so i enjoyed this game... die in the first 5 minutes but ive no complaints really other than the fact your not using chess pieces but solitair playing cards... doesnt make sense to the 'chess' style seems random, more here in my video at 26:47-30:43, i really thought it captured the essence of a tower defence, though id like a description on the towers and what they do for context. 

It's a simple tower defense game. Good, solid fun, but not particularly original. More tower types and maps would go a long way here. Otherwise, nice work. The difficulty is well tuned and challenging!

The highest I got was wave 10. It's really fun to figure out what the optimal placement strategies are.

I have a few suggestions:

Make the next wave timer skippable

For each chess piece, maybe have a special ability? For example, if a pawn gets to the finish line, it transforms into a queen and has to move backwards to the end, which makes your turrets focus on the queen instead of other chess pieces.

Great work I forget how addictively fun TD games are.

Needs a Sfx for losing a life with it's kind of zen / oriental style music maybe a gong.

Maybe the option to sell towers or pay to have them moved would add a bit more flexibility.  Nothing worse than setting up an ideal pawn killbox and have knight just gallop through without the ability to sell towers and build a last line of defence.

Mouse over info could be improved e.g. mouse over tower shows a towers range or stats.

Maybe new pieces that can actually attack towers?

The black and white works but could a hint of colour e.g. 4 colours black, white, red, green work and fit within the cards/chess theme.

think I need more practice - really liked the game because i am a fan of all things TD.  My only issue is that i kept trying to click and drag the towers to their location

The game has good bones. I don't want to beat a dead horse, but it could use a little more happening.

As others have said, it is a solid base but it lacks something unique.

My suggestion would be to lean on your chess and card design. Their is some good potential here

Very solid base for a tower defense, now's the time to figure out what direction you want to go in! I checked out a bunch of other TD games recently, from older flash games as well as newer games too and I noticed all of the best ones have some kind of unique mechanic or structure to the game. Whether you can upgrade the towers, combine them together, directly attack the enemies coming in, multiple paths, etc. I think Chess TD needs that hook that can pull people in, because this currently isn't any more complicated than something like Desktop Tower Defense from like 2007, and even that game had the unique premise that you could build a path for the enemies to take with the towers themselves, potentially creating a maze for them so you can land more hits on them. Sometimes less is more, but I don't think that applies here unfortunately.

The game's balance doesn't feel quite right: you lose exactly one health point no matter the strength of the enemy pieces that get through, and you only get 5 chances, so instead you could lets say 100 health, and you take the heath/strength of the peices that make it through and subtract that away from the player's health to better balance the health. Maybe it could recharge by 5 each round won? The Rooks and Knights feel way stronger than the pawns, so maybe they could be nerfed. You'll also need more variety in the towers, 3 towers that shoot the same kind of projectile at different rates and different ways just doesn't seem like enough. You could add special towers that slow them down or give them poison damage, maybe one that makes it so when a piece is defeated it creates a damage radius, great for areas with high volumes of pieces.

I think once you figure out what additional mechanics and specialties (beyond a Chess theme that comes with some minor enemy variety) your game has to offer, it'll boost the game's quality by a long shot! But, it'll only go as far as you'd be willing to take it. I'd research what other TD games have tried before to help brainstorm ideas, so your game doesn't get checkmated by more complicated and exciting TD titles. Looking forward to seeing this one develop!

Hello! I made it to wave 10. Took a minute to get my eyes adjusted, I think the game would look better without grid drawn. Also, some tips or tricks could be added for better UX. I'm not sure if there are upgrades; the knights and rooks seem to always get through my towers. Very basic tower defense you got here with potential.