CaTaCoMb ChEsS

woodsmoke

Member
Catacomb Chess



The city of Chessfield is being menaced by bloodthirsty monsters crawling out of the ancient catacombs!
Together King, Queen, bishops, knights, rooks, and pawns embark to end the evil menace deep down below.
The lawful chess pieces follow the chess rules, BUT THE CHAOTIC MONSTERS FIGHT WITHOUT HONOR.

~ Download ~




 
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Street Gaming

Guest
Played through a couple of levels and enjoyed it. Obviously still a work in progress, but I couldn't find any obvious bugs.

Suggestions:
Some kind of help/guide so you can see what all of the enemies do. Move patterns, attacks, etc.

Consistent pov for your sprites. if you're going top down, change the player's pieces to be top down, if you're going for a front facing, change the enemy pieces. You can always compromise with a 3/4 view. Whatever it is, I'd recommend consistency.

Animation-you've got a pretty solid core game here, so I'd suggest adding some life to it with animations.

The Hand-the fingers seem to lag slightly behind the rest of the hand. If I were to take a guess, you've got two objects for the hand at different depths and in at least one of them there's some kind of x/y=other.x/y every step or something. Anyways, whatever it is, I'd recommend having them draw based on mouse_x and mouse_y. You won't have that lag time. If that doesn't make sense or you have questions about how to do that I'd be happy to go into more detail.

Overall, very nice. Just keep touching it up.
 

woodsmoke

Member
I played Battle Chess too on a Amiga 500. There is also another excellent (silly) chess game I adore called You Loose Chess. Catacomb Chess gameplay is different to both games, but surely has subliminal influence from them somewhere.

Chess pieces face the player for social reasons. Monsters stay faceless. Imagination is cool.

Hand is part cursor, part mouse_xy following object. Maybe I'll try both parts a mouse following object.

Enemy movement/attack/.. chart is planned.

I currently dont have any more ideas for animation.

Thank you both for the feedback. :cool:

 
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woodsmoke

Member
A Japanese dude made a video of my game which is interesting.
Too bad I don't understand the language.

 
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woodsmoke

Member
I refined the ghost sprite now they look more creepy.
I've also been polishing the flames in the main menu room.
 
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woodsmoke

Member
New download!!
(Whopping huge update from the previous download.) Sound, options screen, a few campaign levels are still missing.

I plan on adding funky chess piece colour alternatives.
 
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woodsmoke

Member
I plan on changing the monster sprites so that the view is the same as the chess pieces. (front on view)
So I drew a quick concept:
 
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N8Games

Guest
I'll be honest when I read the title I wasn't super excited about seeing another chess game. Even though I too enjoyed the MS DOS version back in the day.

BUT; this looks really good. I especially like the effects when attacking and variety of opponents. Also the hand is a nice touch. Good job.
 

woodsmoke

Member
Thank you! Yeah I've been thinking about the name recently. It could sound boring. I was thinking about "Chess Defence", but when you google that you find books about real chess.
 

woodsmoke

Member
First 4 monsters in front view are just about finished, 2 more to go! (ghost and dragon)
Anything I can improve?

 
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FROGANUS

Guest
cool game! I had fun, its a great blend of casual vs classic. great characters and colors. I think my first suggestion would be upgrade the overworld picture thing tho (with the overall progress). nothing too complex, but maybe something mappy to show progress rather than tiny dots might be nice, u know a candy crush progress road or something.. Also despite the indicator, I wasn't clear on the movement rules of the monsters? maybe explain the icons for movement or even a demo-mode/cutscene tut that showcases and explains monster movement or even general rules might be nice? Also, it's kinda odd sometimes when you think you're going to hit a piece but it's not quite in the space enough. maybe an indicator that you can or can't hit the guy would prevent a wasted move if you think you're in range but barely not?
just some nitpicks to consider widdling away at. it's looking good! keep it up!
 

woodsmoke

Member
Thank you for the plentiful feedback. I'll look into those things soon. Currently I'm lacking free time.
 
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woodsmoke

Member
I've finished moving to my new home, and my PC is connected to the internet again!



All enemys now have a front on view now.
Half of the enemys also have some variation:



Currently working on a level screen map, which shows the progress in campaign mode:

 
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woodsmoke

Member
As you can see above the map is finished now. I have it implemented and working too.
The crown shows you where you are in the catacombs. In-game it bounces up and down, so you see it better.

Next I need an ending screen when you beat the boss (huge slug that turns into smaller slugs, which turn into even smaller slugs)
And an intro to the campaign would be nice.

I'm thinking of making this my first commercial game ($2?), not free like all my previous games.
 
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zendraw

Guest
i really like the idea behind the game but i feel it wuld be better if you find an artist to make some polished graphics.
 

woodsmoke

Member
I'm not happy with that last picture myself and I've been trying to save it by continuing it. Maybe I should have scrapped it in the beginning. But maybe I'll continue working on it.

Do you dislike all the all the game art, or just the last picture?
 
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zendraw

Guest
i mean, i like the art, it is original, but its like it needs more attention and work from the artist, it feels like its left unfinished.
do you feel it is finished?
 

woodsmoke

Member
Only the last picture fells unfinished to me.
Especially the background.

Edit:
Changed some colours and put it in the game as a campaign win screen.
I'll probably add more details later.
 
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woodsmoke

Member
it evin bedda naow!:


iced up king and one less colour​

mmoar screenshotz ::


wow new bonez backgroundz!


oh no king wat now!?​
 
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FROGANUS

Guest
hrm not seeing any pics now, firefox doesn't seem to like your photo host?
"The owner of s1.postimg.org has configured their website improperly. To protect your information from being stolen, Firefox has not connected to this website." swear i already looked at these pics before tho..

in regards to your artwork tho, (from memory lol) i was going to comment that you have a cool style of drawing, but the overall look does end up somewhat flat.. maybe to give a little more depth and 'polish' you could play with some shader effects, use subtle shadows or glowing characters or for extra background ambiance. i'm not experienced with the shaders, but i've seen projects with pretty simple art assets that i think use shaders to achieve nice overall look.
 
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zendraw

Guest
no pics for me either... altho id advice against shaders, i think you need to work more on the style and not add/impruve on it. it wuld end up like that nomans sky game, they made a boring game and no matter how much content they add to it now its still boring.
 

woodsmoke

Member
Strange that the pics don't work. I use Firefox at home, and they also work at work with an ancient version of IE. I think I'll switch image hosts.

I don't plan on using shaders because I think the board/pieces are already hard to read when there is alot of splatter and mayhem. Shaders would make it even more noisy. I like the idea with the shadows though and will try that out. On the characters themselves and/or behind them. Maybe I'll darken the corners/edges of the screen to make it more atmospheric.

Thanks for the replies!
 
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woodsmoke

Member
Wow I only added a handmade dark edge filter and it's so much more atmospheric now. Thanks Froganus you were right it looks way better now!
Still playing around with the effect. I think I'll have ~8 different light filters that change randomly every level.
Do these images appear now? :



 
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FROGANUS

Guest
yeah pics are all up again. looks good!
that subtle shadow makes for a fitting 'catacomb' ambiance.
i've taken my own advice and started checking out a few shader tuts and scripts on my own projects too, heh.
seems to be a lot you can do..
 
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zendraw

Guest
yeah it looks awesome now. btw can i ask what is this filter your using? id really like play around with one. are you talking about shaders?
 

woodsmoke

Member
No shader. It's simply a semi-transparent image(s) created with FireAlpaca above the other objects. Like this one:

 
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zendraw

Guest
Ive just played ur game.
-so u shuld fix the depth of the figuresghjg.png
-when in the map screen if i press RMB it like plays the game until i die and then i can press LMB and then again if i press RMB it shakes like when you end your turn. i got this after i died and went to the map. perhaps you dont 'deactivate' the game in the background.
-perhaps make so i get a new figure when reaching the end with a soldier?

next, an idea i got while playng it. have you tryed making the enemies move in real time while keeping the player as it is now? i wonder how that wuld turn out. also perhaps add some intelligence where the enemy can detect where the player can move and avoid those slots. or make some strategy things, not sure.

also its hard to understand how the enemies move or wether i will kill it if i move to a certain square. perhaps make some indicators for a killing move to square and if i point at an enemie it wuld tell me where it wuld go.
 
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woodsmoke

Member
Ive just played ur game.
-so u shuld fix the depth of the figuresView attachment 14307
-when in the map screen if i press RMB it like plays the game until i die and then i can press LMB and then again if i press RMB it shakes like when you end your turn. i got this after i died and went to the map. perhaps you dont 'deactivate' the game in the background.
-perhaps make so i get a new figure when reaching the end with a soldier?

next, an idea i got while playng it. have you tryed making the enemies move in real time while keeping the player as it is now? i wonder how that wuld turn out. also perhaps add some intelligence where the enemy can detect where the player can move and avoid those slots. or make some strategy things, not sure.

also its hard to understand how the enemies move or wether i will kill it if i move to a certain square. perhaps make some indicators for a killing move to square and if i point at an enemie it wuld tell me where it wuld go.
Thanks for the feedback. I added enemy depth fix, game deactivation on map screen, and indicator for kill moves to my to do list.
A new figure when a pawn reaches the other end won't be implemented though.
I thought of making the enemy moves real time at the beginning of development but decided against it, because it would make gameplay more stressful and sometimes you'd have to wait a long time instead of skipping multiple rounds manually.
 
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zendraw

Guest
i see, but like this the soldier becomes useless. so there is no gameplay loop, just a stagnent stage for that figure. what is your idea about making it this way? i am thinkin also, like you can make him turn around and starts going the other way.
 

woodsmoke

Member
Yes pawns can get useless. But most of the time they get a chance to attack die easily. And play sessions are very short, so it's not that much of a bummer. Pawn promotion would happen too often here as well.
Anyway I always found it strange in chess how a pawn turns into a queen. The pawns are very low class in my game.

If the play area was a big ("open world"?) dungeon it would be needed for the pawns to move in all directions. I was thinking of going in that direction when I started development. (Still an idea for a sequel)
 
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woodsmoke

Member
New version with the dark look has been uploaded!
Includes fixes for depth, map screen, and adds an indicator for kill moves.
It's been a while since I uploaded so there are also many more small updates.
 
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