Chess Worlds (playtest)
Chess Worlds is a tactics game where chess pieces come to life and fight their way across a living world. This is a playtest to gather feedback.
Story: The Human Kingdom fell in a single night, and you are its last king. You wake up right outside the fallen city walls, alone, with no army left to command. So you travel out across the realms, gathering allies in order to defeat the Demons and their Blight.
An honest note: this build is rough. There are bugs, some fights aren't completely balanced, and parts of it feel unfinished because they are. I'm putting it out a free build because I want people to play it and tell me what they like and what doesn't feel good.
The factions
Humans. The classic chess pieces, the army you start with. 
Elves. They live in the forests, hide in cover, and strike from a distance.
Dwarves. They are tough warriors, shove enemies off ledges, and forge shields to weather a charge.
Mermaids/Aquatics. They reshape the battlefield with water, flood tiles, and drag enemies out of position.
Constructs. Clockwork pieces that stack on top of each other into upgraded forms and queue actions that fire turns later. Inspiration was from Gungi from HunterxHunter.
Demons. ??? (wip, you can contribute if you want)
They are the main antagonists of the game, the end game faction.
But because the final faction isn't yet implemented, unfortunately you can't complete the game yet, it is just a demo for now. But, I will be posting updates regularly so stay tuned!
My values
I really believe we can learn from games or exercise our brains while having fun. I want the game to quietly teach you to think clearly and logically, the same way a good puzzle does. But I have to admit that so far I've been having a hard time balancing pieces. But still, it is fun.
I want people to create their own pieces. I've been quite the chess games enjoyer since high school, and my most favorite one up to a point was Chess Evolved Online. But I really wish that we could create our own chess pieces and share them or have more fun with creating them. It's still a long way to go, but maybe I can build a game like that. I'd like to grow this with a community and see how we can evolve the game.
Collaboration. I wish to let players create their own puzzles, levels and worlds at some point, that they can share and play with others, maybe even multiplayer (but not for now because of scope-creepš ). I do not have a level-editor yet, but if this is something you would like, let me know. I also would love to collab with other chess games, send me a DM if you want us to work together.
How to play
Play in your browser by hitting Run game above, or grab the Windows build for the smoothest experience.
Left Mouse Click or W A S D to move, Camera: hold Right Click and pan, Q and E to rotate, mouse wheel to zoom.
Tell me what you think
If you play even a little, please tell me how it went. Either:
- Fill out the feedback form: Playtest GOOGLE FORM
- Post in #feedback on the Discord: ChessWorlds Community
Even one sentence is plenty. A screenshot with "here's what I was trying to do" will greatly help me debug and also tweak the game design. For the most helpful feedbacks, I will be awarding Steam keys. If you find it in your heart to also record the game while you are playing, and let me see the footage, I would be eternally grateful.
I deeply apologize in advance if the game breaksšāāļø!
Supporting the project
If you like this ideea, please:
If you would like this project to grow, please consider supporting my work. This is the first game I actually want to publish one day on Steam.
Also, if you want to test the PieceDesigner which lets you explore the engine fully, for now it is not available in the playtest, but you can get acces to it on Patreon: Workshop Edition. If you want access to it, stick around, I might release it for free as well in a few weeks.
Thanks for being here this early. Now go try out the wonders of ChessWorlds.
View Game Credits
Audio & Sound Effects
Sound Effects: Created via sfxr.me
Footsteps: Footstep Sound Effects by Trade-a-Chest
Typography
Font: Pixeloid Font by GGBot
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Comments
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Itās very fun and also raises a good challenge. There are many piece types, each with their own movement pattern, which I found to be one of the best things about the game: variety. And with the Piece Designer I imagine there will be lots of things that people will be able to make.
Even if itās based on chess, it actually feels quite different from it. Depending on the level, you have to mix-and-match pieces that can take advantage of enemy weaknesses. This preparation feels like part of the battle. I couldnāt manage to get forks with the knight, because each piece can move in its turn. I imagine itās possible if you manage to stun enemies (e.g. by using the freezing tiles in the Aquatics zone).
I finished all of the zones except for the Mountain Ambush level. It feels harder than all other levels, probably because I donāt have the skill yet :))
The story is open-ended for now. Iām waiting to see how it evolves with future updates. It would also be interesting to get some lore for the pieces. Maybe thereās a reason why certain pieces have blind spots. Combined with the custom pieces, I think maybe people could tell their own fan stories through custom levels too.
Congrats on the release!