[iOS] Viking Chess! - 3D Asymmetrical Strategy - Available Now!

Update: Viking Chess! is now available for free on the App Store.

In April 2014 I read an article about the ancient viking board game of hnefatafl. It sounded intriguing, and I thought I'd take a stab at making the game in Unity. After a year and a couple months of off-and-on development, innumerable setbacks, and plenty of personal life distractions, I'm finally ready to share my progress.

Viking Chess! main menu​

History
After building a prototype in the web player, I realized how well-suited the game would be to mobile devices. Much of the early time was spent learning about the game rules and translating them into programming logic. Since different variants of the game used different sized boards, I wanted to build the board dynamically and offer alternate layouts and rulesets.

Prototype for what, at the time, was to be called "Tafl - Viking Chess"​

I got to work creating the game proper, translating the controls to touch input, adding a proper camera, and modeled my first pieces in Blender. Since my initial version was made using UnityScript, I also translated all my code to C#, which was a great learning process. I was very happy with how it was coming along until my wife pointed out how much the black pieces looked like penises. Whoops.

First iOS build. Ignore the penises.​

I also initially wanted to support cross-platform play, but multiplayer seemed like such a daunting task, and I was having trouble wrapping my head around the various frameworks out there. I ended up deciding to focus on one platform at a time, and decided iOS was the best market. I found a cheap plugin called U3DXT that provided access to the Game Center API, but it turned out more problematic than anything. A couple months in, the plugin developer seemed to have stopped supporting their work and disappeared off the grid, while I had Xcode errors relating to their plugin I couldn't figure out on my own.

Cleaning things up. Except for that menu button... Eek.​

After abandoning the project for a while, I eventually came back to it and attempted a fresh start by deleting U3DXT from the project entirely. I focused on the core game a bit more and added new black pieces, a fancy board trim, and got rid of the placeholder textures in lieu of a nice flat appearance instead. I actually liked the look of this enough that I wanted to keep it for the final game, but figured people would find it too cheap looking, hence the current visual style. I would like to add "basic mode" as an option, though, as it performs great on older devices.

I took a stab at implementing Google Play Games to handle the multiplayer, with the benefit being it's cross-platform. What I discovered, though, was that the Unity plugin version of GPG is severely limited at this stage, and it became clear it would provide more obstacles than it would benefits. I finally bit the bullet and purchased prime[31]'s Game Center plugins, and things have gone swimmingly since then.

New graphics! Now with 100% more Unity 5!​

I then went crazy making the game look "good" and "Vikingy". The astute observer will notice I borrowed a large number of assets from the Viking Village. I purchased music tracks, pieced together a UI (that I currently hate) and started ticking off the features I'd been putting off for a while. One of my favorite is toggling perspective on/off in game. Orthographic view is great for smaller screens, and having the option to switch on the fly (by double-tapping two fingers) should let people see which view they prefer and enjoy either easily.

Ortho view without opening a menu!​

One of the things I realized was that this game is pretty niche. While similar to chess (it actually pre-dates it by a few hundred years, I believe), it's different enough to be confusing if you just jump right in. The game will show you each move where you can and can't put your pieces, and which pieces you'll capture with your move. There's also a written version of the rules available from the main or in-game menu.

Dragging a piece shows its valid moves. Helpful to those of us who were never vikings.​

I'm definitely discovering how the last 10% of a project is 90% of the work. Every time I launch the game I discover a new bug or discover something I thought I fixed isn't quite done. I'm also second-guessing a lot of my usability decisions (like how many taps before you can get into a game)... Stuff like that. Last year, hesitating because I wasn't sure what the right decision was almost prevented me from finishing the game at all, so I'm learning to just do something and worry about fixing it later if I can. It may be more work, but it also may be just fine, and that's a good risk.

Confirm your move of this highlighted black piece to capture this (faintly) highlighted white piece.​

Where you come in
I'm getting to the point where I want to start testing for real. I invited several friends and family to get in on the beta, but they all seem a bit busy and only one of them has even installed the app. I'm thinking I'll find more like-minded people here who are savvy enough to figure out the quirks of working with Test Flight and know what kind of stuff to give feedback on and which is obviously placeholder.

If you're interested in playing the game in its current, breakable state, send me a PM with your Apple ID email address and I'll add you to the batch of tester invites. It'd also be great if you could provide me info on what kind of device you have and other relevant information ("I'm colorblind", etc).

If you're not interested or not able to help with testing (sorry, Android users!), I'd also appreciate any feedback here, and I'd be happy to answer any questions about the app, the development process, or code tips for your similar project.

Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for more!

 

Me entirely... I wish I could help test!

Interesting take on implementing a board game in a Unity App. And I have to say, dem graphics! How well does that run on current-gen devices, out of curiosity?

 

Sorry, man. I was actually an Android user when I started the prototype, and made the jump with the iPhone 6. I do really want to release an Android version after I finish with iOS, so I'll get around to you eventually.

Thanks for the compliment! There are a few other tafl games on the App store, but they're all 2D and pretty plain. If you search for images of some of the custom boards people have crafted, some of them are just beautiful, and I wanted to bring that feeling into my game as well. Plus, with an eventual feature I want to add, the pretty graphics will really help immerse people, I think...

It runs perfectly on the iPhone 6. The only other i-Device I have is my iPad Mini Retina, which I was doing all my testing on before I got this phone. I had no performance issues until I started going crazy with the environment, lighting, and camera effects. Part of my optimization process will be to disable the effects one at a time and build, and see which offers the best performance improvement. That, or figure out how to read the Profiler.

 

Awesome. It's sort of the other way around with both project's I'm working on, although that's mostly due to the fact that I don't have a mac...

EDIT: Read thew other bit just then, I can help profile it; just profile the game and screenshot it here. I will see what I can find.

One thing I can tell you is that although I have only had the profiler since Unity 5, i definitely find it a useful tool to measure android performance.

 

You set up in test flight? PM me I can test on 4S and 5.

- John A

 

Thanks, @JohnnyA! I am using Test Flight. iTunes Connect has been pretty wonky the last few days, so making changes and uploading builds has been a bit of a pain. Plus, I think they're pretty backlogged with reviews now, so that doesn't help.

What I plan on doing is collecting a group of interested people and then inviting them all at once. I also want to make sure I finish integrating Leaderboards and Achievements, since those (along with just Game Center itself) are the things I'm most worried about testing. And then, of course, I need a proper system for tracking all the issues people point out. So it may be another week or two before you see an invite, but it will come.

Another thing I should point out... I've currently been building for iOS 8. There's not really a reason for it, I suppose, as everything I need is available in iOS 7. So it would also be beneficial to know what OS version any interested parties are using.

 

I have a 6 plus, currently ver 8.3.

 

That'll do nicely. Just to be clear, you want in on the testing? Don't want to sign you up if you were just bragging.

I have about a third of the achievement detection logic built in now. Just need to figure out these fangled leaderboards and I'll be ready to push out the next build to Test Flight, at which point I'll invite anyone who has signed up to this point.

 

Yes, I will help. No, not bragging. It's actually quiet unwieldy sometimes. On occasion, I kind of wish I had a smaller one.

 

Those iPhone 6's are massive things, aren't they?

 

I would gladly help, but I'm not an apple guy.
I love the work that you've done to set the ambiance though, very well done.

 

I use andriod now but I have an old 4th gen iPod touch still lying around, since its an older OS what OS does your game support.

Also I love the graphic style, looks very vikingy

 

Thanks for the kind words! I'll keep you informed of the eventual Android release.

Thanks a bunch! I can't take too much credit for the graphics, as a lot of it was done by the talented people at Unity. I'm happy with the board and pieces and how they blend, and of course, the tasteful lighting of the scene.

I've been building for iOS 8.0. Testing on my iPhone 6 and iPad Mini Retina (first retina version). It plays great on the iPhone, and with SSAO and antialiasing turned off, runs fine on the iPad Mini. I'm a bit afraid to try it on anything older, but if you'd like to give it a shot, I'll definitely give you an invite and we can see!

I'm also hoping it's just the fact that it's a debug build, but the app seems huge at ~325MB. No idea where this is all coming from, as the Editor log indicates my assets coming to about 60MB. I was even considering publishing as arm64 only to at least trim it down to half that size, but... we'll see.

Anyway, just submitted version 0.2 to Test Flight. I'll send PMs to those who've expressed interest and get your details. If anyone else wants to join in on the fun, it's not too late!

Edit: @RavenOfCode, for some reason I couldn't send you a PM. PM me the following info if you'd like to participate:
1. AppleID email address
2. What device(s) you'll test on
3. iOS version on your device(s)

Thanks!

 

Only had a moment to test out v0.02. I played in couch mode. Everything ran smoothly. Instructions were clear and not overly verbose, which I particularly like.

The King piece is a little difficult to distinguish on my screen. This is especially true if I pivot the camera angle to be 100% top down where all perspective is lost. Maybe tinting the Kings top a little, like a crown, would help? The overall darkness on my screen made things difficult to see as well.

This might be intentional but I figured I would point it it just in case; game loses track of unconfirmed moves if you navigate away from the game. This occurs either when switching to another app and then back or checking on notifications (swipe down from top of screen).

Is it considered a valid move for a piece to move into a square that would have been a capture condition during the opponents turn? Example, O moves between two X's, O is currently safe.
X
<--- O
X

 

This is a great point. And I love the idea of giving the King a crown. Added to the To Do list. The brightness issue is a bit tougher, since users can adjust brightness themselves. Maybe higher contrast would help, but I don't want things to get washed out or be too harsh if they have their brightness settings up higher.

I considered this, but was scared to mess too much with how I was currently saving game state. I figured as long as it wasn't breaking your turn and you could still move your piece back to where you wanted it, no foul. Did you find it particularly annoying or anything, though?

That is a valid move, and the O piece would be safe. I should indicate that in the rules, though, so it's clear to players that's how the game works.

Thanks so much for the feedback, @SpectralRook!

 

You can disregard my brightness comment. I have been using my phone with the brightness set pretty low for so long that I forgot I had done it. Everything looks great when the phone's brightness is set appropriately.

I wouldn't say it's annoying. I expect most people playing the game will be fine with it. There might be some initial concern that the game reset since the camera realigns and the music restarts. Not sure if it's worth implementing, but a Continue screen where the player needs to acknowledge that they want to pick up where they left off might make the transition easier. I don't expect it will be a big deal though.

Another question continuing along the lines of the previous example. O moved into the safe position, being surrounded by X's on 3 sides. Then on X's turn, an X is moved to completely surround O. Currently O is still safe?
(.'s are place holders so things align.)
.X
XO <--- X
.X

 

I tried to aim for the brightness at the middle setting, but it shouldn't become so dark at a lower setting that it impedes your ability to play, so I bumped up the brightness a bit in-game anyway. I also gave the King a crown.

It's not much, but it helps a bit when viewing from the top. My wife suggested making the top of the piece all gold. Thoughts?

My sister discovered an even worse bug tonight. While playing an invite game, suddenly the match seemed to reset, we switched teams, and our names were marked incorrectly in the info panel! I think her daughter tried to invite me to a game while already in a game with me... But I've got to look into it more.

In the situation you described at the end there, O should be captured. One, because he's flanked on either side, and two, because he's surrounded. I did spot a capture bug tonight in my sister's game, so I'll see if I can recreate the situation you described as well. Any idea on how to recreate it?

Again, I really appreciate your time and feedback.

 

I think the crown is a good improvement. It will help having the gold color distinguishing enough to be clearly the King.

I haven't quite worked out what series of events I took to get into this situation. I've tried recreating this board a few times and was unable to do it. Of course the screen shot comes from the first attempt I made just to test it and now I can't recreate it. I'll try to spend a bit more time tomorrow. I'm wondering if it's a combination of the testing I was doing when navigating away from the app with unsaved moves.

 

This is a really tough thing to isolate. I actually hate the way I'm handling local games when switching in and out of the app. My sister had pointed out that when she was playing a local game and checked a text, she came back and the game was gone. So I threw in a save-on-lose-focus, load-on-focus kind of thing, but it does that camera shift and music jump, as you pointed out.

I think I'm going to change it to work more like online games: the game state will be saved after each turn. If you switch focus on the app and come back in time for it to have not shut down, it'll just pick up where it left off. If it closed, you'll be returned to the main menu, but resuming the saved Couch Play game will take you to where you were, anyway.

 

A handy feature to have would be an undo move option that works all the way to the beginning of the game. Even if it's just for debugging. Though, I imagine someone might like an extension of that feature to include the ability to watch a replay of the game. But just for debugging, something easy might be to store moves in an array and display them like a log.

Another feature players might like is to lock the camera. Sometimes when trying to move a piece the camera shifts because I didn't touch the piece I intended. I imagine this is more problematic on a smaller screen.

And I just did it again but of course I'm not able to recreate it when I do what I think was the exact same moves in a new game. I don't recall having navigated away from the game during this session.

 

Well knowing that you didn't switch away from the game is helpful in itself.

I actually fully planned to have replays/game logs/rewind or something built into the game. The board states are saved as a List, and it should be possible to implement. Being my first game and all, and having things dragged on for as long as they have, I had to cut a lot of features to be able to have any hope of finishing. Also cut was the ability to customize your board and pieces with different styles and materials. I'm not saying I won't ever add those in, but to get the game out the door and get people playing it, I had to focus on the core experience first.

Now the camera lock... That's something I didn't really think much about. I don't think it would be too much effort to add that. Maybe as a little icon down in the lower left?

 

I would think that would be helpful. Maybe something that looks like a pad lock.

I sketched up what I think were the moves from the previous game. But unfortunately haven't been able to duplicate the issue.

 

Great instructions. I played through them and also got a capture. Maddening... haha.

Do you recall if you hit the Cancel button at all before? I know I was having problems with that before, but I believed I had resolved the issue.

I'm also working on adding a debug button for the next build that will show the current board state, such as it is. Just have to figure out how to get all that data represented without clogging the screen.

 

It's possible I had hit cancel but I don't recall. I'll keep at it. I've seen this behavior 4 times now, so it's definitely something I do fairly often.

If you are using UGUI, there is support for scrolling using masks.

 

I'd be willing to try it out as a tester, i have a 5c with iOS 8.1

 

Been busy with other things lately, but I had a chance to figure out what I had done to replicate the capture condition problem. Using the previous example, before step 8 move piece labeled step 6, then revert the move by moving the piece back to its original location, then perform step 8. The issue appears to be specifically related to "canceling" a move without using the cancel button.

Spoiler: Video

 

Dude. That is CRAZY helpful. Great work finding it! And the GIF! Over the top, truly.

I'll dig into this today and get to the root of the issue. You've earned yourself some sort of special recognition for sure.

Thanks again!

 

Glad I could help. I just figured the animated GIF would be less work and clearer to understand than drawing arrows

 

It definitely helped. Found the problem last night, or at least, found a solution to prevent the problem from occurring.

Submitted a new build to Apple this morning.

 

Nice improvements with v0.25. Seems like a much smoother experience when navigating away and back to the app. Even the music continues from where it left off.

Verified that the capture bug is squashed.

I think the crown looks great.

I'm sure it's just me but it almost seems like the game runs a little smoother as well. It seems a little more agile when responding to my selection and dragging for piece movement. Could be that I am just more used to how to move the pieces around than I used to be.

It just occurred to me that there is perceptual "lagginess" or "unresponsiveness" when attempting to position the camera. I determined that it is related to where I place my fingers. If I touch a game piece when it's not its turn to be moved, the camera isn't selected for adjustment. Obviously, if I touch the screen on a piece available for movement the camera can't be selected as well. I don't expect it will be a big deal but some players may experience it and think there is something wrong with the game. Allowing the camera to move when selecting an inactive piece might be more intuitive but I'll defer to you on that and whether it is worth changing. Maybe something as simple as turning off block raycasts on the unavailable pieces?

I did something to cause clipping of the barrel/sword when the camera was tilted down. I could see through to the floor. Of course I can't repeat it after exiting to the menu and continuing the game. No idea how I did it. I believe I had Perspective on at the time. I doubt it's a big deal.

 

Thanks again as always on the feedback,@SpectralRook. You're actually the only person that's even installed the update so far (grrrr, friends and family...).

I get what you're saying about the camera movement. I definitely had issues early on with the camera moving while selecting pieces, so that's why I went with the total lock out if touching a piece. I'm not wholly concerned about throwing people off by having things function the way they currently do, but I've definitely noted your feedback on that and will keep an ear out for others who feel the same. If it seems like it's something people would prefer, I'll certainly get around to implementing it.

There is another bug relating to the camera that I didn't want to point out, because I wanted to see if people would find it on their own. I imagine it may be related to the issue you found. With my amazing and beautiful perspective shifting, it's possible to clip some of the geometry. Again, I don't know how big an issue this will be for people, and the only way I can think of to fix it would really mess with the perspective shift, so... Whether or not it's worth putting the time into is unclear yet.

I'm really getting anxious to release this thing, so once I tick off the last few remaining issues (menu closing when opening another match from in-game, and crazy board flying issues when it's your turn in an online game), I'm going to push it to Apple for review. My hope is that people will appreciate the fact that it's free (did I mention I'm releasing it for free?!) and provide feedback in a kind and understanding manner, and then add new features down the road if the audience size justifies it.

Because I can't say it enough, thanks again for your feedback. You've definitely confirmed some of the additional features I want to add, and I can't imagine how long it would have taken me to stumble on the bug you isolated on my own, as burnt out on it as I am.

 

Ah Ha! It's the double tap while zoomed in that causes clipping. Mystery solved.

Just a tiny thing I noticed, that you can add at the very bottom of your list, if at all. I can see what looks to me to be a subtle shadow of the camera (guessing it is attached to a cube), when in perspective mode and I pivot the camera. Totally nit-picky, I know.

Also, now that you have a crown for the King, you may want to update the game icon.

Glad you're close to release. Huge accomplishment for sure. I'm a fan of the History Channel's Viking show, so it's been nice being able to play this game. Future version feature request is to be able to perform a blood eagle on a captured king. Maybe save that for the animated Battle Chess version.

 

Could you add me to the test flight trial? Justpassin@me.com

 

If you signed up just to ask me that, then yes.

Just a quick update for everyone... I did submit a build to Apple for review on Monday, but yesterday noticed some pretty serious bugs that came about because of the release build. Not sure if it's from the stripping level, or changing the build to "Fast but no exceptions" or what, but it'll take some digging.

I am using this time to re-enable Antialiasing and SSAO via an option in the settings. It will be disabled by default unless I can find a way to only disable it on older devices.

Additionally, I learned the other day that August is National Hnefatafl Month in Norway and I think one or two other Scandinavian countries. Huge missed opportunity for me there, and a good lesson in planning your releases well ahead of time and sticking to your schedules.

 

Well at least you won't be late for next year. Do you have language support for Norwegian or Old Norse?

 

Old Norse! If I do add that, I'm also opening a business providing localization to Old Norse for other games, too, haha.

I'm only planning English for my initial release. But I'll be keeping a careful eye on locations where the app generates the most interest and considering localizing for any that seem worth the investment.

 

Update: Viking Chess! is now available on the App Store. It's totally free and has no ads or IAP. Enjoy!

 

Apple only or Android as well?
By the way, I think it would be perfectly reasonable to put ads in the game. If 100% of the content is available completely free, most people would be okay with that.

 

For my first game, I wanted to focus on a single platform. Along with the fact that the game is heavily integrated with Game Center, the only Android device I'd have available to test on is my wife's phone. I'd like to port it to Android SomeDay™, but wanted to see if there was enough interest in the game at all before spending the time and effort.

Likewise, I did this more as a portfolio piece, and monetization wasn't really something I considered much. I'm sure I could throw ads in there and no one would complain, but I just wanted to focus on making a fun game that people would enjoy. That said, if the game gets a decent number of installs and future updates and features seem worth the time, I may include ads or IAP to offset development costs.

 

Well alright man. I hope people enjoy it. Congrats on finally finishing.