I love this so much, a chess roguelike is such an awesome idea!
Play MEGACHESS
MEGACHESS's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Judge's Choice | #1 | n/a | n/a |
| Overall | #9 | 4.417 | 4.417 |
| Gameplay | #11 | 4.348 | 4.348 |
| Originality | #43 | 4.374 | 4.374 |
| Presentation | #49 | 4.529 | 4.529 |
Ranked from 155 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Judge feedback
Judge feedback is anonymous.
- Fantastic game, feels very fleshed out, could be a steam release tomorrow
What do you like about your game?
I genuinely enjoy the concept of the game and the general feel, and I feel that I need to dig way deeper. I am beyond excited to showcase it to everyone !
Comments
Really impressive! It's amazing you managed to make this in only 2 weeks! I just wish there would be a little tutorial part for each new piece. I was quite surprised when I saw ships and a lizard xD Still, great work!
Submitted
What Are U?Good job on the idea and the polish! this is very put together, I loved it
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Gravity Killer - Acerola 2024I played your game.
It looks like a finished game! I only encountered one bug. And it is quite polished, good work!
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ShipwreckedVery interesting concept and very well executed. The quality is very impressive for a game made in such short time.
My only complaints are that the friendly and enemy pieces appear too similar and sometimes I confused which are mine and which aren't, despite the white outline. Also I had some trouble when dragging the mega pieces, I often had to drag them a couple times before they finally moved.
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Hexed HarvestGreat game and very well implemented, great job indeed! I enjoyed playing it, it's a really playable and solid game.
I would question though, what is the connection to the theme? Admittedly, as great as the game is - my cynical part of my head feels like it's an idea or something that could've easily been concepted/done outside of the Jam, instead of it being driven by the Jam theme itself because it's so disconnected from the theme.
But in any case, it's still entertaining and exceptionally well made - great job! :)
Submitted
Unexpected Panic!Hey, nice question and great point !
I actually thought of this from the part of the definition "a departure from what is normal, usual, or expected, typically one that is unwelcome.".
I am rather not keen on doing stuff that are unwelcome to a player, though, and am not much into horror games and the like.
I spent one or two hour twisting the idea in my head and went "What if I could try to ""subvert"" the player's expectations by hijacking an existing game and trying to get something else out of it ? It's not a clever idea, it's not something that hasn't been done already it's like all the "What if x but instead it's y" stuff.
But I still wanted to have something that stayed true to the core game's principle. This is why at the base it's a chess game, and it's trying to stay as true as possible to the core loop "turn based strategy with planning"!
Also at the start it was more meant to be a Chess X hotline miami game but I'm not good at graphics so the only thing left from that idea is the blood splatters.
Thanks for replying - I see the rational, it's tricky one isn't it? It's hard to come up with an entertaining fun game which is actually unwelcoming to the player... I see the thought process of taking an existing game and then making it different enough that it's unexpected, I get that :) For me, I went full-on with the theme. in a (hopefully) comedy way so there was no question it was driven by the theme for the Jam...
Like I say, the game is awesome - I love it, it's a great achievement! However, I'm sure you can also see how the end result can be viewed as being outside of the theme completely, and could've been implemented separately... I don't think it has been, but you did such a good job on the polish and presentation of the game it's kind of sparked that kind of cynicism.
Wow, this is wild. There's so much content, a truly insane amount of replayability for a jam game.
I managed to win my first run (as Vampire), which took me well over an hour, but I'll definitely have to come back to play some of the other classes & try to beat it.
It's not the first chess-based roguelike I've ever seen (that would be Chogue) but it definitely takes the concept much further.
One complaint I have is that during my first playthrough I feel like I ran into a lot of issues due to rules not working how I thought they would (the little pictures weren't always clear about certain things, the mega-pieces sometimes couldn't move how I expected them too or I had trouble moving them to a place they definitely should have been able to go, etc), but I was still able to win on my first run so it can't have been too unfair. It also took me a while to realize that enemies never make non-capturing moves, which makes the strategy much easier. But I understand that making a strong, more chess-like AI would be a big ask for a game of this complexity, especially in such a short timeframe.
The balance seems pretty fair. There were several levels where my first thought was "wow, how am I supposed to do this?" but then I figured out a way to handle things that worked out fine. That type of feeling is one of the main goals of a roguelike, IMO.
Overall, an extremely strong contender for the win!
Submitted
wallkwaysWow very impressive for 2 weeks, I can't even imagine how much time you spent! I definitely enjoyed it even though I lost lol
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MergerrationThe scope of this game is massive, and I loved playing it. As others have mentioned, its definitely worth expanding into a release title. This jam release on its own is better than most games these days.
So many new chess pieces that I ended up basically sticking to the ones I already knew. I also thought enemies would move and the enemy would change positions after attacking, but its like a few of my pieces can just free fire on the mega pieces.
Really cool how you got so many levels done though, and so many classes too. I could easily play this for longer if there weren't other games I wanted to check out.
Submitted
Project ĀstraGreat game! Art, gameplay, juice, and sound effects, are all really awesome. I see only two weak points.
1. The soundtrack is somewhat disconnected from the aesthetic.
2. There is a lot of gameplay to unpack, and I think the game could be slower and more intentional about teaching each piece(this point could easily be a result of my own stupidity though lol)
Submitted
VAULTThis would be an amazing game outside of a game jam but the fact that this was made in only 2 weeks is kind of unreal to me
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ChronowarpThis would be an amazing game outside of a game jam but the fact that this was made in only 2 weeks is kind of unreal to me
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ChronowarpReally cool idea and execution!
My only feedback would be to have some more visual readability. There were a few times where I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do next, for example I didn't realise the ability button was down the bottom right. Another example would be differentiating the enemy pieces from your own.
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EchoesI see this as what streamers will play in upcoming years. Really good stuff, fantastic even.
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THE CLEANERMan this is fantastic. The drum sfx, the gameplay variety, just five stars all around.
My only real compliant is that some of the gaps and movement indicators make it kind of hard to read where pieces can move.
Submitted
Monastic InversionFinished the game, nice game with future potential, there are so many things that can still be added in the game and it already has a lot going on in it. Custom Pieces, rooms and a little store to take a break and spend your earnings which also resets the retry to $1, +1 piece steal is OP, the others are somewhat lackluster, I just save for reset fights, but still nice to haves if you don't plan to even lose a fight.
At first, I was expecting the enemies to have AI, but that was just me, depends on what you are going for. In my opinion, AI will make it more like a tactical game, w/o AI will make it more like a puzzle game. I just realized while writing this, it is a weird combination, when using the store, you are preparing for a puzzle, "what am I going to do in my resources so my future rooms can be solved", "am I going to use this piece that I'll be buying" and you don't know what you are going to prepare for, it gives an impression that the enemy pieces are out to get you, but you decide that yourself. I think the softlock issues is part of how it is designed currently.
Submitted
AberrolaI have to be honest I really like the predictability aspect of having no AI.
The thing I was going for at first was an area selection before the shop. Some areas would have more mega units, some would be better suited for close combat, some would feature something interesting in the level like a hole in the middle, a lot of walls, special enemies with very strong effects that makes you rethink the whole floor....
The predictability comes from the fact that I suck at chess. I want a game where I and only me get to do the plans in order to win a fight. If I lose, it is my fault and not some RNG. It is not well executed at the moment, but I feel that AI would not go into that favor.
I'm thinking about how to make the more interesting and have multiple directions I could go for, I'm starting to like the idea of getting the game developped further but am very scared of the scope (and a little bit of impostor syndrome + perfectionnism which would just freeze my ability to publish anything that isn't perfect). I like the game, it has issues, technical ones and some more design heavy. If I come across some clean solutions it could really become a game on it's own and not some kind of clone!
I completely agree with you that I love that it feels like a puzzle game and the planning that goes into choosing pieces. That being said, many of the levels do feel a bit static. Maybe instead of an AI, some pieces could just have set movement paths, even if it was just in a circle or back and forth. One of my favorite levels was the giga bishop precisely because I could just maneuver around it. It was COMING FOR ME.
I really hope you do take this game farther. I enjoyed it so much!
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