Dev Log — Knight's Quest

The Knight's Oath Pinned

Five promises, pinned above every update that follows them.

This is a hobby project to provide a good browser game, without BS level of monetization - Knight's Quest doesn't run on aggressive monetization, and never will.
Is this project a little bit vibe-coded? No. It's utterly, completely vibe-coded, nearly top to bottom, but systems and story is fully human planned and made.
On the other hand the story line is planned out in advance and hand-built.
There are no gems, rubies, energy bars, or any other made-up currency here, and there won't be.
A premium tier may come at some time and offer some real perks — but it will be just one thing to buy.
No microtransactions, the premium will be the only thing that can be bought.
That premium tier — Highborn — already exists today, but it isn't for sale. Right now it's handed out by hand, to players who report real bugs, make content about the game, or are generally a help to the project.
This whole game runs on a single laptop right now — my laptop. Be kind to it.

v2.4 — “Rank and Reckoning”

2026-10-25

The Tournament Grounds open their gates, pitting knight against knight for a place on the ladder, and the road to every new level now asks for more than a string of victories. Coin and time both run a little dearer than they used to.

The Tournament Grounds have opened in the City — every knight now holds a place on a single ladder, and you can challenge anyone within five ranks of your own; topple someone ranked above you and their place becomes yours, while a bout against someone below is a friendly spar that never costs either of you a thing
Losing a tournament bout never costs you rank, so there's no shame in testing yourself against a stronger knight — just a short rest before you can step into the lists again
The Sword Register now keeps two records side by side: the familiar level leaderboard, and the full Tournament Grounds ladder showing exactly where every knight stands
Each level-up trial now asks you to prove yourself in more than battle — depending on the level, you may need to fill out your equipment, lean on your potions, earn a purse of gold, scrap worn-out gear, visit the Infirmary, or win in the Tournament Grounds, and the Level Up tab tracks every one of these as you go
A new Rewards Roadmap on the Level Up tab lays out every trial ahead of you and what each one grants
Gold now comes from finishing a mission rather than from every foe you cut down along the way, and mission rewards climb more gently from one level to the next
The Infirmary's healers now ask 50 gold for their care, and a full recovery takes them a little longer
Journeys take longer to walk, the rest after a mission stretches out further, and a fallen knight must wait longer before retrying a level-up trial's fight — every choice to set out now carries a little more weight
After a fight in a level-up trial, the result now stays on screen until you choose to continue, rather than whisking you onward before you've had a chance to read it
The Enchantment Circle, The Sword Register, and the Tournament Grounds each have their own new icon in the sidebar

v2.3 — “The Circle Opens Wider”

2026-10-20

The Enchantment Circle's reach now stretches across every piece of gear a knight carries, several of them hiding strange new workings of their own, and the rare reagent that feeds it all can finally be found out in the world. A quieter fix also means the road home from a mission now tells you exactly how much longer you'll be resting.

The Enchantment Circle's reach has grown far beyond the blade — body armor, helmets, shields, leg armor, and boots can all now emerge from a working bearing a bonus of their own, the same Strength, Dexterity, Defence, Etiquette, Charisma, and Perception bumps the sword already could carry, plus a brand new one: Intelligence
Body armor and helmets can each roll something rarer than a simple stat bump, too — Warded Heart and its helmet counterpart Unshaken Will mend you steadily round after round through a whole fight, Leaden Ward blunts every blow that lands, Honed Form sharpens muscle, footwork, and stamina together in one body-armor working, and Sharpened Mind does the same for reasoning, read, bearing, and eye all at once on a helmet
Shields have four workings of their own now: Bulwark Plate softens every hit that gets through, Spiked Face has a chance to send a blow right back at whoever swung it, Riposte Stance can stun an enemy the instant their attack goes wide, and Guard Breaker can leave a missed attacker permanently off-balance for the rest of the fight
Leg armor and boots share a full roster of their own, including Grounded Stance for a flat boost to your maximum HP, Sure Footing for a steadier hand at absolutely any skill check, and Mending Gait for round-by-round healing in a fight — and boots alone can also turn up Tireless Stride, which heals you a little more with every step of a mission's journey
The blade itself grows darker options too: Venomous Edge, Weakening Curse, and Hexbound Edge can all take hold the instant a strike lands, and Doomsayer's Edge can let something worse than steel through before either side has even swung — while Rallying Banner, found on any slot, can spark a sudden surge of fighting spirit the moment a fight begins
Energy-Dense Cantharellus, the reagent the Enchantment Circle asks for, can finally be found out in the world — knights Level 6 and above have a rare chance, during an ordinary mission, to spot a trace of it if their eye is sharp enough
Resting after a mission no longer leaves you guessing — the Missions page now counts down exactly how long until you can set out again

v2.2 — “Tempered and Enchanted”

2026-10-18

The Enchantment Circle has finally found its true purpose, knights grow hardier with every level and every point of Vitality instead of stopping short, and the realm's smiths feel the weight of a war being fought somewhere else.

The Enchantment Circle has found its true purpose at last — bring it an arcane reagent and a piece of gear, and it will enchant that item with one of several effects, chosen for you and landing at a random strength (Faint, Solid, or the rare Potent) you won't learn until the working is finished
Eight different enchantments exist to be found this way: Etiquette Attunement works on any piece of equipment, while seven more are bound to the blade alone — Keen Edge, Swift Grip, Guarded Hilt, Hunter's Eye, Diplomat's Edge, Flourished Hilt, and the fiercest of them, Savage Edge, which adds a second, savage blow to every strike you land
An enchanted item's name and the bonus it carries now show up in their own color wherever they're listed — blue for a Faint working, yellow for Solid, gold for Potent — set apart from the plain white of the ordinary item underneath
Max HP finally grows the way it always should have: every level you reach and every point of Vitality you raise now measurably toughens you, instead of your health ceiling staying fixed at the same number forever
The Weaponsmith and Armorsmith have stopped taking on new custom work — there's a war on, and everything they forge goes to the army now — but they'll still pay fair value to buy sound gear off your hands, or scrap anything for parts, enchanted items included
A handful of forest threats and a few of the level-up trials' bosses were retuned to stay a fair fight now that every knight carries more HP into battle

v2.1 — “Steel and Shadow”

2026-10-16

Level 3's trial brings a new story climax, a new leaderboard and direct messages let you measure yourself against other knights, and the armory grows deeper than ever — new shields, blades, and a leg armor slot waking up for the first time.

Level 3's trial, Source of Danger, has arrived — another hand-written story mission, ending in a boss fight and a permanent attribute boon for those who make it through
A new City tab, The Sword Register, ranks every knight by level — your own row is highlighted, and clicking any other name opens their character sheet
Knights can now message each other directly: send a message from anyone's profile, and the envelope icon in your status bar tracks what's waiting for you to read
The forest's enchantment circle has its own standing page now, reachable any time from the sidebar, with new detail to discover once you've encountered it in person
The armory grows again across nearly every slot: leg armor gets its first gear ever (Torn Padded Cuisses, Padded Cuisses, and a kneecup-reinforced tier above it), two new wooden shields (Wooden Shield, and a Glowing Shield whose faintly luminous sigil sharpens your Perception) topped by a solid steel Kite Shield, a chainmail-wrapped Chained Cap, and new blades (Longsword, Well Made Longsword) alongside the Well Made Sword already on the rack
Three new consumables: an Acid Flask (and its stronger Potent Acid Flask) sharpens your blade before a fight, a Rejuvenation Potion mends you steadily round by round through the whole battle instead of all at once, and a Grenade opens a fight with a guaranteed burst of damage before either side has swung once
The Character page's Level Up tab no longer shows leftover requirements from an earlier level — only what you actually still need to reach the next one shows up
A few more forest threats at the next difficulty tier up — Stray Dogs, Deserter, Crossbow Poacher, and Agitated Boar — were retuned for fairer fights

v2.0 — “A Knight's Trial”

2026-10-11

Level 2's trial finally has real teeth — a signature boss waits at its heart, and falling to it no longer throws you straight back into danger. A wave of new artwork and fairer early fights rounds out this milestone update.

Level 2's trial, Hostage Rescue, now ends with a real boss fight — tuned to hit harder than any lone forest threat at your level, without being as punishing as what waits one level up
Falling in a level-up trial fight no longer drops you straight back into the same danger — a Retry Cooldown (15 minutes for Commonfolk, 10 for Highborn) gives you real time to heal at the Infirmary and restock at the Brewmaster first, and a Resume Trial button means you step back in only when you're ready, not the moment the clock happens to run out
Your backpack works mid-fight in a level-up trial now too — potions and tonics can be used exactly the way they already could in a regular mission
Level-up missions now carry a Storyline badge alongside their Level Up tag, marking them as hand-written chapters of the wider tale rather than another random job off the board
Combat screens read the same way everywhere now, for you and for whatever you're fighting: HP, Defence Rating, Attack Modifier, then Damage, top to bottom
Hover a stat on the Character page that's been raised by a trial's Lv Up Boon, and the tooltip now shows exactly how much of it came from where
Failing a roll — in combat or a skill check — is now plainly labeled a Failure, replacing the old "Setback" wording
A wave of new artwork: every piece of equipment that was still missing its own picture now has one, drawn to match its exact name and era, and Hostage Rescue's last blank frames are filled in too
A handful of early forest threats — Stray Dog, Forest Bandit, Hungry Wolf, Young Agitated Boar, Wolf, Poacher, Sick Deserter, and the Starving Stray Dogs — were rebalanced for quicker, fairer exchanges instead of drawn-out wars of attrition
Enemy Test's filters can now narrow the roster down to Bosses only, Normal enemies only, or everything at once

v1.11 — “A Sharper Eye”

2026-10-08

A new Perception attribute sharpens your eye for danger, four fresh forest encounters (including the first with a real follow-up choice) put it to the test, the bestiary swells with new beasts, and a Contact page makes it easy to reach out directly.

A new attribute joins your sheet: Perception, sharpening your eye for traps, hidden details, and danger along the road — it shows up on the Character page's Attributes list alongside the rest
Four new forest encounters: a Wounded Traveler by the roadside who may or may not be what he seems, an abandoned Hunting Camp worth searching if you dare, a Wild Beehive that bursts open without warning, and a Snapped Snare hidden in the undergrowth — the first encounter in the game with a real follow-up choice: spot it in time and you get to decide whether to step carefully around it or try disarming it outright, each with its own odds
Every skill check's wounds are now rolled fresh from dice instead of a flat number — the same swingy randomness as a real sword hit, never a guaranteed amount
Missions quietly grow harder as their own level climbs — skill checks along the way get tougher to pass, and a failed one hits harder, the further into danger you go
Walking away from the Wounded Traveler without helping him leaves you shaken — you'll hesitate and miss your first strike in your very next fight
Packs made of different creatures — like a mix of boars young and old — now fight with each creature swinging on its own, rather than one shared stat block standing in for all of them
The forest bestiary grows considerably: new Wolves, Boars, Deserters, and Poachers fill out every difficulty tier from a single weakened animal up to a full pack, each with its own portrait
Two new missions join the roster: Deserter Patrol and Messenger Escort, both set in the forest
New Contact page, reachable from the sidebar — send a Bug Report, Suggestion, Question, Cooperation Request, or anything else straight to the developer, with an optional email address if you'd like a reply

v1.10 — “The Road to Knighthood”

2026-10-02

Level-up trials are here, with a hand-written story and real stakes, a Settings page lets you change your password, and a wave of new art and balance tweaks rounds things out.

Level-up missions have arrived: reaching Level 2's requirements now unlocks Hostage Rescue, a hand-crafted trial with its own story beat before the fighting starts. Falling in battle doesn't end the attempt — you simply pick the same step back up once you've healed — and a Discard Mission option lets you walk away and try again later
The Character page gained a Level Up tab, showing your progress toward the next level and a preview of what it unlocks
New Settings page (and sidebar tile) with the first option: change your password
The Brewmaster now only stocks consumables up to your own level, instead of showing everything in the shop at once
New consumable: Diamond-Skin Concoction (Level 11) — the strongest Defence Rating tonic yet
A new, weaker pack of Starving Stray Dogs joins the forest bestiary, and the rest of the dog and bandit encounters each grew one difficulty tier tougher
New artwork throughout: the Brewmaster, Storage, Weaponsmith, and Armorsmith all have their own banners now, Lesser Health Potion and every Leather Shoes tier have their own icons, and the Scale-Skin, Stone-Skin, and Diamond-Skin Concoctions are no longer generic placeholders
The Home page is tidier, with the old title and lore text cleared away in favor of the news feed, and the site now shows a proper icon in the browser tab

v1.9 — “A Fresh Coat of Paint”

2026-09-27

A new banner greets you on every page, missions are starting to get their own art, and the sidebar is trading its emoji for hand-drawn icons one at a time.

New banner image across the top of every page, with the HP/Gold/Level status bar layered above it so it stays put as the banner scrolls by underneath
Mission art now lives in its own folder — Hunting Noble finally has a portrait, and any mission without art yet shows a placeholder instead of nothing
The Level 2 level-up mission, Hostage Rescue, has its own portrait on its card too
The sidebar is getting a proper icon set — Home, Login, Register, Dev Log, Infirmary, Brewmaster, Storage, Weaponsmith, Armorsmith, and Missions all have custom art now instead of emoji, with the tiles switched to a black background to match

v1.8 — “A Deeper Armory”

2026-09-25

Gear now covers every slot from levels 1 to 7, boots and armor can sharpen your Strength and Dexterity as well as your social graces, a bolt out of the treeline can catch you off guard, and everything without art yet finally has a picture instead of a blank space.

Strength and Dexterity join Etiquette and Charisma as attributes your gear can raise or lower — the bonus shows up everywhere it matters: Attack Modifier, damage, Defence Rating, and any skill check that rolls against that attribute
New encounter: Sneaky Ambush. A crossbow bolt whistles out of the treeline with no warning — dodge it (Dexterity) or take 3d8 damage
Ambush Barricade and Sneaky Ambush can no longer just be walked away from — both demand you actually respond
The armory grew across nearly every slot: new headwear (Tarnished Arming Cap, Arming Cap), new body armor (Ornate Gambeson, Lavish Gambeson), and four new pairs of boots spanning levels 2 through 7 (Worn Simple, Simple, Sturdy, and Well-made Leather Shoes), several of them the first gear to touch Strength or Dexterity
Two new potion tiers — a stronger Health Potion and a stronger Stone-Skin Concoction — with the original Health Potion renamed to Lesser Health Potion to make room at the top
Every item without its own art yet now shows a placeholder specific to its kind (weapon, consumable, or armor — with Head and Legs each getting their own) instead of falling back to a blank space

v1.7 — “Merchants, a New Ambush & a Knight's Vitals”

2026-09-25

The City grew a Weaponsmith and Armorsmith, the Brewmaster now buys as well as sells, a new forest ambush can turn into a real fight, and a status bar keeps your HP, Gold, and Level in view everywhere you go.

New status bar pinned to the top of every page, showing HP, Gold, and Level at a glance — the redundant stat readouts on the Infirmary, Brewmaster, Weaponsmith, and Armorsmith pages were removed now that it's always visible
Every item now has a gold value: it sells for half that and costs double at a vendor
The Brewmaster now buys as well as sells — a Buy/Sell toggle, with Sell and Sell All on anything you're carrying
Two new City stalls: Weaponsmith and Armorsmith. Neither is selling to knights just yet ("more noble clients" for now), but both will buy worn weapons or armor in their domain for scrap — a quarter of its value
New consumable: Scale-Skin Concoction (Level 2) — drink it and your Defence Rating is up 1 for your next fight, in a mission or at the Enemy Test
New encounter: Ambush Barricade. A felled-log roadblock with no bandits in sight — force it aside (Strength) or rally the caravan crew to help (Charisma). Succeed and the road clears; fail and the ambushers you couldn't see turn out to be real, dropping you straight into a fight one difficulty tier tougher
New mission: Hunting Noble — bodyguard a nobleman on a forest hunt, same shape as Caravan Escort. Missions can now ban specific encounters that wouldn't make sense for their story, and Hunting Noble uses it to keep the barricade (a caravan-only problem) off its table
Skill-check prompts now read as in-fiction actions — "Go search the forest" — with the check type as a small tag, instead of spelling out the dice math before you've rolled; checks with more than one way to respond now show every option
Skill-check and vendor choices are now a stack of full-width buttons instead of a cramped row
New Encounter Test page in the Admin Panel, mirroring Enemy Test — try any skill check for real, on a cooldown
The Items admin page has a small Add button on every entry, dropping it straight into your inventory for testing
Infirmary got its own banner art
Home page decluttered — dropped the crest icon and the Start a Mission / View Character buttons now that the sidebar covers navigation, and centered the title

v1.6 — “Skill Checks & a Growing Bestiary”

2026-09-24

Missions now branch into skill checks, not just fights, the forest bestiary filled out across every difficulty, and a nasty bug that could skip your roll results got fixed.

New encounter type: Skill Checks. Forest missions can now roll an Investigation check ("Suspicious Bushes") — leave it alone, or search and roll d20 + Intelligence: a bad roll costs 10 HP, a middling one finds nothing, a good one turns up a random consumable you can stash in your backpack, use on the spot, or leave in Storage
Skill checks are built as a reusable pattern, so new checks using any attribute can be added going forward
Missions now roll 5 encounters instead of 3 — 2 guaranteed fights, 1 guaranteed skill check, and 2 more that are each a 60/40 split between the two
The mission progress bar marks skill-check encounters with ❗ instead of ⚔, once revealed
The skill-check roll result now shows its full breakdown, e.g. "12 (d20) + 3 (Intelligence) = 15", instead of just the total
Fixed a bug where reloading the missions page after a skill check — or the skill check landing on a mission's very last step — could skip straight past the roll result and its loot entirely
Stray Dog Pack moved to Difficulty 3 (+10 HP) and Bandit Pack moved to Difficulty 5 (+10 HP), and two new enemies — Stray Dogs (Difficulty 2) and Bandits (Difficulty 4) — fill the gap they left behind
Enemy portraits reorganized under their own folder, and any enemy without art yet now automatically shows a placeholder instead of a broken image
New level 3 body armor: Gambeson, the same +1 Defence as the Deteriorated Gambeson but without its Etiquette penalty — and the Deteriorated Gambeson finally has its own art too
Missions page intro text reworked into a bit of wartime flavor instead of a level readout

v1.5 — “Loot, Storage & a World Taking Shape”

2026-09-20

Missions now pay out real rewards and sometimes loot, a Storage tab holds what you find, enemies and missions got their first region, and item art started rolling in.

Completing a mission now pays a gold bonus scaled to its level (±10% variance), shown on a proper reward screen — fixed a bug where missions that finished on a travel step instead of a fight paid out nothing at all
50% chance for a completed mission to drop an item matching its level, shown on the reward screen
New "Storage" tab (under City): loot sits there for a week before vanishing, and can be moved to your inventory any time you have room — a one-way trip, and unavailable while away on a mission
Items now have a Level; two new starter items — Deteriorated Gambeson (body, +1 Defence) and Battered Wooden Shield (off-hand, +1 Defence) — both level 1
Enemies and missions are now classified by Region (everything is Forest for now); a mission's encounters are only ever drawn from enemies sharing its region
A mission's final encounter has a 50% chance of stepping up one difficulty tier for an extra scare before the reward
New "Items" page in the Admin Panel — full catalog grouped by level, with a sliding filter by equipment type; Enemy Test got the same sliding filter, but by region
Real portrait art is starting to replace emoji icons — Health Potion, Sword, and Battered Wooden Shield all have their own art now, missions can carry a banner image too, and anything without art yet still falls back to its emoji automatically
Equipment, inventory, and backpack slots redesigned — icon only on the tile, with the item's name and stats shown in a themed hover tooltip instead
Fixed multi-attack enemies (packs) only showing one Damage line in the battle stats instead of one per attack
Fixed equipped items rendering off-center — a global button style was silently overriding the equipment slot's layout
Healing and damage values now consistently follow the same "dice + modifier" format, e.g. "d8 + Vitality"
Enemy Test cooldown cut from 60 seconds down to 5 for faster practice runs

v1.4 — “Mission Levels, Random Rosters & a Cleaner Battlefield”

2026-09-20

Missions now scale with your knight's level and reroll on every visit, the battle screen dropped its gold clutter, and the sidebar grew an Admin Panel.

Every character now has a Level, starting at 1, shown on the Character page
Mission choices are rolled fresh each visit, limited to your Level minus 1 through your Level plus 1 — the same mission can appear more than once, at different levels
One mission of every difficulty you can currently take (Easy/Moderate/Hard) is guaranteed to be on offer; the rest are random
Encounters within a mission are drawn from enemies matching that mission's own level
Gold no longer clutters the battle screen — it's hidden from the combat stats and victory message during a fight
New "Admin Panel" sidebar group — Enemy Test moved there, out from under the main tabs

v1.3 — “Journeys, New Foes & Lasting Wounds”

2026-09-19

Missions grew into a real journey, the bestiary expanded, and wounds now follow you home.

Missions rebuilt as a 10-step journey with a visual progress bar — 3 steps are secretly encounters, hidden until you actually reach them
Dark Forest rebuilt into "Enemy Test": pick any enemy from the full roster, grouped by Difficulty rating, for one-off practice fights
Three new enemies — Stray Dog (Difficulty 1), Bandit Pack and Stray Dog Pack (Difficulty 2–3), the packs rolling 3 separate attacks a round
New weapon: the Axe, dealing 1d10
HP is now persistent — missions no longer auto-heal you between fights
Passive healing: recover Vitality HP after every journey step, or rest away from all activity for 10 minutes for a full heal
New Infirmary tab — pay 10 gold to heal to full in 10 seconds
Characters can now only do one thing at a time — missions, healing, and post-fight resting each block the other two

v1.2 — “Attack Rolls, Defence Ratings & Critical Hits”

2026-09-17

A combat system overhaul: attributes now feed into dedicated combat stats, and every round is a real exchange of blows.

Combat Stats introduced separately from Attributes: Attack Modifier and Defence Rating for every combatant
Both sides now attack every round — no more single roll-off deciding the whole exchange
A hit is an Attack Roll (d20 + Strength) beating the opponent's Defence Rating (Dexterity + equipment bonus)
Damage on a hit is your weapon's dice roll plus Strength
Critical hits (natural 20) always land and roll damage dice twice; critical misses (natural 1) always miss
Starting HP rebalanced — knights now start with 40 HP, the Forest Bandit with 30
Combat log now labels each roll as an Attack Roll (d20), and calls out critical hits/misses with their own badge
Damage stat now shown on the Character page and in the Dark Forest, formatted like "d8 + 3"

v1.1 — “Progress on equipment, statistics and combat logs”

2026-09-16

A pass on character depth and combat clarity.

Six attributes — Strength, Dexterity, Vitality, Intelligence, Charisma, Etiquette — for both characters and enemies
Diablo-style equipment paperdoll with six gear slots and a clickable inventory grid to equip and unequip items
Combat damage now comes from your equipped weapon's dice roll instead of a flat range
Character page reorganized into Attributes, Equipment, and How Combat Works tabs
Left sidebar navigation across the whole site
Home page now shows a News feed built from the dev log
Combat log redesigned — each round shows a side-by-side breakdown of both rolls
Real portraits for your knight and the Forest Bandit

v1.0 — “Humble Beginnings”

2026-09-16

The first playable version of Knight's Quest is live.

Register a knight and log in
Character page showing Strength, Max HP, and Gold
Dark Forest combat area — fight the Forest Bandit for gold
d20 + Strength combat system, 2–6 damage per round
60-second cooldown between fights

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