Again, I'll reread the tutorial and see if I missed something, but it doesn't seem like the matching you describe is in any way a critical part of the design.
@High score: Yes, on the level cleared screen and on the level select screen afterward. It's especially odd because the level cleared screen does show my "total," which seems right. If that's different from my score then that's yet another thing I'm confused on.
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Okay, reread the tutorial.
-The tutorials say something about a "movement button" with a cross-shaped icon that I can't find anywhere in the UI. No wonder I felt lost the first time I read the tutorial.
-The tutorials do not mention what happens if you fail to meet Demand, it only says that Demand is deducted from your score every turn. I was looking for it this time so I'm quite sure it didn't come up.
Does the explanation for this only appear after you fail to meet Demand? Because I don't think I ever failed that in the first level.
-Very minor, but when you get a queen combo, let's say Queen's Coronation for 200, the +200 appears four times even though you get 200 points for it, not 800.
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Hi,
...maybe the tutorials covering up what I was doing made it worse than it should've been?
Good idea, that will be done (removing the tutorial sheet from the center).
@High score: Yes, on the level cleared screen and on the level select screen afterward. It's especially odd because the level cleared screen does show my "total," which seems right. If that's different from my score then that's yet another thing I'm confused on.
After trying some times I could reproduce this bug. I´ll investigate why is this happening and should be fixed on the next build as it is critical.
-The tutorials say something about a "movement button" with a cross-shaped icon that I can't find anywhere in the UI. No wonder I felt lost the first time I read the tutorial.
Yep, I forgot to change the text.
-The tutorials do not mention what happens if you fail to meet Demand, it only says that Demand is deducted from your score every turn. I was looking for it this time so I'm quite sure it didn't come up.
Does the explanation for this only appear after you fail to meet Demand? Because I don't think I ever failed that in the first level.
I forced the situation and it does tell that the board will shut, after the board shut for the first time. If it didn´t show for you then there is a bug with whatever triggers this tutorial frame. I´ll investigate.
-Very minor, but when you get a queen combo, let's say Queen's Coronation for 200, the +200 appears four times even though you get 200 points for it, not 800.
I am aware of this one. It´s a visual problem only like you´ve noticed. It´s on the (growing) list to-do!
Thanks for keep testing.
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Oh, I forgot this one:
@Matching Rules: Ah, I think that might be a big part of the answer for me. Personally, those matching rules feel strange. I would have expected it to be either 3, 4, 5, etc in a row, or 3, 4, 5 etc all touching each other in any pattern. Requiring them to all touch each other but also contain a 3-in-a-row just seems arbitrary. Again, I'll reread the tutorial and see if I missed something, but it doesn't seem like the matching you describe is in any way a critical part of the design.
Well I agree with you in parts. The problem is that my partner came up with this idea and according to him it is what makes the game different from other match 3 games. Worse or better... I don´t know. Back there when I was coding the matching mechanics I would love it to be the classic match 3 because it is way easier to acomplish than this hybrid we have now. Maybe if it´s better explained on the tutorials it could tend to be better than it looks like now.
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I think you can get away with the strange matching rules if you have some visual feedback that directly reflects the rules. For instance, draw a line after the player moves which shows the 3-in-a-row that makes it a valid match, then when pieces get destroyed you start with the 3-in-a-row under that line, and then adjacent pieces of the same type get destroyed afterward. Thus if you make a move that doesn't produce a match, no line is drawn and the player clearly sees that. Right now the feedback is simply piece x number, which implies you want a blob of pieces of any shape, hence my confusion.
I'm still not sure if it makes the game different in a meaningful way though. All it does it disallow
XX XX
YX and XX
which doesn't seem like that significant a change. The chess piece movement thing seems like enough of a unique mechanic already. Still, it's probably fine if you make some kind of visual change to clarify it.
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While I work on solving bugs and adjustments, my teammates put together this site so we can get on Greenlight.
http://www.playchesster.com/index.html (http://www.playchesster.com/index.html)
The video is the official trailer we are going to use on Greenlight and others.
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While I work on solving bugs and adjustments, my teammates put together this site so we can get on Greenlight.
http://www.playchesster.com/index.html (http://www.playchesster.com/index.html)
Kind of odd that the website has a white "border" around the whole webpage, seems confusing to me -
is that intended?
Also will make sure to vote for you, once it gets on Greenlight! :)
Btw the image on the first post seems to be dead and you might want to update the whole description, given that your kickstarter has ended quite a while ago.
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Hi there,
So we are live on Greenlight. If you feel like voting because you like the game or just to support a SFML made game, please go ahead and thank you!
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=214022703&searchtext=chesster (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=214022703&searchtext=chesster)
About development, we are close to an ending. Which certainly doesn't mean that there is less to do haha!
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I voted for you mate, hope it helps ! :)
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Thanks a lot!
A huge amount of votes is needed so every single vote is like a step closer!
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For the sake of curiosity, around how many votes would one need to get greenlit? Is it a daunting task or doable by most developers?
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Boa Sorte!! :)
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For the sake of curiosity, around how many votes would one need to get greenlit? Is it a daunting task or doable by most developers?
Apparently nobody really knows. It's a closed process and often rather "random". You can find out how other got there and how others failed. :)
Aaaand voted! ;)
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plusoned too
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Thanks for voting eXpl0it3r!
Thankyou too Lo-X!
Yes, the amount of votes needed is kind of subjective. From what I've read on articles on this subject looks like you need to be on top X most voted games when Steam closes a batch of approved games. This X value could be top 100 or top 50. Recently they approved a group of 50 top voted games so it's something between 50 and 100.
What is nice to think is that when X games get greenlit, your entry moves X ranks forward.
More than one source that I read mentioned the "magic" number of upvotes being something around 10,000 with around 30,000 total votes for a "good" game which is also subjective. Anyway I'll let you guys know my numbers here and fellow SFML devs will get the game for free if they like it.
I understand that's a lot and the odds are against my game but I am happy just being there and close to declare my game finished on a "solid" state. I am on this project for more than 2 years now...
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Very nice! You have my vote.
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Thanks, Fizix.
Numbers last checked were 500 upvotes out of ~2000.
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Upvoted as well, although it's not really on my want-to-buy list so far.
I think many don't really understand the basic promise why it's more than just another match-3 game. It's in the description, but that's still a bit vague so far.
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Thanks for the support, Mario.
The basic difference from any regular match-3 game is that you use chess movement patterns to make your moves instead of just swapping adjacent pieces. Also, it consider additional pieces when searching for combinations as long as you have at lest 3 in a sequence. Example:
regular match-3
XXX
chesster
XXX
X
and so on...
There are other details and one extra game mode but basically this what makes it kind of different.
Even so, I understand it is a game many will say no just because it is a match-3 kind of game or because they think it should be a tablet/phone game... I honestly don't know what to say in these cases, I think it is a matter of opinion.
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From the video this looks like fun.
Unfortunately, without a Linux build I'm not going to be able to play it :(
Any plans for a Linux version in the future?
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Yes, there are plans. Right now I am busy with the OS/X version and it has been a long while since I touched any Linux system (back on college days). I have no idea how much work would that be.
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The game looks great, well done! :)
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Thanks, eigenbom.
Last time I checked there were around 1k upvotes for 10% of top 100.
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So, it's been a while but the game is finally out. SFML is used sort of for prototype and iOS version was ported but I thought it would be ok to post here.
Steam
http://store.steampowered.com/app/352050/
iOS
https://appsto.re/br/pUKA_.i
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Wow that looks very polished! Well done!
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So, it's been a while but the game is finally out. SFML is used sort of for prototype and iOS version was ported
If SFML was only used for the prototype, what exactly did you use in the end for the desktop versions?
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I don't really know, I mean they might even be using SFML - because the game runs exactly the same except for some UI tweaks. The thing is I was the developer of the project for more than 4 years and I was burnout didn't want to add more features just wanted to release it already but it didn't happen so I kind of left the team (which was just me and another by the time).
Shortly after that the game was released under a publisher.
Anyway I am thinking of start something small soon, to get back to gamedev. I've worked on a game studio for a few years using Unity and it's very nice because of the easy portability but kind of meh and adds a lot of overhead, dlls etc. I'll probably check out SFML again, the last version I used was 1.6 lol!