Ghostline Chess Development Log

Official cover artwork added

The public Ghostline Chess presentation now separates promotional key art from the real playable interface.

• Added the official concept/cover artwork featuring the canonical Hallowed Saints vs. The Damned faction naming.
• Moved the cover art into the main project-page hero position as promotional key art.
• Kept the actual Windows gameplay screenshot in a dedicated Current Development Build section so visitors can clearly distinguish concept art from the live interface.
• Updated the Haunted Echoes Studios playable-release card to show both the official cover artwork and the current build screenshot.
• Updated social-preview metadata to use the new cover artwork.

Status: website art direction now matches the current Ghostline Chess identity while preserving an accurate view of the playable build.

Difficulty selection and visual-readability refresh

The current development build received a focused usability and presentation pass without changing the core chess rules.

• Added three AI difficulty levels: Easy, Normal, and Hard.
• Preserved the stronger tactical behavior as the high-difficulty option while adding more approachable play.
• Replaced small legal-move target markers with full-square destination highlighting.
• Added a separate full-square capture treatment so tactical choices are easier to scan.
• Added three horror board themes: Oxblood Chapel, Crypt, and Moonlit Graveyard.
• Reorganized the desktop interface into a clear board-and-status area with the Tome, Graveyard, FEN, AI, board-theme, and audio controls grouped on the right.
• Completed spacing, status-text, selector, and audio-control polish after playtesting the refreshed layout.
• Updated the public Ghostline Chess page with the current interface screenshot and feature summary.

Status: visual refresh complete and building cleanly; the published v1.2.0 prerelease remains available while the refreshed development build continues through release packaging.

Tactical AI release and website presentation refresh

• Two-ply minimax with alpha-beta pruning, capture ordering, and material-aware evaluation
• Check, checkmate, and positional-development scoring
• Responsive background AI calculation
• Current Hallowed Saints and Damned Souls artwork
• Complete rules, FEN tools, Tome, Graveyards, and layered audio
• New social-sharing and website cards, current screenshot, download links, and release notes
• Self-contained Windows x64 package

Faction artwork and source structure

The Hallowed Saints and Damned Souls replaced earlier placeholder courts. Sprite loading, theme integration, Chronicle hooks, project files, and documentation were updated together.

Audio milestone

• Continuous gothic suite
• Randomized environmental creaks
• Twenty-four piece and faction move/capture cues
• NAudio mixing and deferred startup

Rules engine completion

• Castling, en passant, and promotion choices
• Check, checkmate, stalemate, repetition, fifty-move, and insufficient-material detection
• FEN import/export and counters
• Ghostline Tome and Graveyards
• Crimson check warning and gothic visual system

First playable Windows release

The first public build established an 8×8 board, legal piece movement, captures, blocked-path validation, king safety, check, checkmate, stalemate, and local two-player matches.