Hey everyone!

Long time no see, right? Last release was 3 months ago. A lot happened since then, but I was waiting to have some significant and polished systems before releasing the next version.
On a human aspect, I could attend 3 indie dev meetups in Paris. These are called "Indie Game Dev Paris" and are held by Peter Indie Beard, an indie game veteran that works hard to connect indies with potential players. Thanks a LOT Peter for organising those meetups!
I also met very cool indies, like Mike, Jean-Charles, Beta (making cool games on itch.io) and Julien & Nicolas, creators of Paradeus, another indie game with cool board and card mechanics!

All those indies playing games from each other, that was a blast!

Last one was during december, and unfortunately, the gaming bar where we usually meet was overcrowded, so we couldn't enjoy the moment as much as previous meetups. Still those moments are very enjoyable and I hope they keep happening in the future.

Regarding Chyss, I worked relentlessly on the project since last version. New features were hard to add, but day after day, you can achieve anything, if you don't forget to rest between rushes, and keep being passionate about developing.

The game now has a mobile version! I won't release it today because I didn't adapt Login screen and Victory screen (2 new features as well) to mobile users, resulting in a messed up UX.
About mobile version: I brought a very rough Android version of Chyss to the indie dev meetup, in order for people to try the game on mobile instead of lining up to test on a small laptop. That first mobile version was a mess! Because I didn't optimize either UX or performance, resulting in a big 350MB app running at 5fps on super powerful smartphones. But hey, I did that mobile export 2 hours before the meetup so I didn't have time to do anything except exporting. I need to tell you about how easy it was to produce a mobile export using Game Maker, as I only had to switch platform export and click on "Create Executable" to get an apk of the game.

(a screen from mobile version)

After people could try the game, I spent most of November and December to create a proper mobile version. It revolved around 2 main axis:

- Optimizing performance: this one is the longest one and I keep working on it. First of all, the game benefits from a recent addition to Game Maker, which is called Dynamic Texture Groups.
Before that feature was added, Game Maker had to load EVERY graphics at game startup, meaning the more things you add to your game, the longest it will take to load at startup, even if those graphics don't show up until late or even never show up the game at all.
Now, you can assign your sprites to Texture Groups and set it to Dynamic, meaning that you can load and unload them according to your game. It also makes the game load significantly faster because nothing's loaded at start.
On top of that, you can assign some Texture Groups to a platform, and as a consequence, I made "low quality" assets that only load on mobile. Basically, every graphics on mobile have their resolution divided by 2 compared to PC, but you can't figure this out because mobile screen is too small. It makes the game free about 4 times more graphic memory, upgrading performance by a DAMN LOT!

- User experience: Chyss is a complex game compared to usual mobile games, there are lots of pieces, many informations rely on the player hovering characters or elements with their mouse. This had to be translated into a mobile friendly and easy to use interface. I chose not to rely too much on swipe gestures and focused on "one tap" gestures as they are less invasive for players. I will release mobile version soon for Android and iOS and will ask you if you feel good playing this way. Also, every text had to be a lot bigger on mobile to be easy to read.

When mobile version was satisfying enough to play, I worked on adding player accounts, having a rank, MMR (matchmaking ranking) points, and money points (Zan) that accumulate as you play games. This part was a bit of a pain since I'm no big network engineer or web developer, but it has taught me lots of things! Players can also tick the "Remember me!" box to avoid typing their login credentials everytime they start the game. I personally would hate typing credentials again and again so that was a must-have, even for a first iteration of player account.

After this was working properly, I added a real "game end" screen and animation, that will bring an end to your chyss game. Before that, player had to leave the game after they killed opponent's Leader, in a fairplay maneuver. After seeing the Leader explode Final Fantasy style, you will receive your rewards as a player: your MMR will go up or down depending if you win or lose - this is using the elo calculation formula - and you will receive some Zan, the ingame currency. You will receive 2 to 6 Zan by losing, and 7 to 10 Zan by winning.
End game screen also allows you to rematch your opponent according to a "first to 3" rule! You will receive rewards for all of those games.

Finally, I changed game balance and added lots of new graphics and sound effects, also reworked the board itself to give it a more textured feel than the transparent black board it was before that.
So here is the changelog!

Engine Changes

- Textures now load dynamically, they appear as glitched for about 3 seconds before being correctly loaded
- Players now needs an account to be played. Your login is your email address, provided when registering. Please be careful about password as there is no "lost password" process yet.
- Added a title screen!
- Units now have a "moving" sound effect
- Reworked some backgrounds and added "Deccyrius beach" background
- Now displays a tooltip about valid targets for unit summoning, actions, and elements
- Now clearly highlights which enemy or neutral unit could be Taken by a currently selected allied unit
- Unit and Leader stats are now shown by default, you can press TAB to hide them
- Local player or opponent's turn is now clearly shown by flashing their units at turn start
- Fixed thousands of bugs especially some that crashed the game or made it unplayable. Some bugs might still be there, please report bugs on discord if you find some
- Mobile version is coming soon, once login and victory screens are ported to mobile

Game design/Balancing

Mana Tile
- Mana gain to player is now 3 (from 2)
Mana tile needed to add more power to players committing to get mana instead of attack orb or move orb.

Merchant Apprentice
- Stays on board 1-6 turns now (from 8-12)
- Health is now 5 (from 9)
- NPC interaction animation and shop opening animation are significantly faster now
Refined interaction with that first neutral unit: now she will stay less turns on board, making her harder to reach and interact with. Old version was too resistant and stayed too long, making her bodyblock player pieces. Since she should be hard to get and provides good advantages to players opening the shop, this version works better.

Rust Defender
- Mana cost is now 4 (from 3)
- Health is now 5 (from 6)
- Attack range type is now X-Way (from Three way Front)
Rust Defender was overpowered in previous version, it's ability to get stat-buffed, to attack in front of it, and its low mana cost made it the best unit, and also made the game a bit trivial, as players with a lot of Rust Defenders could crush the game by just summoning and advancing slowly. As it's supposed to be a Lesser Unit, it had to be nerfed. Mana cost nerf makes it a bit harder to keep a Rust Defender and summon it on orbs to get extra attack/move actions. That character's still very good but inability to attack the tile in front of it makes it behave more like a pawn, assisting other units. It still can Take in front of it, if its attack is superior than the target's remaining health.

Florid Phasma
- Attack range is now 2 (from 3)
Small nerf to Florid Phasma attack range, to make it harder to kite every unit using its "+ Way" movement and great move range.

Mercurial Warden
- Attack stat is now 5 (from 4)
Mercurial Warden is now hitting hard and can destroy every other unbuffed unit in one hit. It gives more interest to using strategies based on diagonals. With Rust Defender and Merchant Apprentice being 5 health now, Mercurial Warden can easily move for free, using Take, and then move again to another position.

Murreen Warlord
- Health is now 11 (from 9)
- Move range is now 2 (from 3)
Being the Leader, Mureen Warlord has to be a strong weapon in players arsenal. But previous version was giving him too much freedom of movement, combining 8-Way movement with a range of 3, resulting in situations were the first player that advanced their Leader to the middle of the board gained a significant advantage and could zone out the other one. With one less range and 2 more health, this situation isn't giving as much advantage as before, especially if the other player uses summons to block the Leader.

Thunderstorm
- Damage is now 4 (from 2)
- Mana cost is now 2 (from 4)
Thunderstorm received a big buff, adding damage and lowering mana cost. Previous version often wasn't worth the cost, especially compared to summoning a new unit on the board and making it attack. Now Thunderstorm can be used to clear a threat on the board, keeping a difficult aspect (you can only target units that are exactly two tiles away from your army, if they are nearby, you can't use Thunderstorm on them)

And that's it for today! Adding player accounts and making a proper mobile version was very long and consuming, especially because I want to add new units, neutrals, spells and other stuff that directly impact how the game is played. But it had to be done, and now it is, so ... I'm glad it's over!

Next version will add new units, neutrals and spells! Stay tuned and don't forget to join Discord if you're looking for opponents!

Also please wishlist the game on Steam if you have some interest! It's only a click for you but it means a lot to me. I'll release on Steam once the game hits beta state!

Shaman