hi, its austin.

this week i worked on a few small pieces to get back in the groove of developing the game.

the overworld was missing a few elements to make it a true point and click experience, so im working on stashing a few secrets and collectibles behind clickable tasks. one of them is a small minigame embedded in the world, designed as a puzzle that tests your piece-movement knowledge. the plan is to make things like this to make the overworld sections a lil more cohesive with the chess theming of the game.

this is a really basic format and seemed like the best thing to implement and iterate through varieties of as you progress.

i implemented it, and it feels very cathartic to fill out these bite-sized knowledge checks.

heres some examples of "puzzles" that i stumbled into. i thought they were fun! you do have to make some small inferences, but since these aren't randomly generated i can just design them to be obvious or have multiple solutions (the 4th one has two solutions)

ive been planning the end of the game here, trying to add some spells and mechanics that feel really wacky and defy expectations. the game has gotten pretty complicated,
jusentari has been on the backend optimizing the chess engine to reduce the time it takes for an enemy to calculate the best move.

the game is now almost fully complete-able. you can go through from stage to stage, beating every enemy, collecting every badge, and reach the final boss at the end. this means its just about filling in the gaps with fun unique stuff, and fleshing out/balancing character battles. that doesnt mean development is nearing completion, but it is nice to have wrapped up the scope in terms of locations & progression.

im planning on doing a pre-battle inspect mode where the player gets to inspect the enemy's entire deck and take a look at the board before changing their deck and battling. it compromises the "surprise" element for a more predictable and calculated puzzle experience.

im doing this because i realize that i have fun with the game because i already understand all the mechanics and know what to expect. 
new players don't know what they're getting into, and may get forced into a cycle of hopping into battle, being sorely unprepared, forfeiting or losing intentionally, changing their deck, then battling "for real".

im also going to give sneeby and the mouse shopkeeper a glow-up with a special shop menu.

heres some sprite art for an unknown spell, it looks pretty powerful... in fact, it might just be the strongest spell yet :)

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!

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