Update (2026):
After a long journey, The Conquest of Go has finally exited Early Access and has reached the full release 1.0 version. Thanks for the support along the way! The game is at a point where I believe it fulfills a complete and stable game experience where Early Access is no longer necessary. To clarify, this doesn’t mean that the game will never receive future updates, but rather, future updates will likely be less drastic and game changing than the major ones that occurred during Early Access. I normally post announcements for the game as a reply to an older post, but I thought for this single instance, it made the most sense to create a new post.
For those that are unfamiliar, The Conquest of Go is a videogame on Steam for PC, macOS, and Linux which is focused on Go gameplay. The game has features to teach the rules, terminology and basics of Go, and rewards improvement by playing matches, reviewing matches, and solving tsumego through a campaign mode where the player competes against nations for land and resources. The game also integrates with OGS for online Go matches. For more information, feel free to check out the game on Steam.
Throughout Early Access there were a total of 33 major content updates and 48 patches. A full list of all changes can be found here. For those who haven’t checked out the game since it first came out, in addition to general UI, usability, and stability improvements, here’s a quick summary of some of the major changes that have occurred since then.
Expanded AI Opponents
-
The Casual AI was added to provide a more beginner friendly opponent and rely less on handicap stones for new players.
-
The KataGo Human opponent was added to give players an opponent that delivers a wide variety of skill levels/ranks and also behaves more closely to human-like play than the super-human level of the standard KataGo opponent.
Expanded Campaign
-
The ability to play campaign matches against players on the Online Go Server (OGS) was added. This includes both human opponents as well as the dozens of online AI that can be found on OGS.
-
The ability to create, share, and download custom stories to be played in the campaign mode was implemented. These stories include characters, dialogue, and battles all of which can be created in the in-game story editor. These stories can be downloaded from the Steam Workshop.
-
Campaign fortification puzzles were implemented, which are life and death problems that periodically need to be solved for your conquered regions to keep them fortified. Additionally, puzzle options were added to optionally limit the number attempts at a puzzle and limit the time spent on a puzzle.
-
A full campaign tutorial was added to demonstrate the features and workflow of the campaign mode.
-
Campaign ally matches were created which allow you to team up with the AI and alternate turns against another AI opponent.
-
Collectable legendary records were added to the campaign mode, which are a curated set of match records from notable players in Go’s history, ranging from the 1600’s to present day. The match records primarily feature important events in the player’s careers such as international tournament wins.
-
The option to convert a handicap advantage into reverse komi was added to give an alternate way to even the strength disparity between the player and the opponent AI.
-
New campaign invasions were added, which are matches that start from predetermined board positions when opposing nations invade your conquered regions.
-
Many new options which can be changed during the campaign mode are available to alter timing, difficulty, and review settings.
Customization
-
Steam Workshop support was added to the game to allow players to create, share, and download Go puzzles, matches, tutorials, and joseki. Thousands of additional Go puzzles are currently available through the Steam Workshop.
-
An imported content system was added to the game to import the same types of content mentioned above, which can be obtained anywhere, instead of only from the Steam Workshop.
-
A custom theme editor was added which allows the UI, boards, stones, and backgrounds to be set to preferred colors. These themes can be shared and downloaded from the Steam Workshop. Additionally, base themes of Toon and Simple styles were added to the game to increase the variety of themes which can be used and customized.
General Improvements
-
The macOS version of the game was released.
-
Controller support and Steam Deck support were added, including attaining the Steam Deck verified badge.
-
Localization of the game was completed for Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Japanese, Korean, French, German, Russian, and Spanish.
-
Opening guides were added to allow the player to explore viable moves and variations that take place at the start of the game.
-
The practice board was added to the game to allow players to freely place stones, setup board positions, and use AI analysis to evaluate moves.
-
The game review workflow was improved and numerous new AI and AI review options were added. The review system was also expanded to allow automated reviews to be able to be used on any match in the game as well as imported matches.
-
The game has been kept up to date to align with changes on occurring periodically on the Online Go Server (OGS) (e.g. rank recalibration, auto match redesign, etc.).
-
Difficulty presets were added which range from being a complete beginner to a professional level.
-
Steam trading cards and points shop items were added.
Original Post (2019):
Hello, I recently posted an update on the Baduk subreddit about a videogame I am developing, and @anoek suggested posting a topic over here on the OGS forum, so here I am! The TL;DR version is that The Book of Go aims to create a single player experience that combines Go gameplay and RPG aspects. It is being designed for PC and is intended to be released on Steam once completed in 2020. While the target audience will primarily be existing Go players, my hope would be that new players join the world of Go as well.
As far as progress goes, a lot of the “under the hood” work has been completed. This includes implementation of Go’s ruleset, integration with existing opensource Go AI, and the ability to read and write SGF files. To help new players, I’ve also built in support for interactive tutorials, as well as a glossary system that is shown below.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1194320592025112577
More recently, I began work on the campaign mode. In its current form, an interactive map allows the player to choose certain portions of cities or villages to find opponents to play Go with. You start off playing with handicap stones, and as you beat more opponents your handicap goes down until even, and then the AI difficulty also begins to increase. As you lose to opponents, the opposite is true. Players earn experience after matches based on the match outcome, score differential, difficulty level, board size, and overall match completion percentage. I plan to go much deeper into this mode in the future. In addition to this functionality, the artwork has also been updated to give more of a videogame feel, whilst allowing the traditional board and stone theme to still be used if desired.
Below are a couple clips of what the campaign is starting to evolve into:
https://twitter.com/i/status/1205905579253874689
https://twitter.com/i/status/1203320231265021952
If you’ve made it this far, and you’d like additional information, I do have a webpage that goes into a bit more detail, as well as some potential future features. I’ll plan to post updates here when appropriate. If you have any questions or feedback, feel free to pass them my way!
I suppose at that point it’s just a proud parent moment 
). Thank you so much for sharing this and keep up the great work! I love reading your updates. Thank you for taking the time to keep us updated 