Hey all!

And here I was thinking I’d not have any time up to 1st of August! I found a week or so of time to work on Checkmate and this new update has A BUNCH of improvements!

Here’s the full changelog:

• Fixed an issue where the option “Disable enemy clock” would not effect real-time mode

• Fixed an issue where the method of culling used was actually slower than drawing the objects themselves instead

• Added forests

• Improved the look of the flowers & grass

• Improved the look of the castles

• Fixed a rare issue where the game would hang when loading a level

• Got rid of the forest & grass objects; They are now stored in a list for more optimized reading

• Renewed the entire graphics pipeline

• Optimized the menu & GUI shader

• Revised most of the shaders to be more optimal

• Reduced amount of surfaces from 10 to 4 (reducing VRAM requirements significantly)

• Fixed an issue where the fog in Classic mode could extend beyond the world borders

• Refactored a bunch of code

• Reset a lot of values for a better looking environment (such as bloom amount, saturation, contrast, etc.)

• Significantly reduced the amount of postprocess blur

• Fixed some of the Dutch translation

• Added a new option which allows you to choose whether detail objects (grass, birds, etc.) should cast shadows (Off significantly saves performance)

• Fixed an issue where the options menu in-game wasn’t localized

• Fixed an issue where you could build off-screen

• Fixed an issue where building sometimes didn’t care whether the spot was already taken

• Fixed an issue where a tree could spawn inside the castle

• Fixed an issue where lag would occur when zooming in/out

• Capped the amount of cooking pots the AI can place, so it will stop creating them infinitely

• Revised the fog model for more smoothness (still has some issues near the borders)

• Improved board model colours; White is no longer super white

• Updated menu backgrounds to reflect the new graphics

• Adjusted diffuse lighting values so that diffuse shadow does not overlap casted shadows

• Created better contrast between colors

• Fixed an issue where there were no sound effects on the pre-game options screen

I’ve updated the screenshots on the page to reflect the new graphics.

If you were having performance issues in the past, I highly recommend to check out the game again - The performance has been boosted significantly and there are now a couple of new options to give you more control over intensive render processes (like shadows, for example).

Have a great day and catch y’all later!