Hello everyone! So, just like Andy Williams sings; "It's the most wonderful time of the year", and on that note I thought it would be fun to give you all a little look behind the scenes of the development of Viking Chess: Hnefatafl. Viking Chess has been in Early Access since the release on the 16th of October, and since then we have released around 10 updates, big and small. I think the game has improved much over these updates, and I believe we will have a very nice little game by the end of Early Access. I believe that a few more updates are in order to release the game out of Early Access early next year. We all want a better AI to play against, and a fully featured game with good singleplayer, good multiplayer and game progression. Viking Chess is a very small, niche indiegame with a very low budget, so I thank you all for your patience here in Early Access, while I improve the game little by little. On the "small game" note: Small niche games like these generally don't have a very active multiplayer scene by themselves. In order to get the multiplayer running, the game needs community involvement that get people together to play. I hope that you players want to use our Discord https://discord.gg/7HxACrx to create a community there, to have a hub that all players can use to find other players and organize games. [b]This week[/b] I will release the long? awaited content update with many exciting features. Better AI in general, Unlockables, and community requested features like Hotseat local multiplayer. And also some squishing of community discovered bugs. So for those of you that get some time off in the holiday season I hope to see you playing Viking Chess and enjoying the new update! :) [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35640970/7efd00439c9c502de6fc1446ae3b94dd871ce2ea.jpg[/img] My name is Kenny G and i'm the solo developer on this project, with some help here and there from other colleagues at Rain. Yes, solo, so that's why things take a little bit more time. I do programming, design, well everything except 3D modeling, so I got some help there from my colleague Lars which you can read about later in the post. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35640970/7fff6adabe2e5acbf896268c19fe3e8bc8e2d023.png[/img] Here's where i work. I have my own little corner of the world in the Rain office in Bergen, Norway. The porcelain cat is there for motivation, overseeing that I do good work. Oh and do you notice some small board pieces? I'm working on creating a very nice physical boardgame prototype for Viking Chess as well, 3D printed here in our office. What do you think? Anyone of you interested in purchasing a nice physical boardgame in the future with our designs? :) [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35640970/d097038211b74cef939df4d7a60a26dbf87bc2ee.png[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35640970/e459d25b746ba64d22d159f1fc0ce6cf5b5394e8.jpg[/img] This is Lars, he's the awesome sculptor of our board pieces. He sculpted the pieces beatifully in the software ZBrush, and made them look fine and dandy in our Game Engine with nice low poly models. He's an allround amazing artist with many projects at all times, a skilled illustrator, modeler and designer. Oh and he does his own comic "No Good Heroes" as well! Check out his work posted regularly @helgemonster on Twitter. I'm looking forward to have some time in the holiday to work more on Viking Chess and get some great updates out for you guys! Like always, thank you for playing Viking Chess and supporting my game, and giving feedback. I'm working hard to create the best game I can for you guys, and I hope that you will be happy with the game by the end of Early Access. I wish you all a happy holiday, and all the best going into the new year! - Kenny G