Patch 1.1 and the start of Season 01

Royal’s Gambit — Patch 1.1 Notes

Patch 1.1 brings new ways to play, new threats to face, and a much smoother card-playing experience. This update adds brand-new Royal variants, global leaderboards, animated backgrounds, and drag-and-drop card play.

Seasonal Content Will Stay

When Season 1 ends, the content will stay in the game.

That’s right: we intend to leave seasonal content available after a season ends instead of removing ways to play that our players may enjoy. Don’t like the seasonal content? No problem. Seasonal content can be turned off, allowing you to continue playing the original Royal’s Gambit experience.

New Royal Variants

Five new Royal variants have been added, each bringing a new twist to the battlefield.

Fire Royals

Burning with aggression, Fire Royals add extra intensity to each stage. When players attack a burning Royal, one card in their hand will be randomly selected and set on fire. Each move you make afterward will reduce the damage value of the burning card until it eventually burns up and is destroyed.

Beware: if a card in your hand burns out completely, it will set adjacent cards on fire.

Lightning Royals

Fast, volatile, and dangerous, Lightning Royals bring an electrifying new presence to the board. Once a Lightning Royal has been attacked, it will stun all cards in the player’s hand that match the same suit as the Lightning Royal for one turn.

Plagued Royals

Corrupted and unsettling, Plagued Royals introduce a darker style to your run. Every second that a Plagued Royal is revealed, it will become worth fewer points. Once its point value reaches zero, it will vanish and spread the plague to all adjacent Royals revealed by its removal.

Can you stop the spread before it wipes the board?

Frozen Royals

Cold and unrelenting, Frozen Royals bring an icy new challenge to the kingdom. Whenever a Frozen Royal is overkilled, it will freeze a random card for the same value as the extra damage dealt to the Frozen Royal.

Shield Royals

Defensive and imposing, Shield Royals stand firm against your assault. To break through a Shield Royal’s protection, any card matching its suit can remove the shield. Be sure you are ready to remove the Shield Royal on your next attack, though — if it survives, the shield will return.

These new variants add more visual variety and personality to your runs while making each encounter feel more distinct. As you progress through a chapter, the chance that these new Royals will appear increases.

Global Leaderboards Added & Score Rebalance

Global leaderboards are now available.

Players can now compete for the highest scores across supported game modes and chapters. Climb the ranks, chase the top score, and see how your best runs compare against other players around the world. You can even filter the leaderboards to display only your Steam friends.

Score Rebalance

Sadly, with global leaderboards also comes a score nerf.

No longer will you see those multi-million point scores… for the time being, at least.

We realized that our previous scoring system limited what we would be able to add to the game in the future, especially when it comes to new reward cards. The game and leaderboards have a limit on how high scores can go, so we decided that the start of a new season was the right time to rip off the band-aid.

Don’t worry: as new rewards are added in the future, those massive scores may become attainable again.

New Animated Backgrounds

Royal’s Gambit now features new animated backgrounds, giving stages more life, movement, and atmosphere.

These backgrounds help each run feel more dynamic while adding extra polish to the overall presentation.

Drag-and-Drop Card Play

Cards can now be dragged and dropped directly onto Royals to play them.

We pay attention to our players and how they play. Many times, we saw first-time players attempt to drag and drop cards naturally. If something feels like a good fit for the game, we want to work toward adding it.

This makes card play faster, smoother, and more natural, especially for mouse and touch-style input. Select your cards, drag them into position, and strike down the Royals with improved control. You can even drag and drop with multiple cards selected.

Additional Improvements

Patch 1.1 also includes general polish and presentation improvements throughout the game, helping Royal’s Gambit feel better to play and more exciting to watch.

Thank you for playing Royal’s Gambit and supporting our little kingdom of cards, chaos, and combo resets.

Good luck climbing the leaderboards when Patch 1.1 releases in the near future!