Patch notes for version 1.7

New Game modes!

The Chess Randomizer

• Play chess with a completely random board size and back rank! There are 36 unique board sizes, and over 20 million unique starting positions!

Square Chess (I know, shocking)

• Standard 8x8 chess is now playable within Deckmate, along with 9 of the custom sizes/positions that have been featured in my videos!

New Features

Local Multiplayer

• Play vs a friend on one device! Supports all game modes and settings.

2D Boards

• You can now (finally) play on a 2D board! This option gives a more classic feel, and will help the game run much smoother on non-gaming pc’s.

On-Board Notation

• Ranks and files are now visible on the board, making positional calculation and discussion much easier!

Board Themes and Background Colors

• Choose between 5 different board colors, and 4 different background colors!

Board Editor

• Create and edit custom positions! (Supports all game modes!)

Circular Chess Opening Explorer

• View a database of moves from 167 competitive Circular Chess games! Since the starting position is changing, these moves will be obsolete and will be getting replaced with a new database soon, but it can be viewed as a proof of concept for the time being!

Custom Positions and Restore Points

• When creating a private or local game, you can now select a custom starting position (created with the board editor), or continue from a Restore Point! Restore Points save the position and clock info in the event of a lobby/internet failure, allowing you to continue the game from right where you left off!

Spectating

• You can now invite more than 1 player to your lobby, and additional players can watch the game unfold!

Material Counter

• You can now see the material imbalance on the in-game UI, with an indicator of who has the material lead!

Match Score

• After finishing a game and rematching, the total match score will now be calculated and displayed on the in-game UI!

In-Game Friends List

• See all of your online Steam friends, with the friends currently in Deckmate being displayed at the top! You can invite and message your friends from this menu, eliminating the need to switch to the Steam overlay.

Flip Board Button

• View the board from your opponent’s perspective! Supports all game modes and types, including replays and spectating!

View your opponent’s possible moves

• Holding shift and left clicking a piece will now show which squares that piece can move to. (any possible squares, assuming an empty board)

Gamemode Changes

Chess vs Checkers rule/setup changes

• New rule: En Diamant (In Diamond). If the chess pieces are in a diamond formation, so that they are not capturable by a checker under any normal circumstances, a checker will be able to capture that piece with a single diagonal movement (as if it were a pawn).
• New setup: The checkers now start with 4 rows of 8 checkers, instead of 3 rows of 10.
• Visual Change: The extra border squares are now only visible when there is a piece on that square, or if a capture is available that would place a checker on that square.

New Circular Chess starting position

• As decided by the competitive Circular Chess community, I have added 2 additional knights on the central rank for each player. This is to discourage early pawn pushes and encourage positional play. I don’t take these decisions lightly, since any change to the starting position will completely reset the established opening theory. This will likely be the final change to the starting position.

Removed Isometric Chess and Hide & Seek Chess

• These will still be playable as part of the new “Legacy Branch” on Steam, which will allow you to play on the previous version of Deckmate. Hide and Seek chess will be back in a future update, and Isometric Chess will become its own standalone game in the not-so-distant future.

Other Changes

Reworked netcode

• I have completely rewritten the game’s netcode. Lobbies will now be easier to enter, will run smoother, and will crash less often!

Updated UI

• New UI for the main menu, lobby, time control settings, and more!

Circular Chess Bot Improvements

• Minor changes to the Circular Chess Bot’s code aimed at fixing certain situations where the bot’s compressed understanding of the rules does not match the game’s code. Bot strength can be very sensitive to these minor bugs, so you may notice a decent increase to the bot’s skill (though it is still a fair bit weaker than the best human players).

Bug Fixes

• (hopefully) Fixed a bug that kept some players from promoting vs the Circular Chess bot, keeping them from continuing the game. I was unable to reliably replicate this bug, so it may still occur. I will be watching this closely.
• Fixed a bug that allowed pinned pieces to move freely in Hexagonal Chess.
• Fixed a bug that prevented kings from approaching the knights in Hexagonal Chess.
• Fixed various bugs that caused an incorrect end condition (giving the win to the wrong player, declaring checkmate instead of stalemate, etc.)