♟️ The Big One - Online Lobbies, Smarter Opponents & a Whole Lot More

Hey everyone 👋

It's just me here — Chess Kingdom is a one-person project — so sometimes it takes a while before I can properly update you on what's happening. But I keep listening to the feedback, looking at the data, and updating based on it. I'm genuinely grateful for all the feedback I'm getting.

Here's what's new, and why I built it.

🌐 You can actually play real people now
Why: chess is meant to be played against humans, but I simply didn't have enough players online at once to make that interesting. Now there are lobbies, though, so you can open a lobby and then leave. When other players come along, they'll see it on their main menu and can jump in. And since it's all async, you don't have to sit in the game continuously.

🤖 Opponents you'll actually remember
Beating one bot felt like beating all of them — they were kind of interchangeable. I wanted real characters. The problem was that "personality" usually means "plays worse," and I really didn't want to dumb anyone down. So I found a way to give each bot real taste — aggressive ones hunt, positional ones squeeze, defensive ones dig in — without making a single one weaker. (I stress-tested that part more than anything else in this update. 😅)

🔍 Learn something from every game
This is a game you're supposed to improve at, but the old analysis basically said "the engine preferred this move," which teaches you nothing. Now it tells you what your move actually did: hung a piece, walked into a fork, missed a pin. Plus a cleaner analysis screen, a graded Endgame Trainer, and Daily Training that quietly drills the exact things you keep getting wrong.

🌍 Play for your country
Chess is the most global game there is, felt a shame not to lean into it. So: pick from 197 nations, jump into a one-click country quick-match, and climb the new Player and Country leaderboards (with a Hall of Fame right on the menu). A little friendly "my flag vs. yours."

🏅 More to chase
I wanted the journey to feel like a journey. So there are now 20 prestige frames to earn, plus budding rivalries, bonds with the AIs, win-streak rewards, and daily & weekly challenges you can actually click into.

🎨 A fresher look and a friendlier start
Too many new players bounced in the first ten minutes, thrown in cold, or staring at a dated menu. So the game now teaches you the rules (if you choose to) before any real pressure, throws a little party for your first win, and gently points you at a good next move. Oh, and a redesigned dark main menu + juicier captures, because it should feel good too.

♿ For more players, in more places
"Supports accessibility" should mean something. The old colorblind mode only recolored one thing — basically fake, and that bugged me. Now it uses shapes, not just colors. Add to that 31 languages, screen-reader fixes, better controller / Steam Deck support, faster Deck startup, and controller-remapping + cloud-save restored to Settings.

🐛 …and a small mountain of bug fixes
Being a solo dev who actually reads the forums and fixes things is kind of the whole point. Tournament colors, a nasty rating-corruption bug, several crash-y buttons, giant avatars, puzzle & league fixes — most of them came straight from your reports.

And one thank-you that deserves its own line: Umikaze, you've been sending feedback and bug reports almost non-stop, and a real chunk of this update exists because of you. Absolute hero. 🙏

This was a big one! The online lobbies are the part I'm equal parts proud and terrified of, so if you open one (or rescue someone who's been waiting), I'd genuinely love to hear how it felt. Got a bug or a "wouldn't it be cool if…"? Throw it in the forums, it lands straight on my desk, and as this whole update proves, it tends to actually happen.

Thanks for playing one solo dev's chess game. See you on the board. ♟️