Hi everyone! We’re Foxmoon Studios, and our chess roguelike Dead Position just went live on itch.io in early access.
Underneath, it’s a real game of chess against an engine on a 3D board. On top, every move you make scores chips × mult, and you get ten moves and three take-backs to reach each round’s target.
- Every move scores. Captures, checks, forks, pins, skewers and discovered attacks, all the way up to checkmate. Chain tactics into a streak and each one raises the next move’s mult. Lose a piece to the engine’s reply and the streak snaps.
- Gambits bend the rules. Between rounds, the shopkeepers sell Gambits: passive cards that change the scoring, and sometimes chess itself. Castle from anywhere on the board, let your bishops jump a piece, double the mult on every knight move.
- The Host cheats. From the second ante he sets squares on fire and freezes others, and every ante ends with one of his lieutenants. The Warden forbids you to give check, the Beach Bum sends tidal waves across the board, the Pyromancer marks the piece you lean on most and burns it unless you keep your pieces close, and the Puppeteer moves your pieces for you.
- Losses stick. A piece you lose is gone for the rest of the run unless you buy it back in the shop.
You don’t need to know chess going in: three tutorials start from how the pieces move, and the game shows what a move would score before you make it. There’s also free play against four engine levels, a Blitz mode, and a Motion setting (Full, Reduced or None). The effects are built on motion and ink, never on flashing lights.
It’s $4.99 on Windows. More of the Host’s board events and lieutenants are on the way, and we’d love to hear what you think, especially which Gambits feel broken, in either direction.