News
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👁 Keep watching!
You now have the option to watch the rest of the game play out after your (unlikely and undoubtedly unfair) defeat!
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📊 Survey results!
Big thanks everyone who participated in the mini survey last week! It got over 300 responses, which is amazing! Let’s see the results!
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📝 Roadmap update
It’s been a while since the last proper blog post, so let’s take a minute to look back as well as forward! There’s also a poll attached, so let me know what you’d like to see next in the game!
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💀 Welcome to The Dead Islands!
The ultimate holiday destination! Most visitors stay forever!
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👩 Meet Rosaline!
In this week’s new level, free the rare kind of hero which doesn’t require the budget of a medium-sized kingdom in payment! Also, zombies now build ladders. Yep, you read that right.
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🏝️ Heed the call of distant shores!
“King’s Landing” mode added to Conquest! Chose your landing spot wisely!
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⚓ Land Ahoy!
The 100th campaign level was just added, so it’s time to celebrate with something a little special! Look for it in the new level (#35)!
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🧟 More zombies!
It’s not just this week’s campaign level that got infected with zombies, you can also find them as a new mode in Conquest!
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Tightening the screws
Enjoy some minor performance fixes and UX improvements while I keep working on the new UI. There’s also a new option to cycle starting locations in conquest mode!
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🎨 Show your true colors!
Ocean color customization is now in the game! You can cycle through a bunch of color presets in the settings sidebar. Also, forgetting to save replays? Now the replay of your latest game will be available from the title screen!
Continue reading for a small update on the UI overhaul work.
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🌊 The thousand colors of the ocean
With the upcoming user interface overhaul, the base ocean color will become customizable! You can already try this out in this experimental branch. Coming to the main game soon!
Also, continue reading for a sneak peek at my work on the new menu UI!
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⛵ Setting sail
You may have noticed some more minor UI improvements lately, including the new “C” hotkey to build a castle. But now I’m going for a big one: Total overhaul of the level select UI! continue reading for a bit more info about that.
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🍇 Picking the low hanging fruit
This weekend I’ve been taking care of a bunch of little fixes and improvements before I dig into the next big feature, too many to list here! Continue here to read about them!
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⤺ Undo like there's no tomorrow!
More performance improvements landed over the weekend. The most noticeable one is that the undo action now works much faster! Also, you can now press and hold the undo button to undo all moves.
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🎨 Graphics and performance improvements
- All assets and fonts are now properly upscaled for 2x zoom, no more blurry mess!
- You might feel a slight performance improvement thanks to rendering logic overhaul, although there’s still more to be done on that front.
- I’m taking a break from development for the next week or two, you can read more about that and my future plans here.
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What a month!
So today marks the end of the roughly month and a half long period of what was essentially me roleplaying as a full-time indie game developer!
I found myself with free time in between two jobs and decided to try what happens when I can really focus on Konkr for weeks at a time. And I have to say after letting the game more or less consume my life for the past month, I feel… Actually quite energized and excited to continue!
With an update released almost daily, the changelog for the past month is quite a read! But the main milestones can be summarized as:
- greatly expanded gameplay statistics collection, error reporting and analysis tools
- fixed a ton of long standing bugs thanks to the above
- pretty much rewrote the AI diplomacy layer and added the AI chatter system
- created new tutorial levels, and added alternate AI difficulty mode
- bunch of polish, UI and performance improvements
I’ve also started working towards the UI and content overhaul I’ve been hinting at since january, but that will still take a lot of work.
The player base has been slowly but steadily growing in 2023, with a huge bump in the last week thanks to a promotion by the awesome folks at kongregate. At the moment, konkr is bringing fun (and frustration!) to around 1500 players every day and there’s around 3000 players that returns to the game at least once per week. This is very encouraging to see, especially since I still feel like I’m only scratching the surface of how awesome I can make this game!
What’s next?
First of all, I’m taking a break for a week or two to focus on my new job and life outside of game development. So if you got used to the almost daily updates on discord, don’t be alarmed by the sudden lull in activity. I’ll be back with steady progress soon enough, even if not at quite the pace you could see this month.
The main focus in the coming months will be on the plan that I already outlined back in January in the 2023 roadmap, with the major highlights being:
- new multi-campaign structure with overworld map
- better replacement for conquest mode (with no more unwinnable maps and more sense of progresion)
- map editor and map sharing
I think these three things together can really lift the game to a whole another level, but they are also all pretty significant undertakings, so my best guestimate still stands at “hopefully by the end of 2023”!
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📚 Get better help!
I’ve been rewriting and expanding the help sidebar content over the past few days! Click How to play or hit that ? button in the top right corner to check it out. Even Konkr veterans might learn something new in the Advanced topics section! And don’t hesitate to let me know if you still find something confusing or missing!
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😲 You were playing on hard mode all along!
Now you can choose from two difficulty levels in the campaign! Hard mode is the same old evil Konkr AI you know and love to hate, while the new Normal mode makes your rivals quite a bit less ruthless and backstabby. You will also find some brand new tutorial levels at the start of the campaign!
Continue reading here for more details including how this applies to Conquest mode.
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🖱 Saved you a click!
Some convenient (hopefully!) user interface upgrades just landed! View province income and expenses in detail or trigger rewind with one click (or just use the new
Rhotkey). More details in the changelog! -
Surprise AI update, volume 2!
I took a moment to address some lingering issues with the tactical AI and looks like it worked pretty well! There should be a noticeable decrease in those occasional facepalm-inducingly stupid moves by the rivals!
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🎨 Let's pimp up the AI chatter together!
Can you think of a real zinger of quote you wish the AI would use? Spotted a grammar error? Or are you just curious how the AI chatter generation works? The new Guide for customizing the AI chatter is here for you!
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📝 Thoughts on the AI diplomacy update?
A tiny feedback survey about the recent AI changes is up! Click here to have your voice heard!
Not sure what changes I mean? Here’s the announcement from earlier this week.
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😲 Surprise AI update!
So this weekend I’ve been looking at introducing difficulty levels and well, one thing led to another and I ended up rewriting the diplomacy/politics layer of the AI almost from scratch 🤣. LEARN MORE!
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✨ Gearing Up for Greatness!
Curious what’s coming up next? Read the new dev log for a juicy peek around the next corner!
And as always, let me know what you think!
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Gearing up for greatness!
Some of you may have already guessed that a big part of what makes developing Konkr fun for me is taking it way too seriously for what it is. I guess it’s a bit of an indulgence project for the perfectionist side of me, the side that suffers a bit in my day job as a software developer (where compromises and good enough solutions are the daily bread and butter).
So today I’m here to share some new and exciting ways in which I’ve been obsessing over the game!
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📼 Putting the win into rewind!
The “Rewind” superpower is now a super-superpower! For the meager cost of one life, you can now go back not just to the previous turn but as far back as you’d like. Use your newfound powers responsibly!
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🏆 Relive your most glorious victories!
The victory screen now lets you review the replay of the whole match! You can even save it to a file for future enjoyment or sharing with others.
Continue reading here for more details!
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🔁 Let's watch it again!
Not quite sure what the heck just happened to your kingdom? You can now view replay of the enemy turn! Look for the new option next to the rewind button and stay tuned for more replay-related features!
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✊ Claim Victory!
Rivals will now offer to surrender to you when they become hopelessly outmatched. If you’d rather not witness their pathetic groveling, you can turn this feature off in the settings menu 😉.
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🚫🐢 Anti-turtling update!
One more tweak to AI behavior is here! The rivals got greedier and more motivated to actually try and make something happen when they are losing. I think I finally found the right balance between risk taking and defense, but let me know what you think!
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⛷ AI performance improved!
You should notice the rivals are playing quite a bit faster now!
Continue reading for a quick look at the roadmap poll results.
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🚀 2023 Roadmap!
Hey everyone, I think it’s about time for a new update on where Konkr is heading next! Get comfortable and
get ready to get excited, this will be a big post! continue reading -
🔥 The AI update is out of the oven!
…along with rebalanced campaign and a number of new levels!
You should suddenly find the AI rivals to be much more cunning, diligent, but also less unhinged and hopefully more fun to play against. Let me know what you think! (survey link).
I will continue to tweak the AI in the coming weeks (there’s still some known issues), but I’m also eager to move on to new exciting features, more info on those plans shortly!
Beware: Due to changes in level generation, old conquest map links are unfortunately not compatible with this version of the game. If you want to replay some old favourite maps, you can still play them on the older version of the game over here.
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New year, same old news
Happy new year everyone! I hope Konkr will keep bringing you joy in 2023! At the moment I’m still hard at work on finishing the major AI update which you can test over here (for more detailed news on that check Discord). I’d like to incorporate it into the game ASAP! More regular content updates in the main game will resume once I manage to do that.
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🎅 Merry Christmas!
Thank you for your support and continued feedback, you make making this game worth it! ❤️
You may notice the game got some cute little wholesome additions for the holiday season. Rest assured this is strictly temporary!
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👁️ I see you!
The AI rivals in the test branch are now much better at noticing when you’re actively leaving them alone and appreciate you for the benevolent neighbour you are (or at least feel slightly more guilty while invading 😉).
- There’s also a Short feedback survey about the AI changes, have your say!
- You can now also read about the different AI personality presets over here.
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About the AI personality presets
Currently, you can find four AI personality presets in the customization console in the test branch. These represent a few different answers to the crucial question: How should the AI rivals behave in order to be fun to play against?
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Looking for your feedback!
I’m finally quite happy with the current state of the new AI!
GO MESS WITH IT HERE and let me know what you think! A more structured feedback survey will be coming up shortly.
It’s also where you find the new levels for this week 😉.
Coming up next in the AI update branch:
- overhaul of the diplomacy layer (how your actions affect relations with other players)
- looking into ways to scale back the difficulty so that players looking for more relaxed gameplay aren’t totally left behind 🙂
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AI beta test guide
Here are some tips for messing with the new AI available at www.konkr.io/releases/dev/test-ai-update/:
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Getting there!
The new AI in the test branch has become a lot more consistent over this weekend and just learned to properly defend multi-town provinces, but it still needs a bit more time in the oven before it really works the way I’d like it to. Stay tuned!
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I may have created a monster...
You can now play against the in-development version of the new AI over here! It still has a few major blindspots at the moment and may act a bit drunk, but I’m already having a blast playing against it, so might as well share!
It may play a bit too well in some aspects, don’t expect all campaign levels to be beatable in the test branch! Do expect a proper beta test by next week, when I’m done fitting the few remaining pieces and ironing out a bunch of bugs.
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AI update progress
As it often happens when I start digging in the AI code, the scope of the update grew a lot larger than I originally expected, with major changes in three of the AI pillars (attack planning, high level strategy and diplomacy). But at this point it’s starting to all come together pretty nicely! Aiming for public beta next week if everything goes smoothly. For another small sneak peak at the progress continue here.
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AI Playstyles
No exciting changes this week, so instead I’ll share a peek into the ongoing work on the next AI update. Continue reading if that sounds interesting to you!
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What do bandits and zombies have in common?
Neither can now move over walls! This gives you a bit more power to manipulate bandit movement. Some subtle UX improvements were added too, for example you can now shift-click to quickly place multiple units!
For other news see changelog and if you miss the zombies already, the infected version of the game is quarantined over here.
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What the 🎃
Terribly sorry around this, but the latest release seems to be infected with some kind of conveniently thematic mutation. Hopefully I’ll manage to clean it up by next week!
In the meantime, if you don’t want to deal with this, an untainted version of the game is still available over here.
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🔪 "It's not you, it's me!"
In this week’s update “allies” are still as likely as ever to backstab you at the worst possible moment, but at least they should no longer keep smiling at you afterwards!
A few other small improvements are detailed in the changelog, while I work on a larger rewrite of the AI decision-making and diplomacy layer.
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The game has changed!
A major upgrade of AI defense capabilities is now released! You should find your rivals to be less recklessly aggressive, but also not quite as easy to outmaneuver anymore! Many campaign levels got slightly updated and moved around to match their new difficulty level, sorry for any confusion that might cause!
Now I feel the main remaining weak point of the AI is attack planning, that will be my next focus!
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🤖 "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that."
The AI is getting feisty! You can test a beta version of a major AI overhaul at www.konkr.io/releases/dev/test-ai-defense. I’m very much looking for feedback, so give it a go! It’s where you can also find this weeks new levels (they will arrive into the main game later, together with the update).
Continue reading here for more details!
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AI tuning continues...
I just restored some teeth to the AI, it was becoming a bit too eager to leave you alone and focus on defense in some cases 😈.
I’m working on a big upgrade of the AI tactics when it comes to defending choke points and large provinces. Expect more news on that soon!
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Rivals now 35% more satisfying to crush!
Your rivals just became a fair bit more expressive! Watch them react to your actions! Be it with love, awe or despair 🙂.
Some tweaks to the AI behavior have landed as well. You should see a bit less suicidal aggression from the AI and fewer facepalm-inducingly stupid moves. If you’d like to know more about the changes and what’s coming next, continue reading here.
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Say goodbye to "Unknown Island"!
Conquest maps now get unique names! You can bring back your favourite islands or share them with friends by entering the name, or even more conveniently…
…look for the brand new “link” button!Your links to fun maps are also welcome in the new
#map-sharing channel on discord! -
☁ Play from anywhere!
The cloud sync update is live! If you’d like your campaign progress safely backed up and shared between your phone and PC, just click the little ⚙ cogwheel icon in the top right corner and choose your preferred sign-in option!
You might also notice some additional UI changes, you can read about those here.
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New levels!
This week’s new levels landed at numbers 8, 13 and 26, have fun!
My focus remains on the cloud sync update, which is nearly ready now. Should be landing later this week! 🤞
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Survey results 📊
Hey everyone, this weeks new levels can be found at numbers 5, 17 and 18! Other levels got moved around and one got removed. Sorry for the constantly changing level numbers! I’ll try to move to a better system soon.
If you’d like to know about a subtle rule change to bandit behavior and the player survey results, continue reading over here!
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🧭 New levels every week!
Hey everyone, I would hate to keep you starved for content while I’m working on the bigger improvements. So starting today, I’ll be adding 3 new handcrafted levels to the campaign every week!
Today’s batch includes new levels 8,9 and 10 as well as rebalancing of some existing ones. There’s also a bunch of bugfixes and little improvements, more in the changelog.
Also the player survey is still open, big thanks to everyone who gave their feedback so far!
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📋 What do YOU want to see next?
Help me decide by taking this short survey!
Slowly but steadily there’s more and more of you awesome folks playing my game, so I’d love to learn more about what kind of improvements you’d appreciate the most 🙂.
Also if you’d like to know more about my own thoughts around the future of Konkr, continue reading over here!
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What's next?
Hi everyone, so ever since v2 was released about a month ago, I’ve been trying to collect as much feedback as I could.
And it’s been kind of amazing.
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New campaign levels!
The main campaign was just expanded to 20 levels, check them out! There are 9 new ones, some old ones were shifted around, others tweaked and the utterly evil last level was removed for now.
Big thank you to everyone that has been sending me feedback on the levels, it really helps. ❤️
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Play on your phone!
Konkr is now touchscreen-friendly! Visit konkr.io on your phone to try it out. As always,
let me know if you run into any issues.For the next update I will be most likely focusing on content, so expect new and rebalanced campaign levels soon!
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New website!
A shiny new version of Konkr calls for a shiny new website, so I took some time to update the web.
It includes a standalone version of the in-game How to Play guide and a new About page.
You can now also keep a closer eye on any changes to the game by following the Changelog.
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Welcome to Konkr v2!
I hope you’ll enjoy it!
If you have any feedback, don’t hesitate to email me or
join the Konkr.io discord server.And just in case you want none of this new fanciness, you can still play the old konkr here 😉.