It's been exactly a year since Master of Chess went into Early Access! 🥳🎉🎂
It's incredible to see how far it went since then. 6k+ players. 200 reviews. Not bad for a first commercial game and a one-man team.
I often think how much it could have been better if I could redo it, but I'm still extremely happy with how well it improved over time. By my count, I've released 32 new builds in the last year.
Lets introduce the last build of the game before it turns 1 year old:
New Build
Most importantly, I've started to support Macs. It did require some work but since I've switched my primary workstation to a mac laptop it made sense to support it now. I can test and build there.
Other than that, it's same-all, same-all: bug fixes and small improvements all around:
Fix issue with openings not being saved after Quit to Menu.
Fix annoying issue with screens switch when game is loaded.
Allow saving of custom db saves when the db deletes players.
Fix skipped messages bug.
Add setup for board look config.
What's coming next
I've already hinted it with the previous part, but board configuration is the next feature I'm adding. I've initially been against it but since it was often requested and it is fun to implement I've finally decided to invest the time and bring it in as a core part of the game.
Other than that, the game is mostly feature complete. As far as bigger features go: I'd like to have 'Play a match' & 'Solve a puzzle' action straight from opening menu. No need for you to enter your career save.
Then it's mostly about usability fixes and bug hunting and voila:
The game is couple of months away from going out of early access!
Thank you for support and keep the comments/bug reports/reviews coming.
Cheers!