The armies of Chessland have been back at the forge. New recruits have joined the ranks, the war table has been rebuilt from the ground up, and bots have finally learned to think.. Added
New Piece: Necromancer (14). Moves and captures diagonally up to 3. Every time it captures, a friendly Cracked Pawn rises on the square it left. The dead work for you now.
New Piece: Mirror (14). Moves 1 in any direction, and also like the last piece your opponent moved. Abilities aren't copied, sorry.
New Piece: Bomb Pawn (5). A pawn with a Fusefort's temper: explodes when it captures or is captured. It can still promote, if it survives that long.
New Piece: Shield Bearer (7). Pieces beside it (not diagonally) can't be hit by ranged attacks and survive dragon fire.
New Piece: Mason (8). Moves and captures 1 orthogonally. Instead of moving, it can build one of its Rocks on an empty square next to it. Carries 3.
New Piece: Decoy (6). Moves and captures 1 in any direction. Your opponent sees it as a second King until it falls. Good luck guessing.
New Piece: Gravecaller (12). Moves and captures up to 2 orthogonally. Instead of moving, it brings back your last lost piece on your back rank, then rests for 4 turns.
New Piece: Vampire (7). Moves and captures 1 in any direction. Every piece it takes adds a square to its reach, for good.
New Piece: Thief (6). Moves and captures 1 diagonally. Taking a piece steals that piece's movement, until it steals again.
AI Battle mode: pick an army and a bot strength for each side and watch them fight it out, at 1x, 2x or 4x speed. Good for testing an army without getting your hands dirty.
Inspect any piece: click any piece, yours or the enemy's, even when it's not your turn, to see where it can go and what it does.
Move previews: hover a target to see exactly what happens before you commit. Which pieces die, who gets pushed, what rises from the dead.
Move warnings: a move that hands your King to the opponent needs a second click. Can be turned off in Settings if you like living dangerously.
Test vs Bot from the Forge: try an army out before you save it, then come straight back to the unsaved board.
Reduce Motion setting for anyone who'd rather things didn't bounce.
New music and sounds: match music that crossfades between tracks, and a full set of new UI sounds.
End screen: now says how the game was won or lost, with Play Again, Back to Forge or Find New Match.
Changed
A whole new look. Every screen has been rebuilt: menus, board, Forge and the match screen. Everything moves now, and the effects got a full redo, explosions included.
Redrawn pieces: Spearman, Trainee Archer, Cracked Pawn, Yabusame and Warden no longer look like each other at a glance.
Board themes redrawn: Base, Wood and Stone.
New bots: the AI has been rewritten from scratch. Easy looks one move ahead, Medium takes what you leave, Hard searches deep. They also stop shuffling back and forth when they're stuck.
The Forge, rebuilt: drag pieces in from the rack, drag them around to swap, drag them off to remove, undo and redo everything. Search and sort the rack, and the budget bar shows what each piece costs you.
Challenges now ramp from Easy to Hard in order, and show the bot's strength, the time format, the boss's army and whether you've beaten it.
Price changes: bot testing showed these pieces losing more than their cost was worth, so they're cheaper now.
Dragon 20 → 15
Assassin 20 → 15
Dwarf 16 → 10
Crab 13 → 9
Yabusame 7 → 5
Armies now need a King and must stay within 100 points. Old formations with gaps get filled in.
Bot games show the bot's strength instead of a rating.
Fixed
Online turns falling out of sync after a promotion
Black promoting into pieces from White's army
Bot pawns and eggs never promoting or hatching
Capturing the King counting the win twice (double Elo and stats)
Challenge achievements being awarded on a loss
Fusefort explosions and chain reactions leaving the board half updated
Being able to move again while a move was still animating
Dwarf bonks sometimes stalling the turn
Online clocks not ending the game when they ran out
Opponent's Elo showing wrong online, and the "--15" label
Schrödinger's Cat landing differently for each player online
Challenges ignoring their starting colour
Saving a formation in the Forge overwriting a different one, and delete removing the wrong one
Typos in piece and challenge text (sorry, Royal Harem and Baron of the Guild)
See you on the board!