hey, its austin. 

i didn't post an update last week because we were out and about at some meetups and going to some conventions. Thanks to the generous folks at PIGSquad, I had Checkmage! showcased at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo. People were able to come up to the table and try the game, which gave me some good information as to how the game looked to a variety of gaming enthusiasts. I also got to meet some amazing gamedevs and PIGSquad volunteers.

i gave out stickers! i made them for this event with some vinyl printing equipment thanks to my mom. i think they turned out well :) I made way more than i actually needed, I think i should have encouraged people to take more than one / printed only a few

for clarity, i wanted to remove the tricolor from the logo and make it plain white. when trying to convert the logo to lower res pixel art, i realized that its kind of hard to see the text from afar otherwise.

for the showcase i whipped up a little graphic that i stuck in a plastic standee and displayed at my table. i expected a lot of people to come by and only play for five or so minutes, so i tried to put a lot of emphasis on teaching the controls. It ended up being the case that a few people played for half an hour or more at a time, which made the game look more appealing to the other attendees. i think having someone play a game competently is one of the best advertisements you can have for a game.

the visuals did a good job of bringing people in, and i had the trailer i had made a month ago on loop as a sort of impromptu attract-mode when nobody was at the table.

as of today, Checkmage! has 2300+ wishlists, which is pretty neat! i had it in the steam nextfest from the 13th to the 20th, which got it some attention. here are the results:


now that all that is over, im gonna keep my head down and focus on the full game. i dont have a good time estimate for when it'll come out yet, but i feel like things are moving much more efficiently than they were early on in development. the game is feeling more cohesive, the chess "engine" is increasingly more and more fun to use as a sandbox, and im feeling confident in the scope.

Checkmage! is still in active development. If you want to support me, please consider sharing with friends. The game will be released on Steam and Itch for sale when I'm done making it.

Checkmage! on Steam  - play the demo now!

Bluesky - more updates, videos and sneak peeks