Here's a fun little video showing off the demo:
Chesster Alpha Gameplay
Download the demo here:
Chesster Alpha Demo
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Your meanderings in the game will eventually bring you to the library if your skills are good enough. This is the 7th and second to last level in the game, things will get difficult here!
Here is the final 3D model
After texturing and lighting this model, we are left with the straight 3D render.
Its looking pretty cool, but there are a lot of fine details I like to bring out in compositing. Below is the final result!
Only one level to go!
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It's fun to mach pieces, score points and collect treasure, but the particular match 3 mechanics in Chesster allows us to bring you even MORE! Chesster will also include 64 individual puzzles where you will have to clear certain pieces on the board in limited numbers of moves. Lets take a look at how this will work...
Here is a simple puzzle where the player is allowed two moves to clear all pawns on the board.
In puzzle mode, all the mechanics from the main game are present. That means combos will clear bricks and pieces will fall to fill in any empty spaces. Can you solve this one?
Here's how it will work once puzzle mode is ready in the game. We'll move two knights so that we get a combo.
The knight combo will clear the bricks (and the adjacent blank spaces which will be filled with a special piece in the game which will be used as filler and can be "jumped" on by game pieces, unlike bricks).
Now that the bricks have been destroyed, the pawns will fall to fill in empty space.
Once the pawns settle, they connect as a combo and are cleared!
Each level you complete in the main game will unlock 8 puzzles in puzzle mode. Easier puzzles will have fewer moves while harder ones will have more moves and involve multiple turns!
Here's another easy one. Can you solve this based on the solution above?
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Chesster is filled with immersive visuals, pulling players into the past as they explore the grounds of a massive castle. However, this immersion is not complete without music! Stepping up to this challenge is composer Kevon Cronin. Kevon has done an amazing job on our theme using top notch software as well as recording real instruments to achieve maximum effect.
Chesster theme music - Indie DB
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To our loyal subjects. Please take this lovely update as a token of our gratitude. Surely it is one of the finest updates in the land! Art for the latest level has been released, the Royal Dining Hall! We have also added a feature to make gameplay more intuitive, and of course progress continues to be made on the game overall.
Making a Castle
Each piece of background art is built and rendered in a 3d modeling program and then final touches are added in compositing. But first, there is a concept, scribbled down on on real paper or hashed out with a tablet on a computer, or both!
;)
This was the concept sketch for an interior level. As you can see, it doesn't have much in common with the end result. Early on, the idea was to have the game board as part of the background image, but after deciding to go with a 1920x1080 aspect, this meant most of the background image became the game board itself. So this concept image became the placeholder for a generic interior level.
;)
Because the concept image did not flush out many details, a lot of the layout design was done in 3d for this particular level. This is the layout I was finally happy with to take to the next level. At this stage, only basic elements are in place and are represented by primitive objects. Then the real modeling begins!
;)
This is the final model of the dining hall. You can see that the layout is the exact same as above but all the details have been modeled out. From this point I textured all the objects and set my primary source of light (the window) as a starting point for lighting.
;)
Here is the final render out of Cinema 4D. After positioning my sunlight in the right spot, I used area lights to bounce light around the room in a way that was semi-accurate but believable. Then I added some warm secondary lighting for off-screen light sources and where my fire would eventually be.
;)
And this is the final result! Taking the final 3d render into photoshop, I did some color correction, blooming, atmosphere, added candle light, a fire in the fireplace and a few other details.
I hope this was inspiring and something others can learn from. There are two more levels on the way, we will bring them to you as they are finished.
Walk This Way!
One small note on a new feature that's been recently added to the game, the movement hint system. When the player picks up a game piece, the allowed movement is now highlighted in green so that the player can easily see how the pieces move.
Of course, there is still the movement reference button that brings up the "cheat sheet" on all the piece movements. Whether this feature will be present just in the first level or throughout the game or even a toggled option, is still undecided. Of course, feel free to comment about what you think!
Captain's ChangeLog
A few things we've worked with the game include:
Fixed memory leak with pieces array
Fixed memory leak with background images
Fixed memory leak with tutorial screen
Fixed memory leak with GameSession class
Added the sliding effect for the textboard
Fixed the textboard overlapping bug when piece matching loop is running
Added the allowed movements hint when a piece is selected
Fixed textboard bug when escaping from the game then returning
Fixed spikes bug when escaping from the game then returning
Quitting game will now close the rendering context and kill the application
Fixed ranking server response problem
Overall RAM memory consumption dropped 40 MB.
All of these updates (and more) are going into the Chesster Demo 2.0 which should be available sometime next month. In the meantime, why not check out our current demo over on our Demo Page!
Thanks all for reading, and if you have comments or suggestions please comment below or contact us!
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